In the last decade the amount of empirical research on pictures in mass communication has risen s... more In the last decade the amount of empirical research on pictures in mass communication has risen significantly. This is especially remarkable since several authors criticise the absence of own visual methods in communication research. This is critical because the employed methods were mostly developed for the study of entirely different kinds of pictures in other disciplines. Katharina Lobinger's dissertation which is to be completed at the Department of Communication (University of Vienna) concentrates on visual (mass) communication research understood as a specific image science that does not try to create knowledge about images in general, but about specific image types in certain fields; in this case about media images. The main target is to examine how visual media content is being examined in communication research, which methods are used or adapted and on which theories and definitions the studies are based. Therefore in a meta-analysis, or in other words in a »content analysis of content analyses« (RIFFE; FREITAG 1997: 515) all research articles published since 1990 in relevant international journals of communication research are examined. Research journals are the ›nerves‹ of a discipline and thus a barometer of its substantive focus and its dominant research methods. Therefore the research material consists of the discipline's most prestigious journals and of contributions in thematic journals to account for new, maybe not widely approved, approaches. A, at first sight, paradoxical situation is to be dismantled with this analysis: While the lack of methods for visual analysis is constantly bemoaned, vivid research is going on and the studies prove that despite the scarce method repertoire, creative and innovative research designs can generate interesting results and knowledge about images. This meta-analysis represents a methodological approach facilitating visual content research by systemising the existing empirical approaches.
In the last decade the amount of empirical research on pictures in mass communication has risen s... more In the last decade the amount of empirical research on pictures in mass communication has risen significantly. This is especially remarkable since several authors criticise the absence of own visual methods in communication research. This is critical because the employed methods were mostly developed for the study of entirely different kinds of pictures in other disciplines. Katharina Lobinger's dissertation which is to be completed at the Department of Communication (University of Vienna) concentrates on visual (mass) communication research understood as a specific image science that does not try to create knowledge about images in general, but about specific image types in certain fields; in this case about media images. The main target is to examine how visual media content is being examined in communication research, which methods are used or adapted and on which theories and definitions the studies are based. Therefore in a meta-analysis, or in other words in a »content analysis of content analyses« (RIFFE; FREITAG 1997: 515) all research articles published since 1990 in relevant international journals of communication research are examined. Research journals are the ›nerves‹ of a discipline and thus a barometer of its substantive focus and its dominant research methods. Therefore the research material consists of the discipline's most prestigious journals and of contributions in thematic journals to account for new, maybe not widely approved, approaches. A, at first sight, paradoxical situation is to be dismantled with this analysis: While the lack of methods for visual analysis is constantly bemoaned, vivid research is going on and the studies prove that despite the scarce method repertoire, creative and innovative research designs can generate interesting results and knowledge about images. This meta-analysis represents a methodological approach facilitating visual content research by systemising the existing empirical approaches.
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Papers by Inna Mayer