Multimodal news framing effects

Visuals in news media play a vital role in framing citizens’ political preferences. Yet, compared to the written word, visual images are undervalued in political communication research. Using framing theory, this thesis redresses the balance by studying the combined, or multimodal, effects of visual and verbal media. Three experimental studies using international affairs news – a ready source of compelling visuals – address the following questions: (a) what is the individual and combined contribution of visuals and text to framing effects? (b) what information processing mechanisms underpin multimodal framing effects? And, (c) how do multimodal framing effects differ in different media formats (i.e., news articles and videos). Findings show that visuals evoke an emotional reaction that drives political behaviour. However, visual cues can be overpowered by systematically processed verbal content, especially when presented in news articles compared to videos. By placing visuals and text on an equal footing, this thesis takes a step towards a fully multimodal news framing theory.