Framing ‘otherness’ in press photographs: The case of immigrants in Greece and Spain

Batziou, Athanasia

doi:10.1386/jmpr.12.1.41_1

Cited by 38 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Arpan et al, 2006;Batziou, 2011aBatziou, , 2011bCorrigall-Brown, 2012;Fahmy, 2004Fahmy, , 2007Fahmy & Kim, 2008;Perlmutter & Wagner, 2004;Hagaman, 1993) as most researchers tend to focus on text or to combine images with text (Tomanić Trivundža, 2010), and not treat them as independent units of analysis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Christmas Tree in Flames and Other – Visual – Stories: Looking at the Photojournalistic Coverage of the Greek Protests of December 2008

Batziou

2014

Social Movement Studies

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In December 2008, the killing of a fifteen-year-old boy by the Greek police triggered the country's worst civil unrest in decades and an outbreak of rage and violence, which turned into a wider protest expressing deep popular discontent and frustration with ageing problems in the country. Through a content analysis of themes appearing in eight media of different genre and political orientation, and using solely images as units of analysis, this paper examines the visual framing of these protests and its function in the public screen. The findings show that two frames are used to imply a distinction between Us (as normal citizens who protest peacefully) and Them (as 'hooded hooligans' who protest violently).

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Christmas Tree in Flames and Other – Visual – Stories: Looking at the Photojournalistic Coverage of the Greek Protests of December 2008

Batziou

2014

Social Movement Studies

Self Cite

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“…In the context of the refugee crisis, analysis of mainstream media in Australia (Bleiker et al, 2013), UK (Wilmott, 2017), US and Germany (Zhang and Hellmueller, 2017) suggest that the majority of images depict refugees in a specific visual framing that is strikingly different from that of the 'identifiable victim'. Refugees are typically depicted in medium to large groups, without recognizable facial features, and medium-to-long distance camera shots (Batziou, 2011;Bleiker et al, 2013). Given that the majority of images shown in the media are not of identifiable victims, what are the consequences of exposing audiences to photographs of large groups?…”

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confidence: 99%

When the lens is too wide: The political consequences of the visual dehumanization of refugees

Azevedo

Beukelaer

Jones

et al. 2021

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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Photojournalistic images shape our understanding of sociopolitical events. How humans are depicted in images may have far-reaching consequences for our attitudes towards them. Social psychology has shown how the visualization of an ‘identifiable victim effect’ can elicit empathic responses. However, images of identifiable victims in the media are the exception rather than the norm. In the context of the Syrian refugee crisis, the majority of images in Western media depicted refugees as large unidentifiable groups. While the effects of the visual depiction of single individuals are well-known, the ways in which the visual framing of large groups operates, and its social and political consequences, remain unknown. We here focus on the visual depiction of refugees to understand how exposure to the dominant visual framing used in the media, depicting them in large groups of faceless individuals, affects their dehumanization and sets off political consequences. To that end we brought together insights from social psychology, social sciences and the humanities to test a range of hypotheses using methods from social and political psychology in 10 studies with the participation of 3951 European citizens. Seeing images of large groups resulted in greater implicit dehumanization compared with images depicting refugees in small groups. Images of large groups are also explicitly rated as more dehumanizing, and when coupled with meta-data such as newspaper headlines, images continue to play a significant and independent role on how (de)humanizing we perceive such news coverage to be. Moreover, after viewing images of large groups, participants showed increased preference for more dominant and less trustworthy-looking political leaders and supported fewer pro-refugee policies and more anti-refugee policies. In terms of a mechanistic understanding of these effects, the extent to which participants felt pity for refugees depicted in large groups as opposed to small groups mediated the effect of visual framing on the choice of a more authoritarian-looking leader. What we see in the media and how it is shown not only has consequences for the ways in which we relate to other human beings and our behaviour towards them but, ultimately, for the functioning of our political systems.

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“…The camera zoomed in on her teary eyes before the interview terminated (FT, 17 January 2014). Such intimate camera distances suggest a close connection between the subject and the viewer (Batziou, 2011) and can easily evoke the audience's sympathy and similarly mixed feelings about reuniting with separated family members.…”

Section: Codification Of Character Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Staging a social drama: Ritualized framing of the spring festival homecoming in Chinese state media

2017

Journalism

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The transformation of Chinese media from the propaganda organ of the Party-state to its central means of hegemony has given rise to typified news practices that vary in formality but cohere in functionality. Integrating theories of media ritual and framing, this study explores how Chinese state media ritualistically manufacture a public consensus on the interpretation of the annual Spring Festival homecoming, a chronic social problem that exposes socioeconomic inequalities and policy deficiencies. An analysis of the 2014 homecoming coverage on China Central Television (CCTV) reveals that state media create and popularize a state-sponsored social drama, reducing a complex, multifaceted social problem to a one-dimensional transportation crisis. This media ritual, in accordance with both the state’s mandate to maintain social stability and the media’s logic of commercial success, contains alternative interpretations and obscures the important social concerns encapsulated in this issue.

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Framing ‘otherness’ in press photographs: The case of immigrants in Greece and Spain

Cited by 38 publications

References 19 publications

A Christmas Tree in Flames and Other – Visual – Stories: Looking at the Photojournalistic Coverage of the Greek Protests of December 2008

A Christmas Tree in Flames and Other – Visual – Stories: Looking at the Photojournalistic Coverage of the Greek Protests of December 2008

When the lens is too wide: The political consequences of the visual dehumanization of refugees

Staging a social drama: Ritualized framing of the spring festival homecoming in Chinese state media

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