Journalism

Journalism
Copyright © 2002 SAGE Publications

(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol. 3(2): 131–159 [1464-8849(200208)3:2;131–159;026094]
ARTICLE
The primes of our times?

An examination of the ‘power’ of visual images
j David Domke
University of Washington
j David Perlmutter
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
j Meg Spratt
University of Washington
ABSTRACT
Claims by political and news elites about the influence of visual images are far more
common than actual evidence of such effects. This research attempts to gain insight into
the ‘power’ of visual images, specifically those that accompany lexical–verbal messages
in the press. We argue that the widely held notion that vivid images often drive public
opinion is overly simplistic; in contrast, we posit that images most often interact with
individuals’ existing understandings of the world to shape information processing and
judgments. With this in mind, we conducted an experiment in which news coverage
was systematically altered – as including a famous photograph widely attributed great
influence, or not – within otherwise constant information environments. Findings
suggest that visual news images (a) influence people’s information processing in ways
that can be understood only by taking into account individuals’ predispositions and
values, and (b) at the same time appear to have a particular ability to ‘trigger’
considerations that spread through one’s mental framework to other evaluations.
KEY WORDS j icons j information processing j news media
j photojournalism j priming j visual images
Long before the development of mass communication, students of politics

were concerned with the influence of both words and visual images on
people’s feelings and opinions toward important issues of the day. Plato’s
Republic (1987, trans. Lee) advocated the banning of both poets and painters
from the ideal state because of their perceived impact on people’s moods and
attitudes, as well as their ability to create false versions of reality. Similar-
sounding concerns about what we might call visual determinism have never
really gone away, and today are echoed by a host of political powerholders and
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132 Journalism 3(2)
commentators, especially in regard to the public’s reactions to photographic

and video journalism (Perlmutter, 1998). For instance, in the context of the
United States’ involvement in Somalia, Time magazine’s Lance Morrow (1993)
argued that powerful news images ‘are mainlined directly into the democracy’s
emotional bloodstream without the mediation of conscious thought’ (p. 36).
Indeed, at the core of many significant developments of recent history – from
the Tet offensive, to the Tiananmen events, to the political changes in Eastern
Europe, to the Gulf War, to the Rodney King beating, to the wars in the former
Yugoslavia – are certain famous iconic news images which, according to elite and
popular discourse, were said to drive journalistic perspectives, public opinion,
and in some cases, US policies (Bossen, 1982; Perlmutter, 1998).
That news must be visual is certainly an intrinsic value of modern
journalism, from print to television (see Arlen, 1969; Epstein, 1973; Tuchman,
1978). As television news correspondent Jim Lederman (1992) asserts, ‘Tele-
vision news is enslaved to images. If an idea cannot be recorded in the form of
an image, it will rarely, if ever, be given extensive time on a nightly network
newscast’ (p. 132). In the language of the powerful image model of news, the
values that define a good story are identical to those that spur reaction from
the public, as Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times media critic David Shaw
(1992) notes: ‘Clear, dramatic pictures are the key to both “good television”
and to the impact a given story will have on viewers’ (p. A16).
This has led researchers to assert that ‘The power of newspaper photog-
raphy has been well documented for decades’ (Garcia and Stark, 1991: 55).
Nevertheless, systematic investigations of the actual influence of visual news
images are rare. As Barnhurst (1994) notes, there have been many assumptions
about the power of visual and lexical vividness in getting attention and
enacting persuasion, even though ‘social psychologists, marketing experts,
advertisers, and presumably journalists work from the theory that the vivid-
ness of their communications has an influence on other people but not on
themselves’ (p. 97). Indeed, there seems to be a failure to prove what would
seem commonsensical. Iyengar and Kinder (1987) argue that:
Politicians, journalists, and social scientists alike point to the special power
allegedly inherent in presenting news through pictures . . . It is one thing to
understand that American boys are fighting and dying in Vietnam; quite another
to watch them fight and die. In each case, so it is argued, the concrete visual
details matter enormously. (p. 35)
Yet, their own findings fail to show strong support for the vividness hypoth-
esis. Clearly more research is needed which focuses on the visual dimension in
public reactions to news.
Most scholarly studies of news photography have focused either on
assessing the content of images (Griffin and Lee, 1995; Kenney, 1993; Lucaites,

Domke et al. The ‘power’ of visual images 133
1997; Woo, 1994) or the contexts of their production (Rosenblum, 1978;

Schwartz, 1991). Further, the few audience studies are suggestive that public
reaction to news photographs, for example, is much more complex and more
diffuse than common wisdom (Bailey and Lichty, 1972; Bennett et al., 1992;
Perlmutter, 1998). It is our contention, therefore, that an integral part of
understanding the impact of news – on ordinary citizens and policy-makers
alike – must include an examination of how people process media messages. In
particular, while scholars in recent years have begun to devote increasing
attention to people’s use of core values and mental categories to sift through
news messages (e.g. Capella and Jamieson, 1997; Iyengar and Kinder, 1987;
Neuman et al., 1992; Price et al., 1997; Shah et al., 1996), the role of visual
images is virtually unexamined. In addition, the importance of exploring the
mechanisms involved in citizens’ processing of visual images within the con-
text of news coverage is highlighted by the growing trend toward integration of
words and pictures in print, broadcast and internet news delivery packages.
This research attempts to gain insight into the ‘power’ of visual images
that accompany lexical–verbal messages in the press. Specifically, we con-
ducted an experiment in which individuals were presented with news coverage
regarding the legacy of the Vietnam conflict, 25 years after the fall of Saigon:
in one condition, a news story stood alone; in another condition, the same
news story was accompanied by a widely disseminated photo of a young
woman screaming beside the body of a student who had died during anti-war
protests at Kent State University in 1970. According to the popular wisdom of
visual determinism, such a picture should foster sympathy both for the per-
ceived victim in the image and for the cause (the anti-war movement)
associated with this person, and antagonism toward the agents of the tragedy,
in this case the national guard and, relatedly, the government. However, in
building closely upon research on the information processing of media mes-
sages, we suggest a contrary result: that the photograph may prompt in-
dividuals to draw upon already-developed ‘considerations’ (Zaller, 1992) of
protestors as deviants, i.e. causers of disorder, and that such a mental process
may foster more positive evaluations of the forces of order, represented most
clearly by the government. In effect, as elaborated later, we argue that mem-
bers of the public are not the dupes of pictures, as Socrates feared, but neither
do people operate in cognitive and affective isolation from news images.
Literature review
Theorized effects of visual images can be parsed into the following areas,
which do not necessarily coincide in the same image: (a) mnemonic power –

134 Journalism 3(2)
that is, can be easily recalled in their general details; (b) the ability to become
icons that serve as metonyms or exemplars of particular events or issues; (c)
great aesthetic impact, such as striking juxtapositions or riveting happenings
(typically human suffering); (d) affective or emotional power, that is the ability
to ‘move’ us to an emotional reaction such as outrage, sympathy, or pity; and
finally, (e) potentially significant political power, such as the ability to create,
alter, or reinforce elite or popular beliefs about causes and/or issues of the day
and further affect government policy (Perlmutter, 1998, 1999).
Nevertheless, at the same time it seems certain that there is no ‘innocent
eye’ (Gombrich, 1989). Even novel visual images we encounter are not isolated
stimuli, but relate to previous images and ideas or arrive accompanied by
words. As a result, images, like words, seem likely to be evaluated in relation to
pre-existing beliefs and experiences – i.e. schema, defined as ‘general cognitive
mental plans, that are abstract and . . . serve as guides for action, as structures
for interpreting information, as organized frameworks for solving problems’
(Fiske and Taylor, 1991: 665; also Brewer and Nakamua, 1984; Fiske and
Linville, 1980; Taylor and Crocker, 1981). When people are confronted with an
object, person, idea, or issue, evidence suggests that stimuli congruent with
one’s schema are given greater attention (White and Carlston, 1983), are
processed more quickly (Belmore, 1987; Brewer et al., 1981; Burnstein and
Schul, 1982, 1983; Fiske and Neuberg, 1990; Helmsley and Marmurek, 1982),
and are more likely to be stored in memory or to be recalled at a later time
(Hastie, 1981). In short, evidence suggests that the mental categories already
held by people significantly influence the manner in which ‘new’ information
and stimuli are perceived, stored, recalled and subsequently used.
Ultimately, though, while a variety of mental categories might be ‘avail-
able’ to guide information processing, which particular ones become influen-
tial in evaluations and judgments may depend upon how mentally ‘accessible’
a particular construct is – that is, how easily it might be retrieved from
memory. It is widely accepted that schema frequently or recently activated
become more readily accessible for application to attitude objects (Fiske and
Taylor, 1991; Higgins and Bargh, 1987; Higgins and King, 1981). In this
process, research suggests that ‘cues’ in one’s political and media environment
may activate relevant cognitive structures to guide information processing and
the construction of attitudes (Aldrich et al., 1989; Chaiken, 1980; Kuklinski
and Hurley, 1994; Lau, 1989; Mondak, 1993; Shah et al., 1999; Tourangeau and
Rasinski, 1988; Watts et al., 1999; Zaller, 1992). In turn, schema activated by
contextual cues remain on top of the mental bin, making them highly
accessible for at least a period of time (Srull and Wyer, 1989; Wyer and Srull,
1989). Thus, these constructs, if judged to be applicable, may alter the basis for
evaluating even seemingly unrelated objects because judgments often ‘depend

less on the entire repertoire of people’s knowledge and more on which aspects
of their knowledge happen to come to mind’ (Iyengar and Kinder, 1987: 64).
For example, a growing body of ‘priming’ research indicates that mass media
emphasis on particular political issues increases the accessibility of certain
ideas for individuals, which then shape the criteria that are applied while
forming judgments about other concepts and ideas (e.g. Domke et al., 1998;
Goidel et al., 1997; Iyengar et al., 1982; Johnston et al., 1992; Krosnick and
Brannon, 1993; Krosnick and Kinder, 1990; Mendelsohn, 1996; Pan and
Kosicki, 1997).
While considerable research has focused on how the frequent and recent
use of information increases its accessibility, the manner in which bits of
information are organized in the mind has received less attention. Some
scholars have argued for a conception of memory as a network of connected
cognitive structures (see Anderson, 1985; Anderson and Bower, 1973; Collins
and Loftus, 1975). This perspective maintains that any one concept is asso-
ciated with other constructs when encoded in memory, and that the linkages
between constructs are strengthened each time they are activated in tandem.
Further, as the number of separate linkages to any particular construct in-
creases, so does the likelihood that it will be activated indirectly due to an
‘implicational relation’ (Judd and Krosnick, 1989). As a result, Berkowitz and
Rogers (1986) argue, ‘When a thought element is activated or brought into
focal awareness, the activation radiates out from this particular node along the
associative pathways to other nodes’ (p. 58–9), thereby increasing the proba-
bility that related constructs will come to mind, influencing subsequent
evaluations and the formation of impressions (see also Lodge and Stroh, 1993).
For example, research has found that media coverage of political issues can
‘trigger’ a string of cognitively related evaluations about relevant aspects of
one’s information environment, suggesting that the relationship between
media coverage and spreading activation processes deserves further explora-
tion (Domke et al., 1998, 2000; Schleuder et al., 1991; Valentino, 1999).
The role of visual images in individuals’ processing of political and mass
media messages has received relatively little attention, however. This is not to
say that scholars have ignored the ways in which visual stimuli are mentally
received; indeed, considerable bodies of scholarship in psychology and social
psychology indicate that visual images are recognized and subsequently re-
called more quickly, and for a lengthier duration, than are lexical words (e.g.
Anderson and Paulson, 1978; Anglin and Levie, 1985; Borges et al., 1977;
Burton and Bruning, 1982; Emmerich and Ackerman, 1979; Gehring et al.,
1976; Jenkins et al., 1967; Kaplan et al., 1968; Paivio, 1976; Park et al., 1983).
An integration of these domains of research, then, suggests that individuals’

136 Journalism 3(2)
processing of news coverage and subsequent evaluations and judgments re-

garding one’s social and political environments may be significantly influ-
enced by the visual, although obviously language plays either a separate or an
integratory role.
Hypotheses
We argue that the widely held notion that vivid images often drive public
opinion is overly simplistic; certainly, such visual influence has the potential to
occur and political elites often make claims to this effect. Indeed, the most
common purveyors of the ‘magic bullet’ theory of news pictures, from Plato to
today’s presidents and pundits, tend to be intellectual, media, or political elites
who project onto the public a condition of passive persuasion. As Perlmutter
(1998) argues, an assumption of visual determinism upon public opinion
among political elites ‘gives rise to the standard incantation that “all America”
was “shocked” by a given picture’ though there is no or little empirical
evidence that this is actually the case (p. 24). It is our view that images most
often interact with individuals’ existing understandings of the world to shape
information processing and judgments. One way to gain insight into this
theorized process is to examine whether and, if so, how the inclusion of visual
images in news coverage influences people’s thoughts and feeling about a
particular topic, person, institution, and so on. With this in mind, we under-
took an experiment in which the image of focus is John Paul Filo’s Girl
Screaming over a Dead Body at Kent State photograph, which won a Pulitzer Prize
in 1970 and is regularly cited both as one of the most important news icons of
the century and as having had profound impact in spurring public opinion
against US involvement in the Vietnam War.1
Popular wisdom about the ‘power’ of the visual might suggest that the
characteristics and content of an image would override many pre-existing
mental considerations or contextual concerns, and in so doing would sig-
nificantly shape people’s outlooks on the topic at hand. Certainly, an image
containing the human drama and suffering present in Filo’s photograph would
seem to be capable of molding citizen cognitions, emotions, and subsequent
opinion judgments. It seems reasonable to expect, therefore, that people
presented with news coverage about the Vietnam era that includes this
photograph of the Kent State shootings would be likely to respond sympathet-
ically with the protestors, and conversely, against the war and government.
Further, it is plausible that such a reaction might be particularly likely to occur
among audiences who can identify with the perceived victims in the shooting
– college students. Following this logic, today’s college students might be one

audience (another, of course, might be current Baby Boomers who were then
college students) that would be particularly likely to sympathize with the
protestors’ viewpoint and adopt a more negative view of the government. All
of these possible outcomes are consistent, we suggest, with the popular
understanding of politics and news that accords great persuasive power to
visual images.
As noted already, however, claims about the persuasive power of visual
images far outstrip actual evidence of such influence. In the case of Filo’s
photograph, there was no evidence at the time and none offered since, that
this image actually spurred public opinion against the war. In fact, evidence
suggests that many Americans at the time had quite negative views of anti-war
protestors. For example, opinion surveys conducted throughout the Vietnam
War showed that although US adults’ support for the war decreased over time,
mainstream public perception of the war protesters was consistently negative.
As public opinion researcher John Mueller (1973) notes, ‘[O]pposition to the
war in Vietnam came to be associated with rioting, disruption, and bomb
throwing, and war protestors, as a group, enjoyed negative popularity ratings
to an almost unparalleled degree’ (p. 164). Similarly, political scientist George
Herring (1986) argues:
Public opinion polls make abundantly clear . . . that a majority of Americans
found the anti-war movement, particularly its radical and ‘hippie’ elements,
more obnoxious than the war itself. In a perverse sort of way, the protest may
even have strengthened support for a war that was not itself popular. (p. 173)
Notably, of all political groups throughout the war, ‘anti-war protesters’ were
consistently viewed the most negatively in public opinion surveys (e.g.
Gustainis and Hahn, 1998; Robinson, 1970; Small, 1994).
More broadly, that a consistently negative public perception of social
protestors is due at least in part to news coverage of political issues is suggested
by a considerable body of scholarship (e.g. Carragee, 1991; Gitlin, 1980;
McLeod, 1995; McLeod and Detenber, 1999; Shoemaker, 1984; Wittebols,
1996). In a societal environment in which news discourse regularly reinforces
such an outlook, negatively valenced ‘considerations’ (see Zaller, 1992) about
protestors in general would seem likely to be present in the minds of many
Americans. In particular, thoughts and feelings associated with protestors
seem likely to be highly accessible, as individuals draw upon them with some
regularity in processing information about their social and political environ-
ments. Indeed, it was the case during the Vietnam War, some evidence
suggests, that even when press coverage was favorable to protestors, public
reaction to their appearance, behavior, slogans and tone was markedly neg-
ative (Robinson, 1970). As a result, we expect that when news coverage about
issues includes a visual ‘cue’ highlighting protestors affiliated with a particular

138 Journalism 3(2)
viewpoint, many citizens will become more likely to develop negative im-
pressions of that viewpoint or, conversely, more positive impressions of a
counter perspective. Our view, therefore, is that a visual image associated with
protestors – even ones presented in a victimized light such as in the Kent State
photograph – will ‘trigger’ negative considerations, which in turn will shape
impressions of the various positions and entities involved in the issue debate.
With this in mind, we offer our first hypothesis, stated in the positive form:
H1: Individuals receiving news coverage of a social issue that includes a visual
image highlighting protestors affiliated with a particular viewpoint will develop
more positive impressions of the opposing viewpoint than individuals receiving news
coverage of the same issue that does not include this visual image.
At the same time, while we reject a visual determinism thesis regarding

the persuasive power of visual images, it is our view that because of the highly
visual and mediated nature of US culture, there is something important about
encountering images that may impact the connections that form in people’s
minds. As noted earlier, a growing body of ‘priming’ research indicates that
mass media emphasis on particular topics increases the accessibility of certain
ideas for individuals, which then shape the criteria that come to mind when
forming subsequent judgments (e.g. Iyengar and Kinder, 1987; Krosnick and
Kinder, 1990; Pan and Kosicki, 1997). Missing from this research, however, is
an examination of the potentially distinct role of visual images. In particular,
a large body of studies indicates that visual images can be recalled more
quickly and for a lengthier duration than lexical words (e.g. Anderson and
Paulson, 1978; Burton and Bruning, 1982; Gehring et al., 1976), which is
suggestive of the powerful manner in which images – regardless of the
persuasiveness of their manifest content – and associated considerations might
become integrated or embedded in one’s mental framework. As scholars suggest,
the greater the number of separate linkages to any particular construct when
encoded in memory, the greater the likelihood that the construct will be
activated subsequently in information processing (e.g. Judd and Krosnick,
1989; Lodge and Stroh, 1993).
With this in mind, our speculation is that the considerations activated in
people’s processing of visual news images may be particularly likely to ‘carry
over’, via a spreading activation process, to one’s evaluations of other aspects
of the broader social and political environment. In the case of Filo’s Kent State
photograph, we speculate that considerations activated in regard to the Viet-
nam War and US government may become associated with more general
assessments of America’s political system and future. Such associations may be
formed in the absence of visual cues in one’s news environment, of course, but
our belief is that images may particularly spur and strengthen these associa-
tions. We expect this to occur because the image, as an outgrowth of its

metonymic power, may focus an individual’s processing of a news message

and, in so doing, suggest that there is something inherently important about
the topic. In other words, simply the presence of visual images in news
coverage, due to captioning, social learning, implication, or by their stylistic
and content qualities, may prompt individuals to engage in deeper – or at least
different – information processing that results in the image and associated
considerations becoming more woven throughout one’s understanding of the
broader information environment. Accordingly, we now state our second and
final hypothesis:
H2: The relationship between individuals’ news-relevant considerations (e.g.

about the Vietnam era and the US government) and more general evaluations of
one’s information environment will be much stronger among individuals receiv-
ing news coverage that includes a visual image than among individuals receiving
news coverage that does not include that image.
Method
This study is part of a research program examining how individuals process

media messages. The sample consisted of 155 undergraduate students drawn
from two large research universities: one in the southeast and one in the
northwest of the United States. Research presented here focuses on 79 of these
subjects who received the experimental manipulation discussed later. Specifi-
cally, our focus is on whether and, if so, how visual images influence in-
dividuals’ cognitive and affective considerations when people encounter news
coverage about social issues. Data were collected in summer 2000.
Research design
The core of this research strategy is the controlled presentation of political

information environments. All subjects received a news article that offered a
retrospective synopsis of the Vietnam conflict, 25 years after the fall of Saigon.
The article was (a) presented in a format modeled upon the style of Time and
Newsweek and (b) similar in content to some of the actual ‘Vietnam retro-
spective’ news stories in spring 2000.2 Two experimental conditions were
created by manipulating the presence or absence of John Paul Filo’s Girl
Screaming over a Dead Body at Kent State photograph. This photograph was
taken May 4, 1970, moments after a student, during an anti-war protest on the
Kent State University campus, was shot by Ohio state national guardsmen. In
the condition containing the photograph, the text was formatted to appro-
priately incorporate the image.

140 Journalism 3(2)
Notably, the news article contained a paragraph that referenced the Kent
State shootings. In its entirety, the paragraph said:
In spring 1970, the US military’s involvement in the war spread briefly to
Cambodia. The fury came home to America. Nationwide protests occurred on
many college campuses, and turned deadly when a confrontation between US
National Guardsmen and protestors at Kent State University in Ohio left four
students dead. The war was consuming America; it had become time to wrap
things up.
No other mention of the Kent State shootings – or anti-war protestors, more

generally – was included in the news article. In addition, the condition that
included the photograph as part of the news coverage did not contain a
caption for the image. To be clear, then: across experimental conditions, all
written information in the news coverage (including headline) was held
constant; only the presence of the photograph was altered.
Subjects were told that they were being asked to participate in a research
project examining their views about news coverage and social issues. Subjects
were randomly assigned to the experimental conditions and presented with
the materials, including a questionnaire. Subjects took approximately 20 to 30
minutes to complete the materials.
Measurement
The questionnaire began with items focusing on subjects’ evaluations of the

US government, and then probed their thoughts and feelings about several
components of the US political and social environments (see Appendix).
Two measures examined subjects’ trust in the federal government. For the
first item, ‘How much of the time do you think that you can trust the federal
government to do what is right?,’ subjects placed their responses on a 5-point
continuum, ranging from ‘almost never’ to ‘almost always’. This item had a
mean of 2.86, with a standard deviation of .83. For a second item, subjects
were asked to indicate ‘how much is your personal trust’ in a range of societal
institutions; we focus here on the federal government. Responses were placed
on a 7-point continuum, ranging from ‘great distrust’ to ‘great trust’; this item
had a mean of 3.92, with a standard deviation of 1.28.
Nine statements tapped subjects’ affective considerations about government.
Wording of the statements was identical except for the emotion specified. For
example, the first item asked, ‘When thinking about the United States govern-
ment, how frequently do you feel frustrated?’ For each item, subjects placed
their responses on a 5-point continuum, which ranged from ‘almost never’ to
‘almost always’. Following data collection, factor analysis was performed on
these items. Using a Varimax rotation, two factors emerged: four items loaded

on one factor that accounted for 42.2 percent of variance, while three items
loaded on a second factor that accounted for 14.7 percent of variance. Two
items were dropped because they did not load on either factor. Consistent with
research on the role of affect in political communication (e.g. Abelson et al.,
1983; Conover and Feldman, 1986; Marcus and MacKuen, 1993), the two
factors indicated correlated but distinct (a) negative feelings and (b) positive
feelings, in this case toward the US government.
Items that loaded on the negative affect factor were frustrated, sad, angry
and disgusted. Loadings fell in the range between .543 and .851. Responses to
these items were used to build an additive disillusion with government index,
which had mean inter-item correlations of .45 and a standardized alpha
reliability of .77. This index mean is 11.9, with a standard deviation of 3.12.
Items that loaded on the positive affect factor were hopeful, happy and
proud. Loadings fell in the range between .521 and .916. Responses to these
items were used to build an additive enthusiasm about government index, which
had mean inter-item correlations of .53 and a standardized alpha reliability of
.77. This index mean is 8.75, with a standard deviation of 2.40.
Subjects were asked for their evaluations of recent US presidents, with
responses placed on a 5-point continuum ranging from ‘History suggests/will
suggest that the President was bad for the nation’ to ‘History suggests/will
suggest that the President was good for the nation.’ Responses were as follows:
John F. Kennedy (M = 4.06, SD .98); Lyndon Johnson (M = 3.06, SD .81);
Richard Nixon (M = 2.20, SD 1.00); Gerald Ford (M = 3.12, SD .56); Jimmy
Carter (M = 3.12, SD .90); Ronald Reagan (M = 3.42, SD 1.18); George Bush (M
= 3.17, SD 1.01); and Bill Clinton (M = 3.27, SD 1.20).
An open-ended question engaged subjects in a thought-listing procedure
to tap their cognitive considerations about the broader political environment.
As expected, a number of responses included thoughts regarding the integrity of
the political system. With this in mind, subjects’ responses were coded for
whether or not they characterized the political system as corrupt, with codings
of 0 = system not characterized as corrupt, 1 = system characterized as
corrupt.3 Two coders working in pairs agreed on 73 of 79 codings, producing
an inter-coder reliability coefficient of .92, which was 84 percent greater than
by chance. The remaining 6 responses were discussed and then classified.
Slightly more than half (53.8%) of subjects characterized the political system
as corrupt.
Two statements assessed subjects’ general optimism about their future: (a)
‘My children will be worse off than I am in their adulthood’; and (b) ‘I look
forward to my future.’ These measures were drawn from research on the role of
optimism in political participation (Seligman, 1991; Uslaner, 1998). For both
items, responses were placed upon a 5-point continuum, ranging from

142 Journalism 3(2)
‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. These items were strongly correlated

(r = –.52) and, after reverse-coding the former item, were added to create an
optimism index, which had a standardized alpha reliability of .69. This index
mean is 7.7, with a standard deviation of 1.81.
Finally, demographic and orientational variables were collected as part of
a pre-experimental questionnaire. Subjects indicated their gender (57% fe-
male), race or ethnicity (65% white, 8% African American, 14% Asian Amer-
ican, 8% Hispanic, 5% other or abstained), age (78% between ages 18 and 22),
political party most closely identified with (45% Democrats, 33% independ-
ent/unaffiliated, 22% Republicans), and, on a 7-point continuum from ‘almost
none’ to ‘a great deal’, interest in politics (M = 3.71, SD 1.63). Forty of the
subjects attended the southeast university, 39 attended the northwest uni-
versity.
Results
Hypothesis 1 was tested at the experimental level. Hypothesis 2 was tested

within experimental conditions, an approach that allowed examination of the
mental linkages that formed during information processing.4
Hypothesis 1
In general, hypothesis 1 posits that visual images will interact with in-
dividuals’ existing cognitive and affective considerations to shape the manner
in which people process news coverage and form judgments. Specifically, in
drawing upon research which suggests the presence of consistent negative
public perceptions of protest groups, we predicted that individuals receiving
news coverage of a social issue that includes a visual image highlighting
protestors affiliated with a particular viewpoint will develop more negative
impressions of that viewpoint or, stated in a forward manner, more positive
impressions of the opposing viewpoint than individuals receiving news coverage
of the same issue that does not include this visual image.
John Paul Filo’s Girl Screaming over a Dead Body at Kent State photograph
highlights people that oppose the US government’s involvement in the Viet-
nam War. Therefore, our expectation is that subjects receiving the visual image
will form more positive impressions of the government, due to the reaction
against the protestors, than subjects who do not receive the visual image.5 As a
first test of this hypothesis, t tests were run between experimental conditions,
with trust in the federal government as the dependent variables (see
Table 1).

Table 1 Experimental conditions by subjects’ trust in federal government
Experimental condition
Text only Text and photo t p
Trust federal govt. to do what is righta 2.65 3.08 2.35 < .05
(n = 40) (n = 39)
Degree of personal trust in federal govt.b 3.73 4.13 1.42 .08
(n = 40) (n = 38)
Notes:
Numbers are mean scores
a. Range: 1 = almost never to 5 = almost always
b. Range: 1 = great distrust to 7 = great trust
The hypothesis received strong support. As the results in Table 1 show,

subjects presented with the Kent State photograph as part of the news coverage
indicated significantly more positive impressions of the government than
subjects presented only with the news article. When the focus was on trust in
federal government ‘to do what is right’, subjects receiving the photograph
and news article exhibited a mean score of 3.08, compared to 2.65 among
subjects receiving solely the news article. When the focus was on one’s extent
of ‘personal trust’ in the federal government, subjects receiving the photo-
graph and news article exhibited a mean score of 4.13, compared to 3.73
among subjects receiving solely the news article. Results, therefore, are con-
sistently supportive of the hypothesis across both measures of trust in gov-
ernment.
As a second test of this hypothesis, t tests were run between experimental
conditions with affective evaluations of the federal government as the depend-
ent variables (see Table 2).
These results also provide support for hypothesis one. As the results in
Table 2 show, subjects receiving the visual image along with the news article
Table 2 Experimental conditions by subjects’ (a) disillusion with government and (b)
enthusiasm about government
Text only Text and photo t p
Disillusion with governmenta 12.33 11.59 1.05 n.s.

(n = 40) (n = 39)
Enthusiasm about governmentb 8.15 9.36 2.30 < .05
(n = 40) (n = 39)
Notes:
Numbers are mean scores
a. Range: 4 = low disillusion to 20 = high disillusion
b. Range: 3 = low enthusiasm to 15 = high enthusiasm

144 Journalism 3(2)
exhibited less disillusion and more enthusiasm toward the US government than
subjects receiving only the news article. Specifically, subjects receiving the
photograph and news article exhibited a mean disillusion with government
score of 11.59, noticeably lower than the 12.33 among subjects receiving
solely the news article. At the same time, subjects receiving the photograph
and news article exhibited a mean enthusiasm about government score of
9.36, much higher than the 8.15 among subjects receiving solely the news
article. Although only the second finding is statistically significant, the results
are directionally consistent, lending further support to hypothesis one.
Finally, t tests were run between experimental conditions with evaluations
of recent US presidents serving alternately as the dependent variables. We do
not present these as tests of the hypothesis because unlike the results in Tables
1 and 2, this analysis has a focus on impressions of the past rather than upon
judgments of contemporary government; nonetheless, these findings offer addi-
tional insight into the theorized relationships. For six of the eight presidents –
Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton – there were no sig-
nificant differences between experimental conditions. For two of the presi-
dents, however, significant differences were found between experimental
conditions. Specifically, subjects receiving the photograph and news article
formed (a) significantly more positive impressions of Richard Nixon as presi-
dent than subjects receiving only the news article (M = 2.38 vs 2.03 re-
spectively, p = .06), and (b) significantly more positive impressions of Gerald
Ford as president than subjects receiving only the news article (M = 3.23 vs
3.00 respectively, p < .05). Both served as presidents during the Vietnam
conflict, of course, with Nixon presiding when the Kent State shootings
occurred. That subjects presented with the photograph and news article rated
these two presidents more favorably than subjects presented with only the
news article is intriguing and consistent with the results in Tables 1 and 2.6
The pattern of results, then, provides strong support for hypothesis 1.
Hypothesis 2
Hypothesis 2 examines whether the presence or absence of visual images in

news coverage influences the associative linkages that form or develop in
people’s minds. In the case of Filo’s Kent State photograph, we posit that
considerations activated in regard to the US government may ‘carry over’, via
a spreading activation process, to judgments of America’s political system and
future. Specifically, the hypothesis predicts that the relationship between
individuals’ news-relevant considerations (in this case, about US government)
and more general evaluations of one’s information environment will be much
stronger among individuals receiving news coverage that includes a visual

image than among individuals receiving news coverage that does not include
that image.
For this hypothesis, we focused on two particular evaluations by subjects
– optimism about the future and characterization of the political system as
corrupt or not. We examined the correlation between each of these with (a)
trust in government, (b) disillusion with government, and (c) enthusiasm
about government separately for subjects within the differing experimental
conditions. Among those receiving the photograph along with the news
article, we expected an identifiable pattern of linkages, which would suggest a
close association between subjects’ considerations about government and
more general judgments about the social and political environment, and that
these mental constructs were consistently activated in tandem. In contrast,
among subjects receiving only the news article, there should not be a dis-
tinguishable pattern of linkages, which would suggest that considerations
about government and more general judgments about the social and political
environment were essentially unassociated in subjects’ information process-
ing. Partial correlations were run, controlling for subject population, race/
ethnicity, gender, political party affiliation, and political interest.7
As tests of this hypothesis, these correlations were run first with a focus on
subjects’ optimism about the future (see Table 3) and then with a focus on
subjects’ perceptions of corruption in the political system (see Table 4).
Table 3 Correlations between subjects’ evaluations of government and optimism about

future
Text only Text and photo
Optimism about futurea by
Trust federal govt. to do what is rightb .05 –.00

Degree of personal trust in federal govt.c .14 .13
Disillusion with governmentd .11 –.36*

Enthusiasm about governmente .16 .41**
(n = 36) (n = 35)
Notes:
Correlations control for subject population, gender, race/ethnicity, political party identification, and
political interest
a. Range: 2 = low optimism to 10 = high optimism
b. Range: 1 = almost never to 5 = almost always
c. Range: 1 = great distrust to 7 = great trust
d. Range: 4 = low disillusion to 20 = high disillusion
e. Range: 3 = low enthusiasm to 15 = high enthusiasm
* p < .05, ** p < .01

146 Journalism 3(2)
Table 4 Correlations between subjects’ evaluations of government and perception of

corruption in political system
Text only Text and photo
Characterization of political systema by
Trust federal govt. to do what is rightb .10 –.56**

Degree of personal trust in federal govt.c –.00 –.51**
Disillusion with governmentd .04 .32*

Enthusiasm about governmente –.07 –.54**
(n = 36) (n = 35)
Notes:
Correlations control for subject population, gender, race/ethnicity, political party identification, and
political interest
a. Range: 0 = system not characterized as corrupt, 1 = system characterized as corrupt
b. Range: 1 = almost never to 5 = almost always
c. Range: 1 = great distrust to 7 = great trust
d. Range: 4 = low disillusion to 20 = high disillusion
e. Range: 3 = low enthusiasm to 15 = high enthusiasm
* p < .05, ** p < .01
Several points are noteworthy about these results. First, when the news
coverage included only the article there were no statistically significant correla-
tions between optimism about the future or perceptions of corruption in the
political system with (a) trust in government, (b) disillusion with government,
and (c) enthusiasm about government. While these results do not necessarily
indicate that the absence of visual images in news coverage weakened the
linkages among these considerations, it clearly did not facilitate strong associa-
tions among them.
In contrast, for subjects receiving the news coverage that contained the
Kent State shooting photograph, several significant correlations are present.
First, correlations indicate a positive relationship between enthusiasm about
government and optimism about the future (r = .41, Table 3) and a negative
relationship between enthusiasm about government and characterization of
the political system as corrupt (r = –.54, Table 4). Second, consistent with
these results, correlations indicate a negative relationship between disillusion
with government and optimism about the future (r = –.36, Table 3) and a
positive relationship between disillusion with government and character-
ization of the political system as corrupt (r = .32, Table 4). Third, negative
relationships are found between trust in the federal government to what is
right and a perception of the political system as corrupt (r = –.56, Table 4) and
between one’s degree of personal trust in the federal government and a

perception of the political system as corrupt (r = –.51, Table 4).8 It is the case,
however, that even among subjects presented with the visual image, trust in
the federal government is not significantly related to optimism about the
future, a finding to which we return in the following section.
These results, then, support the prediction of hypothesis 2 that the
inclusion of visual images in news coverage influences the associative linkages
– particularly, perhaps, those involving affective considerations – that develop
in people’s minds.
Discussion
It is both one of the oldest and one of the most current assumptions of
political theorists, elites and news pundits that vivid, striking images have a
particularly strong impact on public opinion and, in turn, on the political
behavior of individuals. To be specific, elites in the press and politics – and
some in scholarly circles – have consistently claimed that the persuasive
outcome, that is the direction of the public’s sympathies in reaction to an image, is
manifestly predictable (Perlmutter, 1998). In fact, however, the limited evi-
dence suggests that people react in complex ways to news images, even widely
disseminated and discussed ‘icons of outrage’ (e.g. Bailey and Lichty, 1972;
Bennett et al., 1992; Perlmutter, 1998). The reality, we suggest, is that in-
dividuals of course can be persuaded by images, but that one’s pre-existing
values, cognitions and feelings often play a major role in how images are
attended to, interpreted and acted upon. Indeed, image content and accom-
panying news narratives seem likely to interact with individuals’ considera-
tions to shape affective and cognitive reactions. Our findings support this
theoretical argument, in at least two important ways.
First, our findings suggest that the ‘power’ of visual images may not
necessarily lie in their ability to persuade individuals to adopt perspectives that
align closely with the manifest content of an image – or, at least, the content
as it is interpreted by key elites and journalists in the political process.
Specifically, individuals in this experiment did not automatically align their
opinions with anti-war protestors highlighted by John Paul Filo’s photograph
of the May 1970 shootings at Kent State University; instead, our findings are
consistent with research that has documented people’s often-negative con-
siderations about protestors, who are commonly perceived as unruly, un-
necessary obstructions to social order (e.g. Bailey and Lichty, 1972; Robinson,
1970). Indeed, our results indicate that individuals presented with the photo-
graph responded more favorably toward the entities opposing the protestors, in
this case the federal government. Specifically, subjects receiving the condition

148 Journalism 3(2)
that contained the photograph in news coverage exhibited (a) greater trust in
the federal government, and (b) less disillusion and more enthusiasm toward
US government than subjects presented with only the news article.9 Further, it
seems noteworthy that these results were found among a population seem-
ingly inclined, both in terms of political ideology (i.e. left-leaning) and life
experiences (i.e. also college students), to respond more favorably toward the
anti-war protestors than the government.
Second, our findings suggest that images may have a particularly powerful
ability to ‘trigger’ people’s activated considerations in a manner that fosters a
spreading activation process through the mind as individuals evaluate a social
and political environment. A growing body of research on ‘priming’ has
documented that media messages have this ability (e.g. Iyengar and Kinder,
1987; Krosnick and Kinder, 1990; Pan and Kosicki, 1997), but virtually ignored
in this work is the potentially distinct role of visual images. Indeed, our
evidence suggests that news coverage which contains visual images may have
a greater ability than text-only first, to activate one’s news-relevant considera-
tions, and second, to prompt a ‘carry over’ of these activated constructs to
subsequent judgments regarding related concerns. Specifically, in this study,
individuals who received the photograph exhibited much stronger associa-
tions between both their cognitions (i.e. trust) and emotions (i.e. enthusiasm
and disillusion) about the US government with two additional assessments of
America’s present and future political system. Specifically, the relationship
between (a) trust in government and (b) feelings toward government with (c)
a perception of the political system as corrupt was significantly stronger
among subjects presented with the visual image. Similarly, the relationship
between feelings toward government and optimism about the future also was
significantly stronger among subjects presented with the photograph. Inter-
estingly, one’s trust in the federal government was essentially unrelated to
optimism about the future regardless of experimental condition, which is
suggestive that, at least for the subjects in this study (undergraduate students),
faith in government integrity may be viewed as not particularly relevant to
their future success or opportunities.
These findings are also suggestive of the ways in which visual images may
intersect with both cognitive and affective dimensions of individuals’ in-
formation processing. Both popular news media and pundits – and some
scholarly research – suggest that visual images are important primarily due to
their ability to engender emotional reactions (Goldberg, 1993; Koch, 1990;
Monk, 1989; Morrow, 1993). Indeed, studies of human brain structures do
suggest that pictures with visual signals are processed separately and before our
reasoning skills attempt to cognitively process them. In short, ‘we begin to
respond emotionally to situations before we can think them through’ (Barry,

1997: 18). This is a sensible evolutionary adaptation: the flicker of yellow fur
of a stalking saber-toothed tiger needs to elicit a response from us immediately,
with no waiting for deliberative consideration.
In response, we caution that recognition and reaction do not always
predict the nature of the viewer’s response. Modern humans do not always
‘fight or flight’ in reaction to news pictures of Kent State or, these days,
Afghanistan – emotional connection depends on what is seen and who is in
the picture. It may be true that, as Graber (1996) puts it, the brain is far better
at extracting information quickly and efficiently from visual images than from
text. But our findings suggest that news photographs can trigger a complex set
of cognitive and affective processes, and that these intertwine closely through-
out people’s mental frameworks to shape information processing and decision
making, as a growing body of research suggests (e.g. Conover and Feldman,
1986; Marcus and MacKuen, 1993). Notably, Just et al. (1996) criticize political
communication scholarship for neglecting the role of emotion in research on
media effects and information processing; indeed, they argue that framing
research in particular should incorporate a concern with both the cognitive
criteria (e.g. factual information) and affective tone (e.g. intensity of language)
of news coverage. Clearly, the manner in which many issues are covered by
news media – both in terms of news texts and photographs – is not purely
cognitive or affective. Much more research is needed on the ways in which
news coverage, and particularly visual images, interact with people’s cognitive
and affective considerations.
While this research offers an insight into the role of visual images in
citizens’ processing of news media messages, we recognize that it has some
weaknesses. In particular, we theorize that the cognitive and affective pro-
cesses triggered by visual images depend, in significant ways, on the considera-
tions and inter-connections within an individual’s mental system. With this
perspective, we found that the presence or absence of John Paul Filo’s Kent
State photograph in news coverage significantly influenced (a) how people
thought and felt about the federal government, and (b) how strongly these
evaluations were associated with judgments about the broader US political
system and future. We are unable, however, to offer concrete evidence of the
actual relations between mental constructs, partly due to the difficulty of
getting inside the cognitive ‘black box’. We recommend that future experi-
mentation include a pre-test of assumptions about cognitions and feelings
toward government, a more extensive post-test questioning of subjects about
their prior knowledge of the image-stimulus and their feelings toward it, and
a post-test check on the subjects’ self-descriptions of their thinking in reaction
to the stimulus.

150 Journalism 3(2)
We also note that our measurement focuses upon subjects’ impressions of

government, the institutional opponent of many Vietnam era protestors,
rather than on protestors themselves; we believe assessments of government
are politically more important than evaluations of protestors, but it is none-
theless the case that we do not have direct measures of subjects’ view of the
primary focus of the photograph in this study. In recognition that the
meaning of visual images may be more ‘open’ than that of many lexical–verbal
texts, more explicit measurement of all meaningful elements within an image
would be an improvement in future research. Finally, the limitations of any
single experimental study are obvious. Until the role and import of visual
images in individuals’ processing of news coverage begin to be examined
across differing populations and differing issues and with differing method-
ologies, we recognize that our understanding will remain necessarily in-
complete.10
Notes
1 The context for this photograph, in brief: on 30 April 1970, President Richard
Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia to combat incursion and supply
routes by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army. Some form of protests
occurred on most major campuses in the United States, including Kent State
University, Ohio. During the course of one protest the university’s Army ROTC
building was burned down. Ohio’s governor deployed units of the State national
guard on campus. On 4 May, four students were killed and nine others were
wounded when guardsmen opened fire. In Filo’s photograph, Mary Ann Vecchio,
who was not a Kent State student but was on campus that day, is kneeling and
screaming next to the body of Kent State student Jeffrey Miller. A host of
unofficial and official investigations blamed almost everyone involved, includ-
ing the students. For details on Filo and his photograph, see Goldberg (1993:
236–41; News Photographer, 1995).
2 The degree of neutrality of the constructed news article is not a focus of our
hypotheses; nonetheless, consistent with much of the actual retrospective news
coverage of Vietnam, our constructed article was a pragmatic assessment of US
government and military efforts in Vietnam, neither strongly critical nor
strongly supportive.
3 Subjects were coded as characterizing the political system as corrupt if they
claimed that politics fundamentally is one of the following: immoral or morally
bankrupt; corrupt; dishonest or crooked; replete with lies, deceit, and hypocrisy;
or driven solely by money or greed.
4 Within-groups analysis, conducted for hypothesis two, is necessary to get ‘within
the cognitive system of the individual’ (Lavine et al., 1996: 298).
5 For hypothesis one, we focus on subjects’ cognitive and affective considerations
about government, rather than those about (a) protestors in general, (b) anti-war
protestors in general, or (c) the specific individuals in this photograph. We do

this because our central interest is the political implications of the effects of visual
images and news texts upon people’s information processing and judgments.
Certainly, impressions of protest groups and protestors matter politically, but we
believe that considerations about government, particularly those of focus in our
analysis, have more significant implications for citizenship, public life and
democracy. In addition, focusing on considerations about government rather
than only on protestors presents a more challenging test of our ideas because it
places a central emphasis upon the associations present and formed in people’s
minds, which are integral in our theoretical argument.
6 With the Nixon and Ford results in mind, one other US president evaluated by
subjects – Lyndon Johnson, who also presided during the war – might also seem
likely to benefit from the presence of the visual image in news coverage. Johnson
did receive slightly more positive evaluations among subjects receiving the
photograph and news article (M = 3.13) than among subjects receiving only the
news article (M = 3.00), but the difference was not statistically significant. It
seems plausible that considerations raised about protestors and government by
this specific photograph would be most closely associated with Nixon, who will
be forever linked with Ford. In this way, the fact that subjects’ evaluations of
Johnson are not significantly affected by the presence or absence of the photo-
graph appears consistent with the associative network model of the mind
underpinning this research.
7 The controlled variables were coded as follows: subject population (1 = southeast
university population, 2 = northwest university population); race/ethnicity (1 =
white, 2 = nonwhite); gender (1 = male, 2 = female); political party affiliation
(1 = Democrat, 2 = Independent/unaffiliated, 3 = Republican); and political
interest (1 = almost none to 7 = a great deal).
8 Fisher’s correlational difference test was used to examine whether the correla-
tions were significantly different across experimental conditions. In Table 3 with
optimism about the future, the association with disillusion about government
was significantly stronger (p < .05) among subjects presented with the visual
image, while the association with enthusiasm about government approached
significance (p = .12) across conditions. In Table 4 with characterization of the
political system as corrupt, associations with both measures of trust in the federal
government and enthusiasm about government were significantly stronger
(p < .05) among subjects presented with the visual image, while the association
with disillusion with government approached significance (p = .11) across
conditions. These results provide further support for hypothesis 2.
9 Our findings are consistent with what is known as the ‘rally round the flag effect’:
that the public tends to exhibit a more positive outlook regarding national
leaders and federal government during times of national crisis (see Brody, 1984;
Kernell, 1978; Mueller, 1973). The photograph in this study well may engender
the notion of a ‘crisis’, and the accompanying news article informs subjects that
this shooting occurred in the context of both (a) the Vietnam War, and (b) public
‘disorder’. Consistent with this also are subjects’ more positive views of the two
presidents (Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford) who bracket prologue, occurrence
and closure on the Kent State events and aftermath.
10 We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting these measures.

152 Journalism 3(2)
Appendix: Question Wording
The following questionnaire items were used in this research:
Perceptions of integrity of the political system

When you think about the United States government, what thoughts, feelings,
or beliefs come to mind? Complete sentences are not needed. You may
simply list words or phrases that capture your views.
• Responses were open-ended
When you think about politics, what thoughts, feelings, or beliefs come to
mind? Complete sentences are not needed. You may simply list words or
phrases that capture your views.
• Responses were open-ended
Trust in the federal government

How much of the time do you think that you can trust the federal government
to do what is right?
• Response options: 1 = Almost never to 5 = Almost always
There are many different institutions in this country. Please indicate how
much is your personal trust in each of the following. [Focus here is on
‘federal government’]
• Response options: 1 = Great distrust to 5 = Great trust
Affective considerations about government

When thinking about the United States government, how frequently do you
feel frustrated? [Subsequent questions inserted hopeful, happy, sad,
angry, proud, and disgusted]
• Response options: 1 = Almost never to 5 = Almost always
Evaluations of recent U.S. presidents

Please evaluate some recent U.S. presidents. [Presidents included were John F.
Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter,
Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton]
• Response options: 1 = History suggests/will suggest that the President was
bad for the nation to 7 = History suggests/will suggest that the President was
good for the nation
General optimism about the future

Please rate your level of agreement with the following statements.

My children will be worse off than I am in their adulthood.

• Response options: 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree
I look forward to my future.
• Response options: 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree
Demographics and political orientations

What is your age?
What is your gender?
What is your race or ethnicity?
• Response options: White (Caucasian); African American; Asian; Hispanic;
Native American; Other [space provided for self-identification for this cat-
egory]
In general, how much interest do you have in politics?

• Response options: 1 = Almost none to 7 = A great deal
With which major political party do you most closely identify, if any?
• Response options: Democrats; Republican; Reform; Independent/unaffili-
ated
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Biographical notes
David Domke is a Professor at the Department of Communications, University of

Washington. His research interests include individual values and cognition, media
framing and priming, and the interaction of elites and the press in social change.

He has published articles recently in Communication Research, Journal of Commu-

nication, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Political Communication,
and Political Psychology.
Address: Department of Communications, Box 353740, University of Washington,
Seattle, WA 98195, USA. [email: [email protected]]
David Perlmutter is an Associate Professor at the Manship School of Mass

Communication, Louisiana State University. His research interests are political
communication, war and the media and he is the author of Policing the Media:
Street Cops and Public Perceptions of Law Enforcement (Sage, 2000).
Address: Manship School of Mass Communication, 221 Journalism Building,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803–7202, USA. [email:
[email protected]]
Meg Spratt is a PhD student at the Department of Communications, University of

Washington.
Address: as David Domke. [email: [email protected]]

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The primes of our times?

Long before the development of mass communication, students of politics

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commentators, especially in regard to the public’s reactions to photographic

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1997; Woo, 1994) or the contexts of their production (Rosenblum, 1978;

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processing of news coverage and subsequent evaluations and judgments re-

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At the same time, while we reject a visual determinism thesis regarding

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metonymic power, may focus an individual’s processing of a news message

H2: The relationship between individuals’ news-relevant considerations (e.g.

This study is part of a research program examining how individuals process

The core of this research strategy is the controlled presentation of political

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No other mention of the Kent State shootings – or anti-war protestors, more

The questionnaire began with items focusing on subjects’ evaluations of the

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‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. These items were strongly correlated

Hypothesis 1 was tested at the experimental level. Hypothesis 2 was tested

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Table 1 Experimental conditions by subjects’ trust in federal government

The hypothesis received strong support. As the results in Table 1 show,

Disillusion with governmenta 12.33 11.59 1.05 n.s.

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Hypothesis 2 examines whether the presence or absence of visual images in

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Table 3 Correlations between subjects’ evaluations of government and optimism about

Optimism about futurea by

Trust federal govt. to do what is rightb .05 –.00

Disillusion with governmentd .11 –.36*

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Table 4 Correlations between subjects’ evaluations of government and perception of

Characterization of political systema by

Trust federal govt. to do what is rightb .10 –.56**

Disillusion with governmentd .04 .32*

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We also note that our measurement focuses upon subjects’ impressions of

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Appendix: Question Wording

The following questionnaire items were used in this research:

Perceptions of integrity of the political system

Trust in the federal government

Affective considerations about government

Evaluations of recent U.S. presidents

General optimism about the future

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My children will be worse off than I am in their adulthood.