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Visual Framing

Visual framing refers to the process of using images to portray certain parts of reality.

Visuals can be used to manifest meaning alongside textual framing. Text and visuals function best simultaneously. Advancement in print and screen-based technologies has resulted in merging of the two modes in information dissemination. Since each mode has its limitations, they are best used together and are interlinked in forming meaning.

Images are more preferable than text since they are less intrusive than words and require less cognitive load. From a psychological perspective, images activate nerve cells in the eyes in order to send information to the brain. Images can also generate a stronger emotional appeal and have high attraction value. Within the framing context, images can obscure issues and facts in effort to frame information. Visuals consist of rhetorical tools such as metaphors, depiction and symbols to portray the context of an event or scene graphically in an attempt to help us better understand the world around us. Images can have a one-to-one correspondence between what is captured on camera and its representation in the real world.

Along with increasing understanding, visuals can also elevate retention rates, making information easier to remember and recall. Due to the comparable nature of images, grammar rules do not apply.

According to researchers, framing is reflected within a four-tiered model, which identifies and analyzes visual frames as follows: visuals as denotative systems, visuals as stylistic-semiotic systems, visuals as connotative systems and visuals as ideological representations.

Researchers caution against relying only on images to understand information. Since they hold more power than text and are more relatable to reality, we may overlook potential manipulations and staging and mistake this as evidence.

Images can be representative of ideologies by ascertaining underlying principles that constitute our basic attributes by combining symbols and stylistic features of an image into a process of coherent interpretation.

One study indicates visual framing is prominent in news coverage, especially in relation to politics. Emotionally charged images are seen as a prominent tool for framing political messages. Visual framing can be effective by putting emphasis on a specific aspect of an issue, a tactic commonly used in portrayal of war and conflict news known as empathy framing. Visual framing that has emotional appeal can be considered more salient.

This type of framing can be applied to other contexts, including athletics in relation to athletic disability. Visual framing in this context can reinterpret the perspective on athletic and physical incompetence, a formerly established media stereotype.