The end and the beginning:a model for analyzing visual/verbal news broadcasts of protest coverage

Abstract

This project brings together two areas of prior research: framing and visual rhetoric. Framing as it relates to news coverage of protests constitutes the core theoretical foundation. In using prior research by McLeod, Gitlin, and Lee, we see how news coverage can potentially bias an audience against protestors. However, this research focuses extensively on newspapers or transcripts of televised news. Consequently, by combining visual theories like semiotics, gestalt, and film theory into a visual model, we can understand how already established framing devices make their way from text to visual l presentations. Here I propose a five-level model for understanding the visual and textual elements of social protest news coverage.