From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage
The political power of images has probably never been stronger than in today's “information age” in which mobile devices allow instant access to news coverage of local, national, and global events, which are generally visualized in some way. Thus, this paper investigates whether political news...
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| Format: | Article |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Political Science |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2024.1278055/full |
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| author | Stephanie Geise Diana Panke Axel Heck |
| author_facet | Stephanie Geise Diana Panke Axel Heck |
| author_sort | Stephanie Geise |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The political power of images has probably never been stronger than in today's “information age” in which mobile devices allow instant access to news coverage of local, national, and global events, which are generally visualized in some way. Thus, this paper investigates whether political news images mobilize people to engage in political protest by appealing to their emotions. A pre-post-design integrating eye tracking with 143 participants examines how the observation of protest images in news coverage induces emotions and affects participatory intents. This reveals that a longer image observation activates both positive and negative discrete emotions (i.e., fascination, interest, sadness, anger, disgust, shame, guilt, and being touched) which increase the image recipients' willingness to participate politically. Additionally, for people with a high level of political interest, longer exposure to an emotion-inducing news image increases their willingness to participate in political activism, while a low level of political interest produces a negative effect. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f3ec7952b3be425fafc65447301cda9d |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2673-3145 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Political Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-f3ec7952b3be425fafc65447301cda9d2025-01-22T16:02:14ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Political Science2673-31452025-01-01610.3389/fpos.2024.12780551278055From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverageStephanie Geise0Diana Panke1Axel Heck2Centre for Media, Communication and Information Science (ZeMKI), University of Bremen, Bremen, GermanyOtto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Free University Berlin, Berlin, GermanyDepartment of Political Science, Kiel University, Kiel, GermanyThe political power of images has probably never been stronger than in today's “information age” in which mobile devices allow instant access to news coverage of local, national, and global events, which are generally visualized in some way. Thus, this paper investigates whether political news images mobilize people to engage in political protest by appealing to their emotions. A pre-post-design integrating eye tracking with 143 participants examines how the observation of protest images in news coverage induces emotions and affects participatory intents. This reveals that a longer image observation activates both positive and negative discrete emotions (i.e., fascination, interest, sadness, anger, disgust, shame, guilt, and being touched) which increase the image recipients' willingness to participate politically. Additionally, for people with a high level of political interest, longer exposure to an emotion-inducing news image increases their willingness to participate in political activism, while a low level of political interest produces a negative effect.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2024.1278055/fullmedia imagesemotionspolitical participationexperimenteye trackingprotest coverage |
| spellingShingle | Stephanie Geise Diana Panke Axel Heck From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage Frontiers in Political Science media images emotions political participation experiment eye tracking protest coverage |
| title | From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage |
| title_full | From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage |
| title_fullStr | From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage |
| title_full_unstemmed | From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage |
| title_short | From news images to action: the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage |
| title_sort | from news images to action the mobilizing effect of emotional protest images in news coverage |
| topic | media images emotions political participation experiment eye tracking protest coverage |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2024.1278055/full |
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