Visual Frames of War Photojournalism, Empathy, Compassion, and Information Seeking

Abstract

Although it has long been assumed that pictures depicting the human suffering of war evoke empathy and compassion, which leads to social action, there is little empirical evidence of that claim. This study aimed to fill the gap in visual communication theory about the effects of war photojournalism on media consumers' emotional and behavioral responses. This mixed methods design included a between-subjects experimental design tested whether photos (from conflicts in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo) with a human-cost-of-war visual frame had significantly different effects on participants' levels of empathy, compassion, personal distress, other-oriented distress, and information seeking than pictures with a militarism visual frame. A second study used series of focus group discussions, to investigate how media consumers make meaning out of images of conflict. The findings expand our understanding about the way audiences react to conflict photos, and they have implications for how photo editors might present audiences with images of war that will engage audiences.