Public Journalism’s Use of Visual Communication in an Election
1
U
SE OF
V
ISUAL
C
OMMUNICATION IN
P
UBLIC
J
OURNALISM
N
EWSPAPERS
D
URING AN
E
LECTION
: A C
ONTENT
A
NALYSIS OF THE
P
HOTOGRAPHS AND
G
RAPHIC
E
LEMENTS IN
C
AMPAIGN
2000
INTRODUCTION
The birth of public journalism in the mass media is often traced to an election. The
presidential campaign of 1988 is frequently identified as the event that led journalists to
rethink their coverage of the political process and their role in public life (Gade et al.,
1998; Rosen & Merritt, 1994). Much of the literature credits media coverage that focused
on the political horse race, strategy, and candidate personality at the expense of issues
with increasing citizen apathy and propelling journalists to redefine their role of mass
communication in society (Rosen, 1991, 1994; McMillan, Guppy, Kunz & Reis, 1999;
Brewin, 1999; Blazier & Lemert, 2000; Maier & Potter, 2001).
One of the earliest experiments with this new kind of journalism was also in an
election – the Wichita Eagle’s coverage of the 1990 Kansas gubernatorial campaign
(Merritt & Rosen, 1998). Public journalism has not focused on elections alone, of course,
but with politics so often the backdrop for public journalism in mass media, it seems
appropriate to revisit its study in another election -- the general election of 2000 – now
that public journalism has had a decade to develop. It is also time to take the scholarship
to another level to include examination of the visual message mass media convey via
photography and graphic design, instead of looking only at the verbal message. Since the
birth of public journalism, many studies have analyzed it to see if it is fulfilling its stated
goals and compared it to “traditional” journalism to see what, if any, difference exists.
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