Image Versus Text: How Newspaper Reports Affect Evaluations of Political Candidates

Authors

  • Hajo Boomgaarden University of Vienna
  • Mark Boukes University of Amsterdam
  • Aurora Iorgoveanu Holcim

Keywords:

candidate traits, experiment gender, image effects, visual versus text

Abstract

News coverage has become more visual and research suggests that news images affect assessments of political candidates. This study experimentally investigates the effects of textual versus visual on assessments of politicians’ competency and integrity, differentially for males and females. The results show that differences in visual favorability, combined with positive or negative verbal information, shape how people perceive male and female political candidates. The findings suggest that images do matter, but not more so than text, and their impact varies depending on the type of assessment and candidate gender. The results are discussed in light of the image superiority effect and its applicability to candidate communication.

Author Biographies

Hajo Boomgaarden, University of Vienna

Hajo G. Boomgaarden (Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, 2007) is Professor for Empirical Social Science Methods with a Focus on Text Analysis at the Department of Methods for the Social Sciences at the University of Vienna. His research focusses on media effects in political communication and on the portrayal of political issues in the news and other communication environments. 

Mark Boukes, University of Amsterdam

Mark Boukes (Ph.D., University of Amsterdam, 2015) is currently post-doctoral researcher at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research. His research interests include the societal and political consequences of political communication in general, and new political media formats, such as infotainment and soft news, in particular.

Aurora Iorgoveanu, Holcim

Aurora Iorgoveanu is PhD in Communication Sciences, at the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, in Romania. Her research interests include media gender studies, the news framing process - including both visual and verbal cues, and framing effects.

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Published

2016-05-25

Issue

Vol. 10 (2016)

Section

Articles

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