Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Newspaper Photographs and Voter Evaluations of Political Candidates

• Published in: Harvard international journal of press/politics Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 98 - 113
• Main Authors: Barrett, Andrew W., Barrington, Lowell W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks, CA SAGE Publications 01.10.2005
• Subjects: Candidates; Elections; Mass Media Effects; Sex Differences; newspaper photographs; elections; candidate image; gender differences; voting decisions; media effects
• ISSN: 1081-180X; 1531-328X
• DOI: 10.1177/1081180X05281392

Recent evidence indicates that political coverage in newspapers varies from outlet to outlet in correlation with the political atmosphere of those papers.Visual images from photographs of political candidates published in these newspapers are no exception. Although previous works have examined the importance of visual images on observer evaluations, little work has been done to assess whether differing newspaper photographs of a political candidate can actually shape how potential voters view that candidate. We address this gap in the extant literature through an experiment designed to assess the potential influence of candidate photographs on voter perceptions when partisanship is not available as a heuristic device.The results of our study indicate that newspaper photographs can shape how voters evaluate a candidate's personal traits, their general impression of that candidate,and their decision whether to vote for that candidate.We also found thatwomen and men are affected differently by photographs, with the former influenced more by a positive picture and the latter triggered by a negative one.