DOCUMENT RESUME ED 459 499 CS 510 717 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (84th, Washington, DC, August 5-8, 2001). Visual Communication Division. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE 2001-08-00 NOTE 231p.; For other sections of the 2001 proceedings, see CS 510 704-724. PUB TYPE Collected Works Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC10 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Computer Simulation; Credibility; Editing; *Emotional Response; *Ethics; Higher Education; Journalism Education; Longitudinal Studies; *News Writing; Organizational Climate; *Photojournalism; Racial Relations IDENTIFIERS Digital Imagery; *Digital Retouching (Photography); United States (South); *Visual Communication ABSTRACT The Visual Communication section of the proceedings contains the following 8 selected papers: "Affect and Emotion: Eliciting Compassionate Response via Facial Affect in Visual Images" (Courtney Bennett); "A Study of the Persuasiveness of Animation When Used as Forensic Demonstrative Evidence" (Benjamin Allyn Meyer); "Southern Mentalities, Photographic Reflections in Black and White: The 1915-1960 Mississippi Pictures of O.N. Pruitt" (Berkley Hudson); "If Looks Could Kill: The Ethics of Digital Manipulation of Fashion Models and Attitudes of Readers" (Shiela Reaves, Jacqueline Bush Hitchon, Sung-Yeon Park, and Gi Woong Yun); "Establishing a Photojournalism Historiography: An Historiographical Analysis of the Developmental Approach" (Timothy Roy Gleason); "Normative Conflict in the Newsroom: The Case of Digital Photo Manipulation" (Wilson Lowrey); "A Longitudinal Analysis of Network News Editing Strategies from 1969 through 1997" (Richard J. Schaefer); and "Digitally Altered News Photographs: How Much Manipulation Will the Public Tolerate before Credibility Is Lost?" (Joseph D. Gosen and Jennifer Greer). (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (84th, Washington, DC, August 5-8, 2001): Visual Communication Division. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) O This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. O Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY gcGii BEST COPYAVAILABLE TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 V.5 CO-1 Running Head: Facial Affect and Compassion Affect and Emotion: Eliciting Compassionate Response Via Facial Affect in Visual Images Courtney Bennett, Ph.D. Stanford University Mailing address: 5656 Florence Terrace Oakland, CA 94611 Fax: (925) 284-7207 E-mail: [email protected] Paper submitted to the 2001 Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Washington,.DC, August 5- August 8, 2001 Facial Affect and Compassion Abstract This study aims to extend research on the effects of visual message elements by examining the relationship between facial affect and emotional response. A study wasconducted to explore two questions: 1) whether facial affect in visualimages influences how compassionately people feel toward the person portrayed visually, and 2) what therelative influence of a message's verbal and visual elements would be on compassionate response.The findings and their implications were discussed. Facial Affect and Compassion Introduction Across a variety of disciplines, a substantial body ofresearch suggests that people respond to and process visual information differently than textualinformation (e.g. Aust & Zillmann, 1997; Mitchell, 1986; Jamieson, 1992; Reeves & Nass,1996). A key difference is that visual media seems to engender an automatic affective responsebased on people's natural and automatic tendency to process and respond to particular facialdisplays of emotion (see e.g. Buck, 1989; Chaudhuri & Buck, 1989; Cappella, 1993). At the sametime, the elements of a visual image that elicit an emotional reaction are not wellunderstood. This study aims to extend research on the effects of visual message elements by examining therelationship between facial affect in visual images and the emotional response the image evokes.Specifically the study asks whether facial affect in visual images influences how compassionatelypeople feel toward the person portrayed visually. Byexploring the conditions under which differences in compassion ratings emerge as a function of facial affect (i.e. negative andpositive facial displays of emotion), this paper hopes to provide insight for message design,particularly messages that seek to influence prosocial behaviors (e.g. whatBagozzi & Moore (1994) have termed "help-other PSAs"). In addition, by comparing identical images accompaniedby different text labels, the study examines the relative influence of the verbal andvisual elements of a message on compassionate response. The discussion will now turn to evidence for differencesin emotional response as a function of the modality of the message (i.e. textual vs.visual). Message Modality: Visual Media and Affective Response There is evidence that visual media have the unique ability to elicitemotional responses from audiences. In a comparison of the effects of 240 magazineand television advertisements on Facial Affect and Compassion cognition, Chaudhuri and Buck (1995) found that electronic media engendersemotional and affective involvement, while print media engenders rational and analyticinvolvement (even when controlling for a host of other advertising variables like product category,product use, verbal and nonverbal elements, and familiarity with the ad). Arguing for a link between automatic affective response and electronic media, they drew on Buck's (1989)claim that electronic media can exploit people's biological ability to receive and directlyunderstand the meanings of certain facial displays of emotion (see also Cappella,1993).1 This ability gives audiences direct visual access to the feelings and desires of people displayed viaelectronic media, which in turn can elicit emotional reactions from audiences (see e.g. McHugo,Lanzetta, Sullivan, Masters, & Englis, 1985). Furthermore, Buck (1989) argues that spontaneousemotional communication via the electronic media has created "a system of electronic emotional communication that is capable of sharing feelings and thus influencing the emotionaleducation of vast numbers of people" (Chaudhuri and Buck, 1995, p. 122). In a related approach, Zillmann (1991, p. 160) argues that today's"high-fidelity iconic representations" obviate the need for people to engage in perspective-taking or to try toimagine what the other person feels; in other words, nothing needs to be "transformed orfilled in." In addition, affective reactions to these iconic portrayals may be doubly powerful because theaffect they elicit combines both affect from the memories they trigger as well as theaffective response to the representations themselves. Similarly, Messaris(1997) suggests that the more visuals can reproduce real-world experiences, the more they can exploit the response tendencies(e.g. affective responses) associated with them. Finally, Reeves and Nass (1996) arguethat people process pictures of faces as if they were "actualinterpersonal encounters," with social cues in the images influencing their response. Facial Affect and Compassion Introduction Across a variety of disciplines, a substantial body ofresearch suggests that people respond to and process visual information differently than textualinformation (e.g. Aust & Zillmann, 1997; Mitchell, 1986; Jamieson, 1992; Reeves & Nass,1996). A key difference is that visual media seems to engender an automatic affective responsebased on people's natural and automatic tendency to process and respond to particular facialdisplays of emotion (see e.g. Buck, 1989; Chaudhuri & Buck, 1989; Cappella, 1993). At the sametime, the elements of a visual image that elicit an emotional reaction are not well understood.This study aims to extend research on the effects of visual message elements by examiningthe relationship between facial affect in visual images and the emotional response the imageevokes. Specifically the study asks whether facial affect in visual images influences how compassionatelypeople feel toward the person portrayed visually. By exploringthe conditions under which differences in compassion ratings emerge as a function of facial affect (i.e. negative andpositive facial displays of emotion), this paper hopes to provide insight for message design,particularly messages that seek to influence prosocial behaviors (e.g. whatBagozzi & Moore (1994) have termed "help-other PSAs"). In addition, by comparing identical images accompaniedby different text labels, the study examines the relative influence of the verbal and visualelements of a message on compassionate response. The discussion will now turn to evidence for differencesin emotional response as a function of the modality of the message (i.e. textual vs. visual). Message Modality: Visual Media and Affective Response There is evidence that visual media have the unique ability to elicitemotional responses from audiences. In a comparison of the effects