Given the rising use of visual and multimodal information, text-oriented framing research is at risk of losing traction with current media reality. We propose applying frame processing theory as a general framework for understanding how coherent meaning is constructed from complex stimuli, regardless of their modality: Both visual and textual information processing follow a recursive sequence of (a) selective perception/structuring, (b) decoding, (c) the construction of relations, and (d) their integration into coherent meaning. The specifics of visual and textual modalities provide varying degrees of structuring and salience within a fundamentally unified information processing process. Integrating advances from framing and visual communication research, we discuss implications for the empirical analysis of multimodal news contents, and sketch an agenda for research.

Is it possible to identify opinion leaders in a semi-anonymous online network? To answer this question, this study examines the social news site Reddit to determine whether opinion leadership can be recognized in an online network that, at face value, does not allow users to associate with their off-line personas. Identifiable characteristics, such as commenting, longevity, karma scores, posting frequency, and posting scores were analyzed. Results indicate that semi-anonymous opinion leadership may exist, as several users appear frequently as top-voted posters and commenters. In addition, Reddit’s reputational value karma may help users and researchers identify opinion leaders.

Visuals have always been an integral part of media communication, but framing has been predominantly examined in textual contexts. Narrowing down the visual gap in framing theory and research during the last decade, scholarship has put considerable efforts into adapting visual theories and methodologies to “framing analysis” and into refining them, and a remarkable number of studies has been published since then. As a mode‐specific variation of the broader framing concept, visual framing has meanwhile gained status as one of the lifelines for visual research and is seen as increasingly important in framing research in general. Beyond outlining central definitions and ideas of the visual framing concept and its theoretical groundings and beyond understanding it as a multilevel concept, an overview of current research foci is provided, and central challenges—especially that of broadening the concept from visual to multimodal framing—are discussed.

Wie lassen sich Bilder beschreiben, analysieren und interpretieren? Marion G. Müller und Stephanie Geise geben anhand zahlreicher Beispiele aus den Bereichen Bildjournalismus, Wahlkampfkommunikation, Werbung, Onlinekommunikation oder auch der bildenden Kunst eine praktische Einführung in die Analyse visueller Phänomene. In einem zweiten Schritt stellen sie spezifische Ansätze der Visuellen Kommunikationsforschung vor, die sich als Teildisziplin der Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft in den letzten Jahren theoretisch und methodisch enorm weiterentwickelt hat. Mit 85 Farbabbildungen, Übungsaufgaben und Zusatzmaterial im Internet.

Although eye tracking does not yet represent a standard instrument of communication and media science, it has been used more and more frequently in the last years as single method or in method combination. The fascination of the reconstruction of the human gaze is "eye catching": as an apparative, physiological, reception-accompanying observation method eye tracking captures the majority of the genuine eye movement and allows a description and analysis qualitatively as well as quantitatively. In this way, eye tracking provides a fairly accurate reference point, with regards to what content is foveally fixated by recipients during the visual perception process of the visual stimulus, with what intensity recipients visually turn towards the content or information, in what temporal and contextual order the observation happens and where no visual attention is attributed. In contrast, eye tracking alone provides no or only little potential for answering questions such as what content recipients perceive of the visual stimulus in the peripheral or para-foveal perception space, why or with what intention or motivation they turn towards the stimulus, what the recipients think or feel while observing the visual stimulus or what subsequent emotional or cognitive processes are attached to the perception of the respective visual detail.