Search results

Images had long conveyed politics through forms as varied as private paintings and public coins. If images are storytelling vectors (Fusari, 2017), visual artefacts were intended to re/shape human perception of current events and, consequently, their states of ‘being in the world’ (Heidegger, 2001); this is the reason why the visual quality of communication might be hard to disjoin from that of ‘performativity’ (Cartier-Bresson, 2018).

The polysemic (Barthes, 1977), if not fully open (Eco, 1989), quality of visual semiotics complicates identification of any framework of reference and adds to the need for practical and sensible research in digital communication (Fusari, in press).

Since the first US Presidential debate televised in 1968, a new interest surged towards the understanding and production of visual communication of politics. Increasingly so, images (both still and moving ones) have affected, if not thoroughly shaped, understanding of all recent political affairs, particularly so from the 1992's Gulf War onward (Baudrillard, 1995; Kellner, 1992).

The 2012 Invisible Children (IC)'s campaign is here assessed as the milestone marking the potential for global impact acquired by socio-political visual-centred storytelling.

The intertwining of the digital with the visual has yet to be precisely arranged for socio-political storytelling; also, storytelling as a format and approach has increasingly gained relevance, adding new concerns to issues of veracity.

In response, this chapter advances the notion of ‘storyline’ in conjunction with that of ‘storytelling’: the resulting taxonomy aims to review specific notions of truth- and trust-fulness from a visual-centred perspective.

The chapter thus explores the requirements for communicating and understanding visual storytelling on digital media; by doing so, it addresses the extent to which ‘visual storytelling’ might be a notion fit for the job of disseminating today's digital cultures.

Eventually, the chapter will question how to design visually centred communication formats and, in turn, engage these as storytelling of socio-political issues for digital platforms.

The chapter reviews recent evidence of, and debates about, the integration of art, entertainment, and media in media portrayals (e.g., movies, photographs, theater, music, performance art, museums, story-telling, modifications of an environmental space, social media, painting, comics, dance, videogames, etc.) of climate change based on three sources of data: 1) articles listed in academic reference databases and Google Scholar, 2) online sites, and 3) climate change news images. 1) Retrieved articles discuss both the potential and challenges of communicating about climate change through art, entertainment, and media. However, research is inconsistent on and in some cases is critical of the nature and extent of effects of art-based climate communication. 2) The Internet is a rich and diverse source of websites and videos about climate change. We analyzed 49 sites based on the art medium or form discussed, the primary content related to climate change, and the apparent goal of the site or video. The most frequent goals were promote action, collaboration, raise awareness, climate change communication, discussion, empowerment, reshape public perception, and engagement. 3) Based on the major themes and frames identified through content and cluster analysis of 350 images associated with 200 news articles from 11 US newspaper and magazine sources through late 2009, we summarize the theme of art and mass media representations of the environment, and how those are associated with the other major themes. We conclude by suggesting promising areas for future research on the intersection of art and science in communicating about climate change.

Purpose: This project examines both the media practice of covering perp walks and the discourse of perp walks as performative rituals, with the goal of understanding how grounded practice shapes meaning.

Methodology/approach: This project combines ethnographic observation and interview research to explore the grounded experience of perp walk participants, including journalists, law enforcement, and defendants.

Findings: The analysis suggests that perp walks are constructions that serve the interests of the state and that their resulting images are not neutral documents. Visual journalists are managed by law enforcement through embodied gatekeeping in practice and experience pressure from newsrooms to capture a particular moment. Defendants report feeling violated because they are unable to control the discourse of their recontextualized image.

Research limitations: As a qualitative-research project using a non-representative sample, the study results cannot be generalized, but they instead offer a rich understanding of embodied practice.

Originality/value: Because this study offers the subjective perspectives of three sets of stakeholders, including journalists, law enforcement, and defendants, it offers a unique and in-depth analysis of perp walks as media ritual.

Introduction: As a type of poverty, relative poverty can be defined as being below the average welfare of society. Basic needs can be afforded, but individuals can’t take advantage of the welfare created by society. Today coding the reflection of welfare, sharing experiences has new meanings by new social media means. Instagram is especially preferred in visual sharing because of its filter options, live feed, or story mode. These features help the message sender to increase the effect of the message and the receiver to understand the reality with its different dimensions. It is not shocking that the images of welfare and its indicators are shared increasingly in social networks because storytelling in this media is fed. The visual strengthening is underlining the possession of the owner and the deficiency of the non-owner from their perspectives.

Purpose: This study examines the emotional effects of ideal life images shared on Instagram on other individuals. The aim is to reveal and define the meaning ascribed to such fractions of life with a visual appeal by people who cannot lead this kind of life.

Methodology: In accordance with the Social Learning Theory, the study assumes that people with relative poverty take notice of their own poverty through social media. The study investigates the emotions manifested by individuals who take notice of the things that they lack through social media. Thus, a qualitative study was designed and conducted using a phenomenological approach. The phenomenon of this study is failing to have. The objective of the study is to understand and determine what the individuals who do social comparisons feel they lack. For this purpose, the fundamental research questions of this study are as follows: RQ1: What are the main categories of Instagram posts that evoke a sense of deprivation in individuals?; RQ2: What do glamorous Instagram posts mean to individuals who are above the relative poverty threshold? The data gathered via the in-depth interview technique were analyzed using the computer-assisted qualitative analysis program (MaxqDa 2020). Qualitative content analysis and descriptive analysis were the forms of analysis used in the study.

Findings: The fact that there are negative links between passively consuming information on social media and well-being is supported by previous studies. This study exposes the experiences of “failing to have” due to upward social comparison in individuals who are above the relative poverty threshold in Turkey. The categories of shared content that evoke the feeling of deficiency in the participants are as follows: Travel/vacation, participation in social life, physical attractiveness, material possessions, and professional/academic career. The participants of the study are individuals who are above the relative poverty threshold for Turkey. The participants want to have “more than what they already have.” For this reason, it can be suggested that the main keyword summarizing the findings of the study is “more.” The study demonstrates that failing to travel and participate in social life deeply affects the participants and causes them to experience negative emotions.

This chapter analyses the different ways in which metal album covers draw upon medieval media. The analysis is situated within the broad theoretical frame of intermediality, and more specifically view the process where medieval media cross the borders and find their way into metal album covers as media transformation. Four different types of media transformation are analysed, and it is argued that the medievalism of album covers can be defined in terms of media transformation. Likewise, neomedievalism is defined in terms of second-order media transformation. The album cover is described as a media patchwork, and the chapter gives examples of the patches in terms of relationship and properties.

This book contributes to the current academic discussion on school shootings by analysing this contemporary phenomenon in a broader context of media saturation in contemporary social and cultural life. We argue that in order to understand school shootings as a cultural and sociological phenomenon, we need to analyse this type of public violence from a variety of academic perspectives. By drawing on a range of empirical analyses of different school shooting incidents in the United States, Germany, Finland, and Canada, the authors in this volume demonstrate the diverse ways in which the media and school shootings are connected in contemporary society. Numerous frameworks are applied in these original analyses, including media violence, journalism, visual culture, and social networking. Our shared goal is to understand the complex interplay between media, society and school shootings, and certainly how this interaction is carried out in a range of cultural and societal contexts and settings.