The Impact of Photographs 1
The Impact of Photographs on Perceptions of
Juvenile Taliban Fighters or Domestic Killers
Adam Serfling
Winona State University
Abstract
The media has known the emotional impact of adding photographs to news articles for quite
some time. Previous research has shown that using one-sided photographs greatly influence
article perceptions in the direction of the photograph. A randomized between subjects factorial
design manipulating both main character nationality (American vs. Afghan) and photograph
connotation (positive vs. negative vs. no photograph) was administered in six news stories.
Following the reading of the story, a survey designed to measure ratings on the main character,
the author’s portrayal of the character, the story, and also a information recall task was
administered to all subjects. It was predicted that ratings would be congruent with the direction
of the photograph (positive/negative) and that a greater proportion of facts would be recalled in
the direction of the photographs. Results showed a significant main effect for the photograph
connotation in only the Afghan condition in the information recall task and a marginally
significant main effect for picture connotation overall. This suggests that people will remember a
greater proportion of negative facts from a story which includes a negative photograph.
The Impact of Photographs on Perceptions of Juvenile Taliban Fighters or Domestic Killers
“Photos attract readers. Editors… have to fight to hold as much as possible of their readers’ time
and attention, and among their best weapons are their cameras” (Sidey & Fox, 1956, p.11). This statement
is even truer today than it was in 1956. News articles are embellished with more photographs than ever
before due to the numerous technological avenues available to obtain photographs from such as the
Reuters News Pictures Service (Zillman, Knobloch, & Yu, 2001). The importance of photographs in news
articles was not truly realized until the Vietnam War era. Viewers were admittedly skeptical of various
verbally described news articles until they were able to view visual evidence of them through photographs
(Thompson & Clarke, 1974). Comments by McLuhan and Fiore (1967, p.8) seem to echo this sentiment:
The Impact of Photographs 2
Most people find it difficult to understand purely verbal concepts. They suspect the ear;
they don’t trust it. In general we feel more secure when things are visible, when we can
“see for ourselves…”
We employ visual and spatial metaphors for a great many everyday expressions… We
are so visually biased that we call our wisest men visionaries, or seers.
Along these same lines are the implications of photographs in media coverage. Political issues are
one of the greatest areas to study the use of photography in the media. Sharkey (1993) comments that
images can stir emotions and public outcry like no other. This has been seen in numerous areas in the past
40 years, especially in foreign policy. Images of starved, near-death Somalis prompted Americans to
pressure the government to intervene. Soon after this intervention failed to produce results for the
Somalis, photographs of Somalis desecrating the body of an American soldier following the Battle of
Mogadishu reversed American sentiment. Public pressure now called for immediate withdrawal, and the
intended action was achieved. Other images have also been as successful, producing effects that even the
most articulate verbal accounts could not have (Gerbner, 1992).
Most research surrounding photographs in news articles have focused on three major areas: what
people read, how they feel about what they read, and what facts they recall from what they read. Research has
shown that photos draw attention to specific articles and the text that accompanies them (Zillmann, et al.,
2001). Photographs also make stories more visually pleasing and attractive (Rivers & Matthews, 1988), which
is a large reason why editors will choose to insert photographs into the stories. Gibson (1991) agrees, saying
that photographs can lure readers to the text and also can tell some stories better than words can.
Previous research conducted by Garcia and Stark (1991) focused on the way that readers “travel”
through the layout of a newspaper. Subjects were exposed to one of two versions of a newspaper filled with
numerous articles differing in size and proportion accompanying news articles. One version featured some
photographs in color and some in black and white. The other version had colors of the pictures inversed. By
using an eye-movement tracking device, they were able to record how long readers looked at specific portions
of text and photographs. On average, subjects viewed 75% of the photographs, and were more attracted to the
larger photographs. Color only affected first glances. According to these findings, photographs do draw
attention; however, it is only to themself. Having a large picture does not guarantee that a person will be
attracted to the accompanying story.
In addition, previous research has shown that emotionally-valenced photographs attract attention,
even if only seen momentarily (Calvo & Lang, 2004). These types of photographs can also have a strong
effect on a person’s emotions and perceptions of an issue. Graphic images can direct attention to a specific
event which can be associated with specific emotions. This can also have a direct effect on people’s emotional
The Impact of Photographs 3
reactions to the event depicted in the news article itself (Iyer & Oldmeadow, 2006). In news articles dealing
with controversial issues, the type of photographs shown has influenced reader perceptions of the writer’s
stance on the issue, although this effect varied depending on the issue discussed (Culbertson, 1974).
In a recent experiment, Zillmann, Gibson, and Sargent (1999) looked to measure differences on issue
perception in news-magazine reports. One report addressed the economics of farming and the growing gap
between rich and poor farmers while the other report examined safety at amusement parks. The reports
featured no photograph, a photo exemplifying one side of the issue (poor farmers, safe fun at parks), the other
side of the issue (rich farmers, accidents at parks), or two photographs exemplifying both sides of the issue
(rich and poor farmers, safe fun and accidents at parks). Issue perception was measured immediately after
reading or 10 days after exposure. Perception of farming economics was strongly influenced by the use of one
sided photographs. In the delay condition especially, assessment was extremely biased in the direction of the
photographs. The perception of park safety was similarly influenced, although only by the danger-projecting
photograph. This suggests that danger signaling photographs cause more thorough reading of the text. Along
with this, agonistic images have been associated with greater perceptions of news worthiness and greater
information recall (Zillmann, et al., 2001).
Brosius (1993) was in complete agreement with Iyer and Oldmeadow (2006) and says that emotional
visuals stimulate attention to only the visuals themselves. He also adds that after time, if people are unsure of
the facts from the text, they will be more likely to remember details from the photograph. Images that are
consistent with the text from articles enhance the recall of information from the text (Graber, 1990). This is
due to the fact that redundancy is very effective in facilitating recall. Recall is also increased for articles and
photographs that stir emotions in comparison to non-arousing circumstances (Heuer& Reisberg, 1990). This
works in unison with large photographs that attract attention, as more facts will be recalled if those
photographs also stir emotions. In addition, illustrated news reports have been shown to be better remembered
than reports without illustration, especially when the reports are on concrete ideas rather than abstract ideas
(David, 1998). In general, most previous research has shown that recall is enhanced by using attractive,
emotional pictures.
Much of the effects of photographs in news articles can be attributed to the priming effect. The
priming effect is defined as the effects of prior context on the interpretation and retrieval of information
(Fiske & Taylor, 1984). The priming process works through the mechanism of cognitive accessibility
(Higgins & King, 1981). The more accessible a concept is within a person’s memory, the more easily the
person can call it to mind. Numerous factors determine a concept’s accessibility, such as how applicable it
is to the current stimulus (Price & Tewksbury, 1995), and the frequency (Higgins, Bargh, & Lombardi,
1985) and recency with which it has been used in the past (Srull & Wyer, 1980).
The Impact of Photographs 4
Priming effects fit easily into the associative network model for memory. According to this
model, memory consists of a hierarchically organized network of concepts (or nodes) that are linked
through associative pathways (Collin & Loftus, 1975). When a node is activated in memory- or primed- it
becomes more accessible. Priming also been shown to influence a wide variety of cognitive processes
such as the retrieval of text in memory (Albrecht & O’Brien, 1990) and the formation of feelings
(Berkowitz & Heimer, 1989). Returning to the Somalia example, the American media first reported news
stories with photographs of starving Somalis. This primed Americans to view the situation as a
humanitarian crisis which affected the way that they processed the information from the news article.
However, had photographs showing the Somali fighters been attached to the same news articles, the
American public would likely have processed the information from the article in the context of a war,
rather than a humanitarian crisis.
Previous research has shown that photographs play a large role in issue perception and fact recall.
Much of the research has looked primarily at how the presence of photographs affects issue perception and
fact recall, but not at the effects that different images have. The following will look at the effects of both
positive, negative, and no photographs. The following experiment will test the hypothesis that subjects will
remember more negative facts and ratings on dimensions of subject rating, author’s portrayal, and story
ratings from news articles with a negative photograph. It is also hypothesized that fact recall and ratings will
be more positive for articles containing a positive photograph.
Methods
Participants
One hundred seventeen students (25 males, 92 females) from a small, Midwest university were
recruited using sign-up sheets in the Psychology department. Participants were given extra-credit by their
respective Psychology professors for participating in the experiment.
Materials
Six conditions were created in a Country of Origin (America vs. Afghanistan) x Photograph Type
(Positive vs. Control vs. Negative) factorial design. The first factor was the country in which the news
article takes place and was separated into American and Afghan condition. In the Afghan condition, a
news story summarizing the actions of a Canadian-born, 15 yr-old Al-Qaida member now being held in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for killing a U.S. Army Soldier was reprinted. In this story, the teenager is the
The Impact of Photographs 5
son of an al-Qaida financier who traveled to Afghanistan to attack U.S. forces. While in Afghanistan, the
boy killed an American soldier during a raid on his father’s house. The teen’s trial is stirring controversy
as some believe that the teen should not be tried as an adult, while others believe that he should. In the
American article, the same story was rewritten by the researcher so that the main character of the article
was now an American teenager awaiting trial for killing a police officer who had raided the teen’s home
in search of the teen’s father. The news article was rewritten line by line so that length and paragraph
orientation would be as similar as possible. Extreme care was exercised by the researcher during the
rewriting of the American condition to ensure that the actions in the story were comparable to actions that
could occur in America.
The second factor was the type of photographs used and was made up of positive, negative, and
control conditions. In the control condition, there was no photo attached to the article. In both the positive
and negative conditions, photographs that were used were found on the internet and deemed by the
researcher to be positive or negative. In the positive conditions, school photographs were used containing
an Arabic teenager for the Afghan news article and Caucasian teenager for the American news article. In
the negative conditions, a photograph of an Arabic teenager holding an AK-47 and dressed in
stereotypical terrorist clothing was used for the Afghan condition, while a photograph of a Caucasian
gang member without a shirt and with a blue bandana and who looked like a stereotypical gang member
was used.
The headline for each story was printed in 14 pt. bold Calibri font. The four forms which included
a photograph (American Positive, American Negative, Afghan Positive, Afghan Negative) had the
photograph printed in the upper right-hand corner with the text wrapping around the left side. Each
photograph measured 3 ¼” x 3 ¼” and was in full color. Under each photograph printed in blue ink was
the caption “Figure 1- Undated photo of (main character name).” The two control conditions (American
Control, Afghan Control) were printed in the same fashion, but without a photograph.
The survey and memory task packet consisted of a survey of 20 items and also a blank free-recall
sheet. The directions for the first 7 items were as follows: “Please rate the main subject (character) of the
news-story on a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 is strongly disagree and 7 is strongly agree on the following
characteristics.” The first seven items were designed to measure the personal characteristics of the main
character and included items such as “The subject is a friendly person” and “The subject should be held
responsible for his actions.” The directions for items 8 and 9 were as follows: “Please rate the entire
news-story on a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 is extremely negative and 7 is extremely positive.” These items
were designed to measure how subjects felt the author portrayed the subject and included items such as
“The overall tone of the story” and “The portrayal of the subject.” The directions for the remaining 11
items of the survey were as follows: “Please rate the following aspects of the story on a scale of 1 to 7
The Impact of Photographs 6
where 1 is strongly disagree and 7 is strongly agree.” The remaining items were designed to measure the
emotional impact and importance of the story and included question such as “The story is interesting” and
“This story impacts me emotionally.” A seven point Likert scale followed each question.
The Memory Task Sheet contained 20 numbered, blank lines with the following directions printed at
the top: “Please list as many complete facts from the news-story you have just read on the following lines.
Complete Fact Example” George Bush is the president of the United States.”
Procedure
Subjects were randomly assigned to condition and asked to read and sign an informed consent form.
Subjects were instructed to first read the news article as they normally would read a news article. After
completing the article, subjects were instructed to complete the survey and memory task packet. It was
stressed by the researcher that subjects could not look back at the news article after they had started to
complete the survey and memory task packet. Upon completion, subjects were debriefed and thanked for
participating.
Results
Scale Development
Initially, the 20 question survey was divided into three subject areas: Subject Rating, Author
Portrayal, and Story Rating. Subject Rating is a seven-item scale designed to measure ratings of the main
character’s personal characteristics. One question was found to not be significantly correlated to the
Subject Rating items and therefore was removed. Author Portrayal is a two-item scale designed to
measure the author’s portrayal of the main character in the story. Story Rating is an eleven-item scale
designed to measure the emotional impact of the story. Final reliability analysis indicates that the items do
measure a single underlying construct: Subject Rating α = .822, Author Portrayal α = .658, Story Rating α
= .845.
Free Recall Scoring
The Free Recall task was scored by the researcher first as a total number of correct facts
remembered. The correct facts were then rated as being either negative or positive/neutral by the
researcher. A fact was rated as negative if they described aspects of the killing, jail sentence, and attacks
from the news-story such as “He killed a soldier” or “He faces life in prison.” These numbers were then
calculated into a ratio of facts recalled that were negative. Analysis of Scales.
The Impact of Photographs 7
Table 1
Means (and SDs) of Subject Ratings, Author Portayal, Story Rating, Facts Recalled, and Ratio of
Facts Recalled which were Negative by Country of Origin and Photograph Type Conditions.
American Condition
Picture Type
Positive
Control
Negative
Afghan Condition
Subject Rating
5.28 (1.08)
5.16 (0.80)
5.33 (1.39)
4.74 (1.19)
4.84 (1.31)
4.65 (1.01)
Author Portrayal
Positive
Control
Negative
3.30 (1.11)
3.33 (1.24)
3.03 (1.23)
3.26 (1.34)
3.43 (1.27)
3.28 (1.08)
Story Rating
Positive
Control
Negative
4.65 (0.85)
4.38 (1.04)
4.44 (0.90)
4.39 (1.24)
4.51 (1.07)
4.41 (0.79)
Total Facts
Positive
Control
Negative
9.35 (3.99)
8.25 (3.73)
8.78 (2.86)
8.37 (2.87)
9.50 (5.26)
8.80 (3.09)
Ratio of Facts Recalled that were Negative
Positive
Control
Negative
0.51 (0.12)
0.54 (0.21)
0.53 (0.19)
0.36 (0.17)
0.42 (0.17)
0.50 (0.12)
The Impact of Photographs 8
A 2x3 (Country of Origin x Photograph Type) ANOVA was conducted to measure the impact of
photographs on news articles. Impact was measured using the scales Subject Rating, Author Portrayal,
and Story Rating. Higher mean scores indicate a more positive rating for each of the three measures.
Means can be seen in Table 1. There was not a significant interaction between Country of Origin and
Photograph Type in regards to Subject Rating (F (1,111) = .258, p = .773). This indicates that the factors
do not interact to create greater statistical difference on Subject Rating. There was a main effect for
Country of Origin on Subject Rating, F (1,111) = 5.958, p = .016. This suggests that subjects rated the
American story more negatively than the Afghanistan story. There was not a significant main effect for
the Photograph Type in the Subject Rating, F (1,111) = .003, p = .997. This indicates that the Photograph
Type did not have any effect on Subject Ratings.
There was not an interaction between Country of Origin and Photograph Type on Author
Portrayal, F (1,111) = .132, p = .877. This indicates that the factors do not interact to create greater
statistical difference on Author Portrayal. There was not a significant main effect for Country of Origin (F
(1,111) = .213, p = .646) or for Photograph Type (F (1,111) = .333, p = .717) on Author Portrayal. This
indicates that Country of Origin and Photograph Type did not have a significant effect on Author
Portrayal.
There was not a significant interaction between Country of Origin and Photograph Type on Story
Rating, F (1,111) = .393, p = .676. This indicates that the factors do not interact to create a greater
statistical difference on Story Rating. There was not a significant main effect for Country of Origin (F
(1,111) = .071, p = .79) or Photograph Type (F (1, 111) = .086, p = .918). This indicates that Country of
Origin and Photograph Type did not have a significant effect on Story Rating.
Analysis of Free Recall
A 2x3 (Country of Origin x Photograph Type) ANOVA was conducted to measure the impact of
photographs on free recall. Free recall was measured as the total number of correct facts recalled (Fact
Total) and the ratio of facts recalled that were negative (Negative Fact Ratio). Higher mean scores on Fact
Total indicate a greater number of facts recalled while higher scores on Negative Fact Ratio indicate a
greater proportion of facts recalled were negative. Means can be found in Table 1. There was not a
significant interaction between Country of Origin and Photograph Type on Fact Total, F (1,111) = .878, p
= .418. This indicates that the factors do not interact to create greater statistical difference on Fact Total.
There was not a significant main effect for Country of Origin (F (1,111) = .020, p = .889) or Photograph
Type (F (1,111) = .006, p = .994). This indicates that Country of Origin and Photograph Type did not
have a significant effect on the total number of facts recalled.
The Impact of Photographs 9
There was not a significant interaction between Country of Origin and Photograph Type on
Negative Fact Ratio, F (1,111) = 1.314, p = .273. This indicates that the factors do not interact to create
greater statistical difference on Negative Fact Ratio. There was a significant main effect for Country of
Origin, F = 10.274, p = .002. This indicates that subjects recalled a greater proportion of negative facts
from the American condition than from the Afghan condition. There was a marginally significant main
effect for Photograph Type on Negative Fact Ratio, F (1,111) = 2.208, p = .115. This main effect
becomes significant when looking at only the Afghan Condition, F (1,111) 3.884, p = .026. This suggests
that subjects remembered a greater proportion of negative facts in the negative photograph condition than
in the positive condition.
Figure 1. Mean percentage of facts recalled which were negative for positive, no photo, and
Percentage of facts recalled that were
negative
negative photograph conditions in Afghan and American Country of Origin conditions.
60
50
40
30
Afghan
American
20
10
0
Positive
Control
Photograph Condition
Negative
Discussion
Predicted effects were seen in the Free Recall Task. It was predicted that subjects would recall a
greater proportion of negative facts in the negative photograph conditions. This was marginally
significant when looking at all conditions, and statistically significant when looking at only the Afghan
condition. This is likely due to the priming caused by the photographs used in the news stories. It is also
The Impact of Photographs 10
important to note that there was not a statistically significant difference found for the total number of facts
recalled. This indicates that while subjects recalled a greater proportion of negative facts, they did not
differ in the total number of facts recalled.
It was predicted that subjects would rate the negative photograph conditions more negatively on
scales of Subject Rating, Author Portrayal, and Story Rating. This would be due to the priming effect of
the negative photographs in the news-stories. This, however, was not found to be true in all cases.
Photograph type had no effect on Subject Rating, Author Portrayal, or Story Rating. There were also no
statistically significant differences for Country of Origin on Author Portrayal or Story Rating. There was,
however, a significant difference for Country of Origin on Subject Rating although it was not in the
anticipated direction. Subjects rated the main character of the American news stories more negatively
than the main character of the Afghan news stories. This suggests that subjects were more sympathetic to
the Afghan teenager than to the American teenager. There could be numerous explanations for this
finding, but it is likely due to the subjects feeling the Afghan teenager was less responsible for the
situation he was in than the American teenager. Subjects may also have felt that killing a soldier in a war
may be more justifiable than killing a police officer during a drug raid.
There were numerous limitations with this experiment. First was the difficulty in finding
equivalent photographs for all conditions. The Afghan-Negative condition contained a photograph in
which the subject looked considerable younger than the other three photographs used. This may have had
an effect on the stronger show of sympathy on Subject Ratings. Secondly, being that the American
condition story was rewritten by the researcher, it possibly may have been quite different from the Afghan
condition story. The Afghan condition news story was written by a professional journalist while the
American condition news story was written by the researcher. There was also difficulty in transforming
war crimes into crimes committed in America. Both of these may have affected the results of the research.
Finally, many studies which are similar to this one retest after a given time delay to measure what is
remembered from news stories. This was not an option for this research due to scheduling conflicts found
when using undergraduate students.
Future research in this area would likely need to correct the previously described limitations. First,
more equivalent photographs would need to be used. Given more resources, staged photographs could be
used so that the same person would be in each condition. This would prevent any confounding variable
from the photographs from influencing the results. Secondly, both conditions should be written by a
writer at a higher-skill level. This would allow both stories to appear much more professional to the
readers. Finally, because time- delayed retests have shown that subjects recall more information from the
photographs, a time delay should be used.
The Impact of Photographs 11
This research reiterates what much research has previously shown: the media needs to needs to use
fair and neutral photographs in news-stories. Neutral photographs will allow subjects to recall facts and
form opinions based on what is written in the news-story and not what is seen in the photograph. This is
the goal of fair and balanced journalism and should be followed by all in the media.
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