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- Volume 10, Issue 1, 2023
Journal of Visual Political Communication - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2023
Volume 10, Issue 1, 2023
- Editorial
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Editorial
Authors: Bengt Johansson, Darren Lilleker, Anastasia Veneti and Orla VigsøThis article sets out the scope for the Journal of Visual Political Communication, the growing body of research in this field and introduces some of the key debates which are discussed by the essays in this special relaunch edition. The brief discussion firstly introduces power and symbolism, and who is represented and empowered through visual political communication. Secondly, the role of visuals in diplomacy and international relations. Thirdly, how visuals give a sense of proximity and closeness, exploring the role of photojournalists. Fourthly, the use of visuals for strategic impression management by political actors and the notion of authenticity. Fifthly, the role that user-generated visuals play within political communication. And, sixthly, the debates around computer-assisted, automated and artificial intelligence as tools for the analysis of visuals. The article gives insights into some of the important strands of research, debates which the journal seeks to explore.
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- Articles
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Visual communication has always been political
More LessThis article is an invitation to engage with the small ‘p’ politics of visual political communication by highlighting the importance of both culture and history, in order to gain greater understanding of how images and the visual more broadly may ‘work’ on us and contribute to our imaginaries as well as our understanding of political messages and political life as a whole. Specifically, the article aims to encourage scholars in this field to engage less with strategy and tactics or persuasion and effects to delve more deeply into why and how visual meanings become politically powerful over time and in particular contexts. In doing so, the article foregrounds the work of two major scholars of the visual, Stuart Hall and Michel Pastoureau, and promotes an approach focusing on the more seemingly mundane, taken-for-granted and everyday meanings and practices underlying visual political communication. To demonstrate this approach, the article offers an in-depth discussion of the photograph used in the ‘Breaking Point’ poster at the centre of the political campaign which was launched by UKIP leader Nigel Farage in the run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum.
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Visualizing international relations: Challenges and opportunities in an emerging research field
More LessThe visual is central to global politics. Over the past two decades, scholars in the field of international relations have increasingly recognized and examined the numerous and complex ways in which the visual, the political and the international are intertwined. They have scrutinized how a diverse range of global political phenomena – from war, diplomacy and development to election campaigns and refugee policies – are shaped by images and visual artefacts, such as photographs, film, videogames, satellite images, art, surveillance technologies, monuments and architecture. The purpose of this commentary is two-fold. First: I overview this bourgeoning body of literature on visuality in international relations. I discuss the emergence and evolution of this field of research, drawing attention to the significance of the ensuing contributions. Second: I highlight three key challenges that lie ahead: understanding the changing relationship between visuality and digitalization; embarking on more cross-disciplinary inquires; decolonizing research on visual communication. I end with highlighting that understanding the role of visuality goes far beyond appreciating the political impact of images. Visuality goes to the very core of politics because it shapes how we – as individuals and as collectives – see, perceive and enact the political world around us.
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The changing working life of photojournalism professionals in the contemporary media environment
More LessThis article aims to pull together some of the recent trajectories that have affected the work of photojournalism professionals. It is argued that the hybrid media environment is yet another turning point of the revolutionary changes caused by the digitalization during the past three decades. Since the late 1980s the digitalization has enabled photojournalism much more than the transition of photo editing and cameras from analogue to digital technology. Digitalization has, for example, facilitated the work in numerous ways and enabled images to travel in multiple speed in comparison to analogue times. During the recent years, traditional media organizations have witnessed diminishing revenues of and cut downs of photography departments worldwide. Most of the news photographers of today are self-employed, and despite the growing importance of the visuals in society, they need to expand their reach from journalism to other fields such as commercial photography, public relations, corporate communications, artistic projects and NGO work to earn a living. This leads to blurring of boundaries between journalism and other fields and to diffusion of professional values and ethics.
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Mirror, mirror on the wall: Candidate image and political impression management
More LessThe relevance of candidate image research as an element of political impression management has been scrutinized and contested, as it has been the case for candidate image research in many other scientific domains. For decades the emphasis of political science research was on more conventional topics such as the influences of political ideology, the impact of political rhetoric, the role of political structures and institutions. Nevertheless, with the birth of mass media and maybe even more so with the more recent introduction of social media, the emergence of a predominant visual culture has put candidate image at the centre of political impression formation processes. The managing of political impressions deserves particular attention and profound research. In this article we present an overview of relevant theories and research linked to candidate image within political impression management. The article will firstly discuss how the trend towards perception politics emerged and will revisit the role of perceptions and the formation of politically relevant impressions. Secondly, this article will focus on the politically suitable appearance and the concept of candidate image as an important part of both offline and online political impression management.
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Video killed the Instagram star: The future of political communication is audio-visual
More LessWhat does the growing popularity of audio-visual platforms and vertical video mean for visual political communication? I address the opportunities and challenges of TikTok and related platforms for news media, political actors, citizens and researchers, and briefly discuss possible avenues for future academic work. These include questions related to source credibility and media literacy, the assessment of attention versus exposure, political learning and personalization. I argue that how our field engages with these questions will be decisive in the near future.
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Politics through machine eyes: What computer vision allows us to see
By Erik P. BucyComputer vision techniques have recently burst onto the scene in visual political communication research, dramatically extending the scope of digital image and video analysis. Over the last five years, in particular, papers featuring computational methods have grown in frequency and breadth, appearing in a variety of journals across different disciplines, ranging from the digital humanities and social semiotics to political communication and data science. Topics have been equally expansive and include large scale examinations of political protest, candidate self-presentation style and partisan symbolism, affective polarization, gender stereotypes, debate performances and voter impression formation, public policy, electoral fraud, and topics outside of conventional politics such as extremist propaganda. In this article, each of these areas of investigation are briefly reviewed for the insights they are revealing about political visuals as well as the tools and techniques employed. Ethical considerations are also explored to highlight some of the tradeoffs inherent in research involving computational analysis of political visuals.
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