Use of Visual Communication in Public Journalism

Abstract

Between 1990 and 1996, more than 400 media outlets in U.S. had undertaken public journalism projects.1 Much has been written about philosophy behind public journalism, its goals, and techniques. Individual public journalism projects have been analyzed and compared against these goals and philosophies, and also compared to traditional journalism to see what, if any, difference exists.2 However, no study has yet focused on visual communication of public journalism in newspapers. Public journalism practitioners and theoreticians argue that content of stories generated through public journalism methods is significantly different from content generated by traditional reporting methods. News designers are taught that form of their designs must reflect content of stories rather than artistic preference or trends. This prompts question: If content of stories generated through public journalism methods is different, and design is driven by content, doesn't it follow that design for public journalism will be different than design for non-public journalism? This is key question that visual communicators and public journalists must address if final product is to truly integrate verbal and visual meaning. The purpose of this research, first of two-phase study, is to explore how public journalism projects have been visually communicated in newspapers practicing this approach, and how they differ from visual communication of non-public journalism. Through content analysis, textual analysis and telephone interviews, this exploratory study examined design and photography of projects at six newspapers; four practicing public journalism and two practicing non-public journalism to explore how public journalism projects were visually communicated in newspapers that practiced genre, and whether visual communication of public journalism differed from visual communication of non-- public journalism. Literature review Public journalism is product of 1990s - its first well-documented experiment was in late 1989 in Columbus, Georgia.3 Even decade later, there are as many operational definitions of public journalism as there are media outlets that practice it. For conceptual definition that speaks to developing theory of public journalism Jay Rosen has said: Journalism can and should play part in strengthening citizenship, improving public debate and reviving public life.4 Public or civic journalism is widely understood as an approach designed to address issues that readers say are important, rather than only those issues identified by experts. It seeks to promote public conversation about those issues that will result in collective working through of problem to resolution. Among its goals are strengthening citizenship, improving quality of public debate, and reviving public life. It proposes more active role for press than has traditionally been adopted. Public journalism derives many of its philosophical foundations from social responsibility theory of press and agenda-setting theory. While some scholars of public journalism trace its roots as far back as Thomas Jefferson, John Locke and John Stuart Mill,5 it seems unarguable that development of ideas that infuse public journalism were an outgrowth of debates between John Dewey and Walter Lippmann over proper role for press in democracy.6 Dewey and other scholars helped lay foundation for gradual shift toward emerging social responsibility theory of press, which was akin to Dewey's proposal of role of press in helping build more pluralist and tolerant society.7 The evolution of social responsibility theory culminated in Commission on Freedom of Press' report in 1947. The Hutchins Commission's work can be seen as forerunner of public journalism in that it called for press to offer a method of presenting and clarifying goals and values of and for reporting to project the opinions and attitudes of groups in society to one another. …