The visual information presented in televised news constitutes an important underused and underestimated information resource. After pointing out that human brains extract valuable information from audiovisuals more quickly and more easily than from purely verbal information, the author discusses the advantages of audiovisual processing. They include a more comprehensive and error-free grasp of information, better recall, and greater emotional involvement. Attention then turns to research findings about the content and format of current television news. It is richer than generally believed in significant visually conveyed information that is not covered by the words. It falls far short, however, of taking full advantage of the medium's potential to serve as a vicarious political experience and to offer benefit from the intimacy of the involvement. The article ends with a plea to focus television news on information that citizens in the post-Gutenberg era really need to know in order to carry out the civic functions that they actually perform.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
1. Allen Paivio, Imagery and Verbal Processes (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1979).
2.
2. Judee K. Burgoon, “Nonverbal Communication Research in the 1970's: An Overview,” in Communication Yearbook IV, ed. Dan Nimmo (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1980), pp. 179-197.
3.
Paul Messaris , “Visual `Literacy': A Theoretical Synthesis,”Communication Theory, 3:277-294 (Nov. 1993).
4.
4. Jerry Lee Salvaggio, A Theory of Film Language (New York: Arno Press, 1980).
5.
Messaris , “Visual `Literacy.' ”
6.
Glasgow University Media Group , More Bad News (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980).
7.
Harold Stanley and Richard Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 2d ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1990).
8.
8. Paivio, Imagery and Verbal Processes, p. 387.
9.
Mickie Edwardsonet al. , “Audio Recall Immediately Following Video Change in Television News,”Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 36:395-410 (1992).
10.
10. An audiovisual theme was defined as “a shot or shots of the same subject, bounded by adjacent scenes of different subjects. A new scene meant cutting to a completely new subject, not merely motion within a scene” or a change in photographic techniques. Verbal themes were similarly defined, with one or several statements about the same subject composing a theme. Doris A. Graber, “Seeing Is Remembering: How Visuals Contribute to Learning from Television News,”Journal of Communication, 40:135-136 (1990).
11.
11. The top memory scores for individual news stories were high recall of 19 percent of the verbal themes, compared to 39 percent of the audiovisual themes. Doris A. Graber, “What You See Is What You Get” (Paper delivered at the convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 1991).
12.
Edwardsonet al. , “Audio Recall.”
13.
13. Annie Lang and Marian Friestad, “Emotion, Hemispheric Specialization, and Visual and Verbal Memory for Television Messages,”Communication Research, 20:647-670 (1993).
14.
14. Graber, “Seeing Is Remembering.”
15.
15. Calvin Pryluck, Sources of Meaning in Motion Pictures and Television (New York: Arno Press, 1976).
16.
16. Carolyn D. Lewis, Reporting for Television (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).
17.
17. Roper Organization. America's Watching: Public Attitudes Towards Television (New York: Roper Organization, 1991).
18.
18. Hamid Mowlana, Herbert Schiller, and George Gerbner, Triumph of the Image: The Media's War in the Persian Gulf (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).
19.
19. Television received a 5.5 ranking on a 7-point scale. W. Russell Neuman, Marion P. Just, and Ann N. Crigler, Common Knowledge: News and the Construction of Political Meaning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
20.
20. Frederike Heuer and Daniel Reisberg, “Vivid Memories of Emotional Events: The Accuracy of Remembered Minutiae,”Memory & Cognition, 18:496-506 (1990).
21.
Sharon Lynn Sperry , “Television News as Narrative,”Understanding Television, ed. Richard P. Adler (New York: Praeger, 1981), pp. 295-312.
22.
Samuel L. Popkin , The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
23.
23. Michael A. Milburn and Anne B. McGrail, “The Dramatic Presentation of News and Its Effects on Cognitive Complexity,”Political Psychology, 13:613-632 (1992).
24.
Cynthia Hoffner and Joanne Cantor, “Perceiving and Responding to Mass Media Characters,” in Responding to the Screen: Reception and Reaction Processes, ed. Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991), pp. 63-101.
25.
25. Paul Ekman, ed., Emotion in the Human Face, 2d ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
26.
idem , “Nonverbal Behavior, Emotions, and Democratic Leadership,” in Reconsidering the Democratic Public, ed. George Marcus and Russell Hanson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), pp. 307-332.
27.
27. Hoffner and Cantor, “Perceiving and Responding.”
28.
28. Graber, “What You See Is What You Get.”
29.
Doris A. Graber , Processing the News: How People Tame the Information Tide, 2d ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993).
30.
idem , “Medium Theory,” in Communication Theory Today, ed. David Crowley and David Mitchell (New York: Polity Press, 1994), pp. 50-77.
31.
James F. Larson and Heung-Soo Park, Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).
32.
Mike Budd , Robert Entman, and Clay Steinman, “The Affirmative Character of U.S. Cultural Studies,”Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7:169-184 (1990).
33.
Robinson and Levy, Main Source.
34.
34. Jib Fowles, Why Viewers Watch: A Reappraisal of Television's Effects, rev. ed. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992), p. 107.
35.
35. Roderick P. Hart, How Television Charms the Modern Voter (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
36.
Kathleen H. Jamieson and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, The Interplay of Influence: Mass Media and Their Publics in News, Advertising, Politics, 2d ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1988).
37.
37. Don E. Tomlinson, Computer Manipulation and Creation of Images and Sounds: Assessing the Impact (Washington, DC: Annenberg Washington Program, 1993).
38.
Wolfgang Donsbach , Hans-Bernd Brosius, and Axel Mattenklott, “How Unique Is the Perspective of Television? A Field Experiment on the Perception of a Campaign Event by Participants and Television Viewers,”Political Communication, 10:37-53 (1993).
39.
39. Michael Griffin, “Looking at TV News: Strategies for Research,”Communication, 13:127 (1992).
40.
40. Hans Mathias Kepplinger, “The Impact of Presentation Techniques: Theoretical Aspects and Empirical Findings,” in Television and Political Advertising, ed. Biocca, 2:173-194.
41.
41. Gladys Engel Lang and Kurt Lang, “The Unique Perspective of Television and Its Effects: A Pilot Study,”American Sociological Review, 18:3-12 (1953).
42.
42. Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in American Policy Preferences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
43.
43. Jib Fowles, Why Viewers Watch: A Reappraisal of Television's Effects, rev. ed. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992).
44.
44. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), p. 163.
