Effects of Photographs in News-Magazine Reports on issue Perception

Evaluation of an Intervention Designed to Recruit Canadian Women to Mammography Screening

“…Various studies have determined that images have the ability to instill a sense of curiosity, facilitating the selection and reading of text (Knobloch, Hastall, Zillmann, & Callison, 2003;Zillmann, Gibson, & Sargent, 1999;Zillmann, Knobloch, & Yu, 2001). Although most women in our sample indicated that the postcard's text was easy to read and understand, few of them could remember the information provided.…”

“…Still images can have a powerful influence on perceptions and information recall. Zillmann et al (1999) studied the influence of photographs in news magazine reports. They determined that bias was detected in the direction exemplified by the photographs.…”

Journal of Applied Communications vol. 93 (1-2) Full Issue

“…The Zillmann, Gibson, and Sargent (1999) study found that compelling photographs, especially danger-projecting photographs, are more easily recalled and shape viewers' perception more so than non-compelling photographs. The use of negative images will shape viewers' perceptions more so than neutral or positive images.…”

“…These are all issues that have been broadly covered in news magazines, but not necessarily identified as agricultural topics. Zillmann, Gibson, and Sargent (1999) used an experimental design to determine if photographs exemplifying one side of an issue were more influential than descriptive images on viewer perceptions and recall. One component of the study exposed subjects to four different news story layouts about the economics of farming: no image, poor farmer, rich farmer, and both images.…”

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“…In doing so, highly arousing imagery may lead to inaccurate perceptions of likelihood and magnitude of risk, as audiences may be inclined to generalize to entire events from a single image or message . Evidence of the overestimation of risk under the arousal induced by mediated exemplars is well documented in the literature Zillmann, Gibson, & Sargent, 1999).…”