Abstract
This study examined how TIME Magazine has visually represented and communicated ideas about education from TIME Magazine’s inception in 1923 through 2019. Drawing on theories of visual culture and social semiotic approaches to multimodality, the researchers conducted a qualitative multimodal content analysis of 115 covers that featured content related to education and schooling. The findings included (a) names and places are used to suggest authority, power, or relevance in education circles; (b) learning and schooling are presented as having not changed over time; (c) overgeneralized and metonymic representations can stand for broad categories of education stakeholders; (d) schools are presented as in need of fixing; and (e) schools are perceived as sites for larger, sociopolitical debates.
Introduction
The American news media has long played a role on the national stage. Within a functioning democracy, the free press is expected to (a) inform citizens about public affairs so that individuals can participate in the democratic process; (b) scrutinize those with the ability to exercise power to protect the people from wrongdoing; (c) “provide a platform of open debate that facilitates the formation of public opinion”; and (d) represent the voice and views of the people by “expressing the agreed aims of society” (Curran, 2005, p. 120). In this role, the American news media has the power to profoundly shape issues by bringing them to the fore (Streitmatter, 2018).
Recent controversies surrounding the prevalence of “fake news” and the role of the media in shaping national knowledge and understanding of key social, political, and cultural issues suggest that scholars need to interrogate how the media construct and represent such issues to their consumers and audiences. Furthermore, in this digital era, when image-based texts count as information currency, visuals are “consumed and circulated at exponential rates” (McMaster, 2018, p. 53). Scholarship should, then, look to understand how language, images, and design are used by media corporations to construct current events.
The construction of news and information by the media is particularly important for scholars in education and related fields. News coverage focused on education makes up less than 3% of the total national news coverage (Campanella, 2015; Coe & Kuttner, 2018; West et al., 2009), and it is often superficial, biased, and uninformed by research (Coe & Kuttner, 2018; Gerstl-Pepin, 2002; Goldstein, 2011). Yet news coverage of education has the potential to influence what educational issues policymakers and the public view as important, as well as their opinions regarding those educational issues (Coe & Kuttner, 2018; O’Neil, 2012).
With a few exceptions (e.g., Goldstein, 2011), research that examines the representation of education in the news media has focused on television broadcast coverage and newspaper articles rather than magazines and their covers. This is perhaps because it is difficult to track magazines’ impact on the public (McQuail, 2010). Regardless, magazines are historically considered an important mass media development and remain a significant factor in shaping opinions and politics, often exercising influence beyond their circulation size (McQuail, 2010). Considered one of the
This study is part of a larger, ongoing line of inquiry in which we examine how a range of weekly news magazines depicted education on their covers. However, the purpose of this study was to understand how
How did
What did an analysis of the multimodal features of
In this article, we review the literature around news media and education, specifically discussing the importance of magazines and magazine covers. Then, we outline the theories of visual culture and social semiotic approaches to multimodality that we draw on to frame this study. In our methods section, we define education within the context of this study, discuss the development of the data set, and outline our qualitative multimodal content analysis (MMCA) of
Literature Review
Research on News Media and Education
There exists a growing body of international research concerning the role of the media in shaping education policy (Coe & Kuttner, 2018) as well as in representing education and teachers (e.g., Barwell & Abtahi, 2015; Ford et al., 2015; Shine & O’Donoghue, 2013). Specific to education in the United States, findings from this research reveal that education is minimally covered by the news media and, when it is, that coverage paints an overwhelmingly negative picture.
According to West et al. (2009), less than 1% in 2007, 0.7% in 2008, and 1.4% from January 2009 to September 2009 of national news coverage across a variety of media concerned education. In 2007, only four topics received less attention than education (the court/legal system, development/sprawl, transportation, and religion), whereas celebrity/entertainment (2%), lifestyle (3.4%), and sports (1.9%) received greater coverage (West, Whitehurst, & Dionne, 2009). Similar trends were observed in 2008 and 2009. Campanella (2015) found that only 2.3% of television broadcast national news stories addressed K–12 education. However, Campanella did find that local news coverage of education was on the rise in 2014.
Within this small percentage of national news coverage, education is generally represented negatively. Television broadcast news coverage of education tends to be triggered by specific events (e.g., school shootings, teacher strikes, the publication of
While the research focused on the representation of education and education stakeholders (e.g., teachers, students) in the news media has increased, much of the existing research is limited to specific time periods or events (e.g., Campanella, 2015; Coe & Kuttner, 2018; Cohen, 2010; Gerstl-Pepin, 2002; O’Neil, 2012). To the best of our knowledge, no research has been attempted that examines news media coverage of education over a longer period of time.
Magazine Covers as Visual Artifacts
According to Hall (1997), “culture is concerned with the production and exchange of meanings” (p. 2). Visual artifacts (e.g., magazine covers) and resources have always been involved in the construction of social life (Rose, 2016), but now that we are fully entrenched in the digital era, “the world told” through language has increasingly become “the world shown” (Kress, 2003, p. 1) through visuals and graphic design. This means that visual artifacts are created according to how their makers understand the world. It also means that images contribute to how the world is understood and play a role in producing, reproducing, and contributing to the dominance of hegemonic ideologies that uphold the interests of those with power and status in society (Sturken & Cartwright, 2001). Reader-viewers (Serafini, 2012) can choose to accept, reject, or interrogate any text (Janks, 2010) and have the power to deviate from the “dominant” or “preferred” readings (Hall, 1997) intended by the artifact producer.
It has been argued that the front cover is the most important aspect of a text (Yampbell, 2005). The front cover is designed to lure the reader into consuming the product (Gilbert & Viswanathan, 2007) and should be considered a persuasive marketing tool with rhetorical goals similar to print advertisements. Williamson (1978) described how advertisements assume a certain spectator, positioning the audience in relation to the product being sold. Just like advertisements, covers often integrate ideological components to appeal to the reader (Jupowicz-Ginalska, 2018). Significantly, consumers do not have to purchase or subscribe to magazines before interpreting their covers. Readers can form ideas about the topics represented on covers through brief transactions at various sites of dissemination (Rose, 2016)—at newsstands, in dental offices, online, or in the hands of another person.
Theoretical Framework
As magazine covers are multimodal texts, this study was guided by a social semiotic approach to multimodality. Multimodal scholarship (Jewitt, 2017; Kress, 2010; Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001) argues that humans communicate using a wide range of modes of representation and communication. While written and spoken language are viewed as significant modes of human communication, a social semiotic approach to multimodality maintains that all modes have equal potential to contribute to meaning-making activity. A text maker uses the available modes, materials, and tools to produce a communicative act (Kress, 2010).
When taking magazine covers into consideration, the image is as valuable as the printed text. Each mode offers distinct potentials for meaning (Jewitt & Oyama, 2001) that will be realized when a reader-viewer transacts with the text during a meaning-making activity (Serafini, 2012). Furthermore, the meaning potentials offered through one mode will always be affected and altered by the meaning potentials offered through the other modes used to construct the text (Hull & Nelson, 2005; Lemke, 1998). It is important to examine the interaction of multiple modes within a given text (Flewitt et al., 2017) and to understand how different modes “interanimate” each other (Meek, 1992).
Importantly, social semiotics recognizes the human and cultural aspect of semiotic work. Any representation is a human rendering of an object or concept. Representational semiotic labor will never reproduce reality precisely or exactly. Meaning will always be made anew, and any representation is partial, constrained by the text producer’s interests, the social context, and the semiotic resources and tools available (Kress, 2010). As Al Zidjaly (2012) observed, to “capture the full realization of images” used by magazines, images must be understood as “carry[ing] histories” (p. 190) and should be linked to broad social and political contexts across timescales (Lemke, 2005). In choosing to examine
Methods
Defining Education
Historically, scholars within the field of education have made a distinction between education and schooling. Education is a process in which knowledge, including childhood socialization and acculturation, is transferred from one generation to the next, both inside and outside formal school environments (Brandwein, 1981; Shujaa, 1993). In contrast, schooling is a process that identifies the concepts, values, and skills that are deemed important by a community and transfers them through the constraints and power dynamics of institutional structures (Brandwein, 1981; Shujaa, 1993). While these definitions are accepted by scholars in the field, they are not widely known or recognized by the public or the media.
Within the context of this study, we define education as the process of teaching and learning of individuals in prekindergarten through postsecondary in the context of public, private, charter, and home schools within the United States. Education also encompasses the experiences and perspectives of various stakeholders (e.g., students, teachers, parents, and administrators) within and around the contexts mentioned above.
Data Set
It was not our intent to analyze all of
We collected all covers (
After collecting the covers, we reviewed the developing data corpus for redundancy. Then, we compared the covers with the definition of education used for this study to determine if the collected covers fell within the scope of this project. Within the images, we considered who (e.g., students, parents, teachers) and what (e.g., universities, schools, classrooms) were represented. Within the text, we considered the words (e.g.,
When excluding covers, images and text were considered both independently and holistically. As multiple connotations are possible for both words and images, many covers required discussion and consideration of context. For example, the March 22, 2010, cover, which features the image of a digitized hand balancing a lightbulb atop one finger alongside the headline “10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years” was ultimately eliminated from our data set. We agreed that the lightbulb could be connected with education because of its common association with bright ideas. However, when considered in context, this lightbulb seemed more closely connected to innovation and future thinking, through phrases like “bandwidth is the new black gold” and “TV will save the world,” than to education as we defined it.
After elaborating on our findings, we revisited the covers we had initially excluded from the data corpus. We considered whether each cover had been prematurely eliminated and discussed if and how each cover would reinforce or challenge our findings. Ultimately, we found that the covers we had debated on and excluded would not have altered our findings. The final data corpus consisted of 115 covers related to education published between the years 1923 and 2019.
Qualitative Multimodal Content Analysis
To better understand visual and multimodal data, researchers have begun to blend theories of multimodality with a variety of qualitative research methodologies (Jewitt, 2009), such as content analysis. The goal of qualitative content analysis is to provide “a systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes and patterns” that aids in the subjective interpretation of data (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1278). Historically, qualitative content analysis has been used to examine textual or linguistic data (Kohlbacher, 2006). By utilizing theoretical perspectives and analytical processes that consider the nature of multimodal texts, representation, and communication, the potential of qualitative content analysis can be expanded to address visual media (Bateman, 2008).
To analyze our data corpus, we utilized a qualitative MMCA approach (Serafini & Reid, 2019). This methodology brings together qualitative content analysis and theories of social semiotics and visual culture to better understand the potential meanings of multimodal texts. MMCA permits investigation of broad data corpora. It differs from other multimodal methodologies that focus on single multimodal phenomena (Lim & O’Halloran, 2012). When encountering a collection of multimodal artifacts, such as print advertisements for particular products or movie trailers, using MMCA allows investigators to look across the collection of artifacts to construct thematic patterns and findings.
Analytical Process
Analytical Instrument
We used an MMCA instrument (Appendix A) to analyze the
The tool draws on social semiotic theories of multimodality as described in our theoretical framework. Specifically, the tool was influenced by Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar. Adapted from Halliday’s (1978) systemic functional linguistic framework, Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) visual grammar asserted that images can be understood in systemic functional linguistic terms of three
As Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) framework centered on images, we added a section to the tool that addressed how the different modes of communication worked together. This enabled the research team to examine how the words, images, and design offered complementary or conflicting information (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2000). Another section required the analysts to consider the ideological aspects of the text and explore the covers’ connection to the sociocultural contexts in which the texts were produced and received (Rose, 2016). These aspects of the analytical tool helped us to consider the potential interpretations of the
We used the refined instrument to conduct an in-depth analysis of five covers randomly selected from the initial data corpus. (See Appendix B for an example of a completed analysis.) Each researcher analyzed the same five covers. We then met to compare and discuss the differences and similarities within our analyses. Additional questions were added to help refine our understanding of the categories we constructed.
Data Analysis
The remaining covers from the initial data corpus (
The resulting analyses were then coded for frequencies and tendencies within the data using an interpretive analytical approach (Erickson, 1986, 2012). According to Erickson (1986, 2012), interpretive analysis is a recursive and reflexive process during which researchers repeatedly review the data corpus to inductively generate assertions. As we constructed our categories, we also repeatedly reviewed the data set for disconfirming evidence.
After establishing four categories, we reviewed the remaining data corpus and sorted the remaining covers into these categories. During this process, we noted the frequent use of universities’ and individuals’ names on the covers, leading to the construction of a fifth category. While all five categories span the whole of the
Researcher Positionality
We acknowledge that our backgrounds and experience influence the way we approach and conduct research as well as how we interpret and analyze data. According to Tracy (2013), such subjectivity is a strength for a qualitative researcher, whose mind and body “literally serve as research instruments—absorbing, sifting through, and interpreting the world” (p. 3). During our process, we noted that different researchers possessed different strengths and perspectives. Dani and Stephanie, who specialize in multimodality, noticed nuances in the cover compositions that Kathryn did not. Kathryn, who specializes in education policy, recognized language within the textual elements that signaled particular education policies and political movements related to education with which Dani and Stephanie were not familiar. These small but critical differences in our viewing of the covers led us to conclude that all three researchers needed to contribute to the analysis of every cover in the data set. It is important to note that as education researchers and former classroom teachers we act and conduct research for the benefit of public education, classroom teachers, and students.
Results
Through our analysis, we constructed five primary categories: (a) names and places are used to suggest authority, power, or relevance in education circles; (b) learning and school are presented as having not changed over time; (c) overgeneralized and metonymic representations can stand for broad categories of education stakeholders; (d) schools are presented as in need of fixing; and (e) schools are perceived as sites for larger, sociopolitical debates.
Names Suggest Authority, Power, or Relevance in Education Circles
Beginning as early as 1924, the most common trend found across
Such centering of individuals was by design. According to Angeletti and Oliva (2010), Henry Luce and Briton Hadden,
It was not until the 1940s and 1950s that covers began to consistently include backgrounds that provided readers with context that hinted at why a particular individual was featured (Angeletti & Oliva, 2010). Interestingly, within our data set, this shift also signals the beginning of a deficit framing of education wherein the individuals named on the covers become saviors of a broken or failing system. While a few covers prior to the 1940s included backgrounds, an uninterrupted trend of contextualized covers began within our data set, starting with the September 23, 1946, cover, where president of Harvard, James Bryant Conant, appears against a backdrop of ivy and the Harvard shield, which is suggestive of his affiliation with Harvard.
K–12 schools’ names were also featured, as were the names of students and teachers. In contrast with the prestige affiliated with institutions of higher education, K–12 school building names tend to be linked with tragedy and disaster. Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland were used to signify their importance in an ongoing national conversation about guns and school shootings in the United States. Columbine High School, in particular, is mentioned by name four times on
Photographs and names of public school teachers also appear. Most notably, there are three different versions of the September 24, 2018, cover. On each cover, an individual teacher appears along with a brief description of their financial hardship. Each description ends with the statement “I am a teacher in America.” Unlike the majority of covers in this category, these covers are
Learning and Schooling Have Not Changed
Across the decades,
Thus, through these covers,
Another symbol that appears on many covers is graduation regalia. The regalia on the early covers signaled academic prestige and intellectual prowess. For example, caps and gowns were worn in the portraits of both Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur (February 28, 1927) and Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler (February 15, 1932), who were the presidents of Stanford University and Columbia University, respectively. On later covers, graduation regalia is linked to students finding careers postcollege. Across the decades, the individuals wearing graduation regalia are overwhelmingly white and male. It is notable that high school graduation regalia is not worn by any student on any
Overgeneralized and Metonymic Representations Stand for Education Stakeholders
Beginning in 1950 and continuing through 2014, schools and stakeholders were represented through the use of overgeneralizations or through metonymic representations that overlook the complex and diverse nature of education (
Schools were presented as a singular collective. The institution of schooling became the decision maker, not a public institution composed of individuals responsible for making decisions. On the March 17, 1997, cover, the headline “How Colleges Are Gouging U” implies that the institution of college, not the individuals who set college policies and procedures, is doing the gouging. Similarly, the institution of college is overgeneralized as a “trap” for college athletes (April 3, 1989) and as “strapped for money” (April 13, 1992). Certainly, these issues of rising tuition, university funding, and paying college athletes are concerns that affect a number of universities. However, overgeneralizing these issues as being of concern in every college fails to acknowledge the sheer variety of college experiences.
When representing key stakeholders (e.g., children, teachers, and parents), covers tended to rely on metonymy. For example, the January 25, 1999, cover features a white, male, middle-class student paired with the headline “Too Much Homework! How It’s Hurting Our Kids, and What Parents Should Do About It.” This child functions as a stand-in for all students. However, this is a metonymic fallacy, wherein who or what is represented “is taken as an accurate reflection of the whole of that which it is standing for” (Chandler, 2007, p. 133). This is a fallacy because the experiences of this child will be vastly different from those of children of color and other genders. Such metonymic representations do not acknowledge the wide variety of experiences had by individuals from different racial, gender, social, and economic groups. Nor do they acknowledge the uniqueness within categories of stakeholders, and as such, they present these categories as fact or truth (i.e., this student’s experience is the only experience). Not all metonymic representations utilized people. The November 3, 2014, cover portrays a gavel smashing an apple alongside the headline “Rotten Apples.” This absence of complexity in representation serves to dehumanize schools and key stakeholders.
Schools Are in Need of Fixing
While the aforementioned covers focused on students as the victims of the institution of schooling, a number of covers also isolated “bad teachers” as a reason for the failing of American education. The October 15, 1965, cover, featuring Commissioner Keppel, a renowned Harvard University educator and U.S. Commissioner of Education (from 1962 to 1965), displays the following statement: “Education is too important to be left solely to the educators.” The visual contains a portrait of Keppel and an image of the classic one-room schoolhouse with a giant funnel whose vertical
While good K–12 classroom teachers are not represented, other education personnel are represented as potential saviors of the education system. The November 15, 1963, cover presented Calvin Gross, New York City’s superintendent, and the October 15, 1965, cover presented Commissioner Keppel as powerful public administrators with dollars to dedicate to schools. The September 16, 1991, cover asks if the then education secretary, Lamar Alexander, is capable of saving America’s schools. The cover shows him framed by a ray of light against the backdrop of a darkened classroom. On the December 8, 2008, cover, Michelle Rhee, the then head of Washington, D.C., schools, posed with a broomstick to show how she was preparing to “fix America’s schools” by cleaning schools and ridding them of bad teachers. The broomstick also indexed her vilification as a result of her “battle against bad teachers.” Neither image shows these saviors interacting with the classroom environment or with any education stakeholders. As conceptual representations, these images do not visibly show the actors’ specific goals and actions. These saviors emanated from spaces outside of school buildings and districts, suggesting that an outside overseer is needed for our education system to work. Importantly, the outside personnel must have money.
Schools Are Sites for Larger, Sociopolitical Debates
These covers present dichotomies and divisions. The November 15, 1971, cover addresses White and Black citizens’ vocalizations of their disagreements regarding forced busing, a required element of many court-ordered school district desegregation plans. This cover displays a school bus against an orange background, which is divided in half by a vertical vector with one half painted white and the other black. A young Black girl stands next to the white half of the bus, and a young White girl stands next to the black half of the bus. In the two front windows, two different landscapes are presented—one a suburb and the other a cityscape. On this cover, black and white are presented in opposition, as are inner cities and suburbs.
Other covers attempt to humanize the issues. To accomplish this, many of the covers utilized staged photographs of models. In doing so,
In some cases, the covers featured photographs of specific individuals to both humanize issues and shock audiences. The
Discussion
Collectively, these findings reveal that the representations of education on the covers of
Directs Attention Away From People and Communities
The use of symbolic objects and metonymic representations directs the viewers’ attention away from individuals and communities. Using visual and textual metaphors such as “bad apples” to represent teachers hides the people who teach the nation’s children, keeping their humanity, the complexity of their work, and the multitude of possibilities for why they might be deemed a “bad teacher” out of sight. Furthermore, to portray the classroom in terms of traditional symbols of learning, such as pencils, books, desks, and chalkboards, is to ignore the human, personal, and affective dimensions of learning. A maintained focus on such symbols also hides the technological, digital, and global potentials of education in the 21st century. A review of current education research and practices reveals that learning environments, student demographics, and the tools and curricula used by teachers and administrators have changed and responded to digital and technological innovation (e.g., Beach & O’Brien, 2014; Mills, 2016; Smagorinsky, 2017). Yet
Sells Quick Fixes to Education
The use of oversimplifications, overgeneralizations, and metonymic representations also promotes the view that education is simplistic and, thus, can be easily fixed—by a person, an injection of cash, new practices, or technology. This perspective fails to recognize that problems may vary from school to school, district to district, and state to state. The issues that Michelle Rhee was trying to address in Washington, D.C., are likely not the same issues faced by schools elsewhere. Education separated from its local and broader contexts appears to be a much more manageable and fixable entity than to see each school and district as unique entities whose problems require unique solutions. Such an oversimplified view also ignores the social actors—the teachers, students, administrators, and parents—who inhabit these school spaces. To see schools and districts through their local and situated contexts is to embrace their individual complexity.
Offers Conflicting Messages About Education
When education is presented in such a simplistic fashion, the broader responsibilities of schools and education are missed. While college and career readiness is certainly one of the purposes of schools and education, these covers force us to ask, college and career readiness for whom? Considering the number of White males depicted wearing graduation regalia, the message becomes clear that college and career readiness is reserved for White men. In contrast, the finding that schools are sites for political and social debates reminds us that schools and education are not neutral but, rather, are tied to the values, beliefs, and attitudes of society. As such, schools and other educational contexts become places where political, religious, and social ideologies are tested. The Parkland students-turned-advocates presented on
Future Directions
This study focused exclusively on the covers of
We invite other education stakeholders to examine representations of education in
Conclusion
As our study shows,
Today, the media continue to disseminate images and stories about how education in the United States is failing students, how the education system itself is corrupt, and how parents and advocates need to take action. With the infrequency with which the media discuss education topics (Campanella, 2015; Coe & Kuttner, 2018; Dionne et al., 2009), some members of society who are unfamiliar with education beyond their own experiences as students may come to know about education solely through these outlets. Such infrequent and specific perspectives may disguise the multifaceted and complex nature of the field of education.
There is a need for publicly shared interrogation of these images and for the U.S. public to critically view constructions of education. Other texts and viewpoints on education should be sought and also examined. We believe that all stakeholders in education and education research should address problematic representations and provide counterstories in response. Alternative narratives may become increasingly necessary, especially as the roles and lives of K–12 educators and students garner national attention due to the pandemic and the systemic failures exposed by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Footnotes
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F
Appendix G
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge and thank the members of Division F: History and Historiography and the greater American Educational Research Association community who attended our roundtable presentation of this research and provided feedback and insight into our process. Your support was instrumental in refining this article for publication.
Authors
DANI KACHORSKY is an assistant professor of literacy education in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning Sciences in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. Her research focuses on the nature of multimodal texts, readers’ transactions with multimodal texts, and the pedagogical approaches that support the use of multimodal texts in classroom spaces and other educational contexts.
STEPHANIE F. REID is an assistant professor of literacy education in the Phyllis J. Washington College of Education at the University of Montana. Her research focuses on multimodal literacies pedagogy in elementary and middle school classroom contexts.
KATHRYN CHAPMAN is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on the intersection of policy, leadership, and financial investments to address inequities across early childhood systems.