Visual Infotainment in the political news

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of visual infotainment, the aspects of infotainment found in visual artefacts employed in the news. Using a case study, we examine the photographs published in the digital media to report on the negotiations between the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities, which took place in 2016 and 2017. A four-level visual framing analysis is used to identify a consistent set of frames. It aims to identify the political ideologies that appear to be behind the visual infotainment in these pictorial reports, and the specific ways in which hard news can be transformed into soft news. Our research confirms the presence of visual infotainment elements of personalisation, emotion, morbidity and sensationalism. Overall, the study shows that visual infotainment serves to establish visual frames produced by and for contradictory propagandas, one of which favours ethnic nationalism while the other promotes confl ict resolution.