The power of photographs in framing contests

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The ways in which social and political issues are framed matters. John Amis discusses how the ideological stance of different media organisations will shape how they frame an issue.

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The ways in which social and political issues are framed matters. John Amis discusses how the ideological stance of different media organisations will shape how they frame an issue.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 20, 2024

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This video video discusses the significant role of media, particularly images, in shaping public perception of issues such as migration. It highlights how media framing influences our understanding, creating echo chambers during events like Brexit and the Trump election. The case of Alan Kurdi’s tragic image is emphasized; it changed the narrative around the refugee crisis in the UK from one that framed migrants as threats to one of empathy and urgency for help.

The discussion also touches on the emotional and technical impact of such images. Emotional resonance can enhance or shift frames depending on the audience's predispositions, but this shift may be temporary. Although the media's framing may revert to previous narratives, there are lasting changes in the language used to describe migrants, moving away from dehumanizing terms.

Finally, the text argues for awareness among policymakers of the power images hold in public discourse, suggesting that there is a limited window of opportunity to impact narratives positively. Further, it calls for more research into how ideology, framing, and emotion intersect in media representation, particularly in the aftermath of powerful images.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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If we look at the, the preponderance of issues

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that we've experienced, particularly over recent times,

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we can see the way in which media have have

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played a big influence.

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Uh, now we see, of course, the impact of social media,

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but previously more traditional media, newspapers,

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television, radio,

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and the way in which they're used by journalists,

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but also by other, actors to, to frame

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and shape the way in which we interpret information

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and thus shape our, understanding of particular issues.

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So the framing of issues certainly matters,

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and we can see it in a number of different ways.

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Uh, if you look at common understandings of particular,

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incidents, but then look at

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how they're framed differently in different outlets,

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we can see the impact that that has.

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Whether we go back to Brexit

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or we talk about, the Trump election,

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we can see the way in which different,

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outlets framed those issues differently to the extent

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that we, all of us seemingly lived in our own echo chambers.

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And then were, were very surprised when

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particular outcomes were there.

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And we were seeing very different understandings

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of events caused by the, the different framings,

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of outlets that were conveying what was, to all intents

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and purposes, very similar information.

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So, absolutely framing very much does matter.

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So photographs are, are quite interesting. I think.

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Um, one of the key things about photographs is,

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is they're obviously still,

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and they also are, almost like a permanent record,

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if you like, of a moment in time.

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And I think what we see

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and what we certainly found in the work that we did was that

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some photographs don't cut through, they don't resonate.

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And, and we talk, we were looking at the,

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as we'll come onto, I'm sure the,

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the desperate picture of Alan Ker.

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I washed up on a beach in Turkey, yet we'd seen pictures,

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of other dead people, including children,

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as a consequence of the migration crisis.

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But a still photograph carries a lot of weight.

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If, if you think back to the, the Turkey earthquake

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and the picture of,

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Mehana holding his daughter iMac's hand,

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he was just sitting there in the rubble.

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His daughter was dead.

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Uh, she's lying there covered and he's holding her hand.

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And that, that brought that emotional understanding

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of the impact of that event home in a way

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that I don't think video can, certainly in a way

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that captures something in its entirety,

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and it allows you to engage with it in a way that you can't,

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when the, the images are constantly changing.

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When you've got that static picture, you look at it,

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you consume it, as we talk about in the paper, you get

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that immediate resonance,

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but then you also get that delayed impact as well.

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And, and I think those things are conveyed in

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Still images in a way that they're not,

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in more dynamic ones.

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When we typically look at a photograph and,

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and a photograph's very,

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or any other still image,

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it can be a painting, a diagram.

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We, we immediately have a first impression of it,

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a first understanding of what that's conveyed.

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And of course, we filter that information

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through our own political understandings,

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our own situational understandings, our own personal biases.

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But we take that immediate first impact

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and that has a resonance with us.

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But then we are able to engage with that picture more fully,

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and we get, another set of cues that come out of

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that picture in a particular set of ways, depending on

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who we are, where we're at, our temporal

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and geographic proximity perhaps.

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And, and that's gonna influence the way in which we

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consume that information as well.

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And that might enhance our initial understanding in a, a way

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that supports our initial reading or it may challenge it.

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So our, i, our interest in that particular, case, we,

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I personally had a,

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a strong interest in migration in Europe,

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and 2015 was, was a pivotal year,

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and it was a horrific year in terms of the number of people

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who died, particularly those who died trying

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to cross the Mediterranean.

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Uh, there's various routes through Europe,

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as you're probably aware, and one of the most popular

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and one of the most perilous is,

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is across the Mediterranean.

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Um, and I had a doctoral student at the time, y Nina Klein,

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who's, who's gone on to be an academic at, in Amsterdam.

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Um, and we were talking about this,

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and she was very interested in migration as well.

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And so what we thought we'd do was,

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was look at the way in which the media represented

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that particular case.

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Because what was apparent with Alan Kurdi was that picture

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changed the debate in the uk and,

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and it went overnight, literally overnight.

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It went from being the dominant representation

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of people moving across Europe, where these are migrants,

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they're coming in, they're threatening our jobs,

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they're threatening our, kids', places in schools.

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They're challenging the number of,

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positions in doctors, in doctors that are available,

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overnight that change to these are a desperate group

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of people and we must help them.

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Um, and I was fascinated by that, that

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how could this one image transform the debate?

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Alright, it's, it's a terrible image.

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But as I said, we'd seen all sorts

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of terrible images coming, from that,

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from the movement of people across Europe,

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and that that really captured something in a way

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that as others hadn't.

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So I was very keen to try

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and probe what that was, why it worked in a particular way,

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and what impact did it have across a range of organizations.

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I think what happened was that there were two effects that,

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that this, this image had.

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Uh, the way in which we analyzed it, one was there was a,

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an emotional impact.

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So if you are in an organization that's already

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predisposed towards that particular frame,

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that supercharged the, the res, the, the resonance

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of the image,

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and the utilization of the frame, if you were,

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more predisposed to a different frame,

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so in this case a migrant frame, that photograph was able

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to shift the dominance of that frame.

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So it shifted it to a refugee frame.

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But what we found was that that was short lived.

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So you, you've got this, these two impacts.

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On the one hand, you've got a supercharging if there's

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sympathy already there, if there's a predisposition towards

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that frame on the other, it's capable

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of undermining the frame and shifting it and,

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and making it untenable.

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So we've got this emotional impact.

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We've also got this technical impact.

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And the technical impact really was a consequence of

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how the editorial staff

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and senior reporters within the news organizations

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interpreted their, their readers, reactions.

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So that that framing of people as being migrants

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who come in over to steal jobs, use Cameron's words,

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they were hoards of people coming over, trying

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to steal our way of life.

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That becomes untenable when you've got a 3-year-old

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boy dead on a beach.

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You can't, as a news organization, no matter

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how you have positioned the debate previously,

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you can't come out and use those, those words.

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And that's what we found. But also we found

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that very quickly the dominant frame within those news

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organizations came back and took over again.

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Uh, so the, the technical side of it, the need

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to play into your audience certainly led

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to a shift in the use of the frame.

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But what we found was that

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that changed very quickly afterwards.

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Uh, so they went back to using the old frame.

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So it's almost like a form of cognitive dissonance,

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if you like, that we're presenting something in a way,

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but it grates on the way in which we actually view the

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world, and therefore, as soon as we can, we change back

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because we're much more

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comfortable with that other viewpoint.

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What was also interesting though, was

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that even though they changed back, the language

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that was used shifted.

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So before there was a great deal of dehumanizing language.

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So I, I mentioned Cameron's comments there, the use of,

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hordes or swarms,

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almost viewing people like insects rather than human beings.

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Um, after the, the publication of the picture,

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even though they went back to using the migrant frame,

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they didn't go back to using such extreme language

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and such dehumanizing language.

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So there was a, a long lasting shift there, even though

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the frame went back to being used,

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used the migrant frame as it was before.

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What this really shows us is if you are in a policy

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position, you need to understand the power of images.

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I think that the, the way in which images are used is,

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and understandably so, is quite ad hoc,

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because people don't really understand why is it

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that one image cuts through and another doesn't.

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So I think what that suggests is that policy makers

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or those who are seeking to move a particular agenda,

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perhaps through a social movement,

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or perhaps through a policy intervention, need to be aware

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of when particular images become available

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and how they're gonna be received.

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And it's often very difficult to know that in advance.

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So it's being very, very, flexible

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and being able to move agilely on your feet so

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that you can take advantage of situations when they come up.

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The other thing to know is that often your window

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of opportunity is gonna be short-lived.

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So for a period of time that

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after the publication of Alan K's image on that beach,

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everybody's shifted.

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But we saw over time that people shifted back again,

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certainly the, those in the right wing organizations or,

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or right-leaning organizations, I should say.

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So you've got a window of opportunity, but it can be brief.

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So taking advantage of that

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to move a particular agenda forward can be important.

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I think also it's important to recognize, and,

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and we've been very bad at this, we don't look at the media

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in a graded form superficially.

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We understand that there's right-leaning media,

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there's left-leaning media,

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and we know that the interpretation

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of issues is gonna be different,

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but what we don't look at is the impact of that difference.

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And I think that's something that's become really apparent

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through this piece of research.

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In terms of future direction, I think that is something

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that we do need to understand more about is

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how does ideology interact with, frames, interact

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with emotions more broadly,

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the way in which emotions have an impact.

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So prior to our work, if you looked at most of the research,

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if not all of the research, that was published,

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it tended to say that emotional impacts are short lived.

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Well, what we see in this particular piece of research is

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that emotional impact does have a long lasting effect.

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Even in those right leaning, leaning organizations, we found

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that actually there was a long lasting effect in terms

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of the language that was used.

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And in terms of the, the emotional array we talk about,

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in the paper, the way in which that changed.

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So even though the frame shifted, the emotional array

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and the, the use of language really was,

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there was a long lasting effect there.

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But we don't know much about the, the longevity of that.

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And of course, we're looking at a very extreme situation,

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with a, a very particular image.

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It would be really interesting, I think, to know more about

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how these images play out over time in different sets

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of circumstances, how contextual understanding shift

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and the way in which, images are taken and our temporal

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and geographic proximity to them influences the, the impact

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that they have on us.

Quick Answers

The Impact of Media Framing on Perception

00:00:00 - If we look at the, the preponderance of issues that we've experienced, particularly over recent times, we can see the way in which media have have played a big influence. now we see, of course, the impact of social media, but previously more traditional media, newspapers, television, radio, and the way in which they're used by journalists, but also by other, actors to, to frame and shape the way in which we interpret information and thus shape our, understanding of particular issues.
00:00:34 - and we can see it in a number of different ways. if you look at common understandings of particular, incidents, but then look at how they're framed differently in different outlets, we can see the impact that that has. Whether we go back to Brexit or we talk about, the Trump election, we can see the way in which different, outlets framed those issues differently to the extent that we, all of us seemingly lived in our own echo chambers.
00:01:05 - particular outcomes were there. And we were seeing very different understandings of events caused by the, the different framings, of outlets that were conveying what was, to all intents and purposes, very similar information. So, absolutely framing very much does matter. So photographs are, are quite interesting. I think. one of the key things about photographs is, is they're obviously still, and they also are, almost like a permanent record,
00:01:37 - And I think what we see and what we certainly found in the work that we did was that some photographs don't cut through, they don't resonate. And, and we talk, we were looking at the, as we'll come onto, I'm sure the, the desperate picture of Alan Ker. I washed up on a beach in Turkey, yet we'd seen pictures, of other dead people, including children, as a consequence of the migration crisis. But a still photograph carries a lot of weight.
00:02:11 - and the picture of, Mehana holding his daughter iMac's hand, he was just sitting there in the rubble. His daughter was dead. she's lying there covered and he's holding her hand. And that, that brought that emotional understanding of the impact of that event home in a way that I don't think video can, certainly in a way that captures something in its entirety,
00:02:42 - when the, the images are constantly changing. When you've got that static picture, you look at it, you consume it, as we talk about in the paper, you get that immediate resonance, but then you also get that delayed impact as well. And, and I think those things are conveyed in Still images in a way that they're not, in more dynamic ones. When we typically look at a photograph and, and a photograph's very, or any other still image, it can be a painting, a diagram.

Influence of Images on Migration Perception

00:03:15 - a first understanding of what that's conveyed. And of course, we filter that information through our own political understandings, our own situational understandings, our own personal biases. But we take that immediate first impact and that has a resonance with us. But then we are able to engage with that picture more fully, and we get, another set of cues that come out of that picture in a particular set of ways, depending on
00:03:46 - and geographic proximity perhaps. And, and that's gonna influence the way in which we consume that information as well. And that might enhance our initial understanding in a, a way that supports our initial reading or it may challenge it. So our, i, our interest in that particular, case, we, I personally had a, a strong interest in migration in Europe, and 2015 was, was a pivotal year, and it was a horrific year in terms of the number of people
00:04:16 - to cross the Mediterranean. there's various routes through Europe, as you're probably aware, and one of the most popular and one of the most perilous is, is across the Mediterranean. and I had a doctoral student at the time, y Nina Klein, who's, who's gone on to be an academic at, in Amsterdam. and we were talking about this, and she was very interested in migration as well. And so what we thought we'd do was, was look at the way in which the media represented
00:04:44 - Because what was apparent with Alan Kurdi was that picture changed the debate in the uk and, and it went overnight, literally overnight. It went from being the dominant representation of people moving across Europe, where these are migrants, they're coming in, they're threatening our jobs, they're threatening our, kids', places in schools. They're challenging the number of, positions in doctors, in doctors that are available,
00:05:16 - of people and we must help them. and I was fascinated by that, that how could this one image transform the debate? Alright, it's, it's a terrible image. But as I said, we'd seen all sorts of terrible images coming, from that, from the movement of people across Europe, and that that really captured something in a way that as others hadn't. So I was very keen to try and probe what that was, why it worked in a particular way, and what impact did it have across a range of organizations.
00:05:50 - that this, this image had. the way in which we analyzed it, one was there was a, an emotional impact. So if you are in an organization that's already predisposed towards that particular frame, that supercharged the, the res, the, the resonance of the image, and the utilization of the frame, if you were,

Media Frames and the Power of Images

00:06:17 - so in this case a migrant frame, that photograph was able to shift the dominance of that frame. So it shifted it to a refugee frame. But what we found was that that was short lived. So you, you've got this, these two impacts. On the one hand, you've got a supercharging if there's sympathy already there, if there's a predisposition towards that frame on the other, it's capable of undermining the frame and shifting it and, and making it untenable.
00:06:49 - We've also got this technical impact. And the technical impact really was a consequence of how the editorial staff and senior reporters within the news organizations interpreted their, their readers, reactions. So that that framing of people as being migrants who come in over to steal jobs, use Cameron's words, they were hoards of people coming over, trying to steal our way of life. That becomes untenable when you've got a 3-year-old
00:07:19 - You can't, as a news organization, no matter how you have positioned the debate previously, you can't come out and use those, those words. And that's what we found. But also we found that very quickly the dominant frame within those news organizations came back and took over again. so the, the technical side of it, the need to play into your audience certainly led to a shift in the use of the frame. But what we found was that
00:07:51 - so they went back to using the old frame. So it's almost like a form of cognitive dissonance, if you like, that we're presenting something in a way, but it grates on the way in which we actually view the world, and therefore, as soon as we can, we change back because we're much more comfortable with that other viewpoint. What was also interesting though, was that even though they changed back, the language that was used shifted. So before there was a great deal of dehumanizing language. So I, I mentioned Cameron's comments there, the use of,
00:08:24 - almost viewing people like insects rather than human beings. after the, the publication of the picture, even though they went back to using the migrant frame, they didn't go back to using such extreme language and such dehumanizing language. So there was a, a long lasting shift there, even though the frame went back to being used, used the migrant frame as it was before. What this really shows us is if you are in a policy position, you need to understand the power of images.
00:09:01 - and understandably so, is quite ad hoc, because people don't really understand why is it that one image cuts through and another doesn't. So I think what that suggests is that policy makers or those who are seeking to move a particular agenda, perhaps through a social movement, or perhaps through a policy intervention, need to be aware of when particular images become available and how they're gonna be received. And it's often very difficult to know that in advance.

The Impact of Images on Media Framing

00:09:31 - and being able to move agilely on your feet so that you can take advantage of situations when they come up. The other thing to know is that often your window of opportunity is gonna be short-lived. So for a period of time that after the publication of Alan K's image on that beach, everybody's shifted. But we saw over time that people shifted back again, certainly the, those in the right wing organizations or, or right-leaning organizations, I should say.
00:10:03 - So taking advantage of that to move a particular agenda forward can be important. I think also it's important to recognize, and, and we've been very bad at this, we don't look at the media in a graded form superficially. We understand that there's right-leaning media, there's left-leaning media, and we know that the interpretation of issues is gonna be different, but what we don't look at is the impact of that difference. And I think that's something that's become really apparent
00:10:33 - In terms of future direction, I think that is something that we do need to understand more about is how does ideology interact with, frames, interact with emotions more broadly, the way in which emotions have an impact. So prior to our work, if you looked at most of the research, if not all of the research, that was published, it tended to say that emotional impacts are short lived. Well, what we see in this particular piece of research is that emotional impact does have a long lasting effect.
00:11:06 - that actually there was a long lasting effect in terms of the language that was used. And in terms of the, the emotional array we talk about, in the paper, the way in which that changed. So even though the frame shifted, the emotional array and the, the use of language really was, there was a long lasting effect there. But we don't know much about the, the longevity of that. And of course, we're looking at a very extreme situation,
00:11:53 - It would be really interesting, I think, to know more about how these images play out over time in different sets of circumstances, how contextual understanding shift and the way in which, images are taken and our temporal and geographic proximity to them influences the, the impact that they have on us.

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