Generic Visuals in the News: The Role of Stock Photos and Simple Data Visualizations in Assembling Publics

This project investigates the role that generic visuals play in assembling publics. By 'generic visuals', we mean images with standardized formats and appearances, which perform particular design functions and which circulate with increasing frequency in the news media. By 'assembling publics', we refer to a range of processes, including bringing groups of people together around shared interests and concerns, activating citizens to care (or not) about particular issues, making possible (or not) various forms of engagement, including democratic decision-making, and facilitating or inhibiting the spread of disinformation. Employing the concept of assembling publics, we build on Warner's (2002) argument that publics are brought into being in a variety of ways. In other words, publics do not pre-exist efforts to inform and influence them; they come into being, or are assembled, in part through encounters with informational and communicative forms, such as the news media. These news media are not made up of words alone - they are also visual. However, even in the limited research which acknowledges the significance of visuals in the news, analyses prioritize arresting and iconic images, and recent studies of data visualizations in the media have likewise focused on those that are award-winning or considered beautiful. Yet what we call generic visuals increasingly populate journalism and other information sources, off and online, across mobile apps and other digital platforms. Given their ubiquity, understanding of the roles that these generic visual forms play in the processes listed above, or in assembling publics, is urgently needed. The 2015 image of Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach is an example of an iconic visual that brought people together around a shared concern, but do similar processes take place in relation to everyday, generic visuals? The overarching aim of this research is therefore to develop new understanding of the role that generic visuals play in assembling publics, focusing on two distinct visual forms, stock photos and simple data visualizations. We will realize this aim by addressing these research questions: 1) How do practitioners involved in the production of generic visuals do their work and think about the visuals and the audiences who engage with them? 2) What are the semiotic characteristics, designed forms and specific uses of generic visuals? How do the formal properties of generic visuals contribute to assembling publics? 3) How do audiences make sense of and engage with generic visuals? These questions will be addressed by combining methods from three scholarly traditions: production studies (RQ1, focusing on production); semiotics (RQ2, focusing on visual texts); and audience studies (RQ3, focusing on audience engagements) in an empirically grounded social semiotic approach. We will carry out our research in collaboration with three diverse partner organizations that produce and circulate generic images, concentrating on their online output. The first publishes a range of regional tabloids and a national tabloid newspaper; the second is a broadsheet newspaper; the third is a regional news organization. Following secondary analysis of datasets from our previous research with producers of data journalism, stock photos and data visualizations, we will carry out: fieldwork in each partner organization (RQ1); visual analysis of generic visuals produced and used by each partner (RQ2); and interviews with partner organization audiences (RQ3). Through a programme of impact activities with partner organizations, workshops designed in collaboration with an anti-disinformation charity collaborator, and an exhibition targeted at audiences, our research aims to inform professional practice and public perceptions in relation to generic visuals in the news.