Visual Media Research Articles

Community case study: Our Wave, an online platform to facilitate survivor disclosure of sexual assault and trauma recovery

This community case study introduces Our Wave, an online platform that provides a safe, anonymous space for survivors of sexual harm to share their stories, reflect on their healing journeys, and connect with others. Designed to empower survivors, the platform allows users to post anonymous stories or visual media, ask questions, and send messages of hope, all while prioritizing privacy and security. It also aims to create a broader impact by analyzing shared narratives to detect patterns, identify best practices for healing, and inform global approaches to SV recovery. With over 100,000 members and over 1,200 stories and forms of media shared, the platform has become a valuable resource for survivors. Using mixed-methods analysis of platform usage data and anonymous user feedback surveys (n = 288), we examined patterns of engagement and impact. Analysis revealed that 57% of story submissions included “Messages of Healing” and 52% included “Messages of Hope,” with survey responses indicating that anonymity and peer support were crucial factors in facilitating disclosure. Research shows that the social and emotional dynamics of SV disclosure, as well as the responses from others, play a crucial role in a survivor’s healing. By focusing on confidentiality, trauma-informed support, and community-building, Our Wave offers a safe space for survivors to heal, connect, and access resources to support their journey toward recovery.

Legitimacy First: Marine Le Pen’s Visual De‐Demonisation Strategies on Instagram

Recent research on populist visual communication has found a predominance of positivity in the way the populist radical right (PRR) communicates on Instagram. This counters the understanding of PRR actors as “dark” communicators, relying on appeals to negative emotions and attacks against perceived enemies and wider outgroups. This article tests the novel conceptual framework of “visual de-demonisation” that has been proposed to capture the interplay between populist strategic communication, radical right mainstreaming, and positive content on visual social media. This article uses Marine Le Pen’s Instagram account (2015–2021) as a case in point, to illustrate the dynamics of visual de-demonisation and unpack how the three angles of the strategy (legitimacy, good character, and policy) are performed visually. The study offers two contributions to the literature on populism and leadership. First, it expands theory-building around visual de-demonisation by operationalising the framework, testing its empirical application, and producing further theoretical considerations to support concept development. Second, it contributes to debates on the mainstreaming of the radical right, by empirically unpacking its visual performance and evidencing the role of legitimacy-signalling as a prominent concern of populist leaders interested in de-demonising.

The Haptic in Soundscape Composition

This article presents the concept of a ‘haptic aurality’ in soundscape composition, an aesthetic and perceptual model derived from visual art theory, media studies and phenomenology that extends the haptic beyond its common association to vibroacoustic phenomena in the sonic arts. Included in this framework are both the standard haptic arguments, from psychology and engineering, including notions of kinaesthesia and proprioception, and varied definitions of the haptic as a not necessarily tactile mode of knowing touch that involves synaesthesia, transmodal perception and philosophical notions of sensory dedifferentiation. In adapting this survey of sometimes contradictory accounts of the haptic as parameters for compositional analysis and application, the article simultaneously creates novel engagements between soundscape composition and acousmatic practice.

The ‘Irish Problem’ through the Lens of Elizabethan Media

This article seeks to explore the 16th century Anglo-Irish problem through the lens of multiple Elizabethan media. It attempts to show that, despite the invention of printing and her Protestant religion, Elizabeth continued to rely on oral and visual media. The sermon and the image seem to have been more directly suitable for bringing her Irish agenda home to the people than printed works whose authors tended to become independent of royal patronage. In addition, the Queen’s gender and her ‘womanly’ feelings were perceived as an impediment to a successful military solution advocated by male authors like Spenser.

Comedic styles in media formats across generations: a case study of the Philippines

The article examines the methods and techniques used by Filipino media of different generations to achieve a comic effect. The authors rely on the fact that humor inherent in each culture is based on the collective experience lived through by the representatives belonging to this culture; the influence of different events (political upheavals, social changes, technological transformations) is so great that the difference in the presentation and understanding of humorous content can be significant even between successive generations. As part of the study, the authors analyze the transformation of media formats that occurred with the widespread use of the Internet. The study is based on a comparison of several visual humorous media forms of two generations of Filipinos (comics, advertising, movie posters). In the classification adopted by the authors, one of these generations (born 1946–1964) is defined as “political”; the second (born 1965–1980)– as technological/digital. During the study researchers purposefully selected materials related to media forms of different generations, and applied content analysis of changes in the humor of generations. Three pieces of each media form were selected based on the following criteria: they were produced/directed by a Filipino during the generational period in question. The thematic content of the pieces was not limited to politics or popular culture. The selected pieces were compared with their counterparts from other countries to help confirm generational changes in humor in a global context. Understanding the relationship between media formats and ideology is critical to understanding how media shape our social and political landscape. By understanding the dynamic nature of media formats and their ideological content, we can get a clearer picture and better understanding of the role of media in the formation of our social and political reality.

The Students’ Perception of Using Visual Literacy in English Language Learning: A Descriptive Study

English as a global lingua franca presents challenges for students in understanding the language in Indonesia, where English is taught as a foreign language. This study aims to explore students' perceptions of the use of visual literacy in English language learning. The use of visual literacy, such as images and videos, has been shown to help improve students' comprehension and engagement in the learning process. The research method used is a descriptive qualitative approach involving seventh-grade students at a middle school in Jember, Indonesia. Data were collected through observations and interviews. The results showed that visual literacy has a positive impact on students' understanding of English language material. Students find it easier to grasp concepts when supported by visual media. Additionally, the use of visual literacy also increases students' motivation and interest in learning, making the learning process more interactive and enjoyable. In the independent curriculum, English language learning encompasses six skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, reflecting, and presenting, all of which can be supported by the use of visual literacy. Visual literacy not only facilitates the understanding of vocabulary but also encourages students to think critically and creatively through visual interpretation. This creates a more dynamic learning environment and fosters active participation from students. The conclusion of this study is that visual literacy can be an effective tool in enhancing the quality of English language learning, particularly in helping students to understand or remember vocabulary and enhancing students’ English language skills.

Arabic Vocabulary Learning Strategies in Early Childhood: A Case Study at an Integrated Islamic Elementary School

This study explores the strategies and methods for teaching Arabic vocabulary to young children at an Integrated Islamic Primary School (SDIT). The research analyzes how different teaching approaches affect vocabulary acquisition in early childhood education. A qualitative descriptive method was used, with data collected through classroom observations, in-depth interviews, and document analysis. The main strategies identified include visual and audio media, thematic approaches, repetition, and interactive games. The results highlighted that multisensory and Total Physical Response (TPR) methods significantly improved vocabulary retention and student participation. The communicative approach also proved effective in helping students use new vocabulary in practical contexts. The findings suggest combining visual, physical, and verbal techniques is the most effective way to improve vocabulary acquisition. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on language learning by providing insights into effective vocabulary teaching strategies in an Islamic educational setting, with implications for curriculum development and teacher training.

The Effectiveness of Micro Learning Design on Storytelling Skills

Storytelling is an important skill in the world of education that can increase engagement, understanding, and conveying information in a more engaging way. This study aims to test the influence of micro-learning methods on students' storytelling skills by involving 500 respondents from Sultan Agung Islamic University (Semarang), University of Muhammadiyah Malang (Malang), STIBA-EIC (Jakarta), PGRI University of West Sumatra (Padang), Mataran State Islamic University (Lombok). Respondents were randomly selected from students in the city (30-40 students in each city), with an age range ranging from 19 to 22 years old. The domicile of the respondents came from the city and the surrounding area. The total number of respondents is 500. Of the 500 respondents, 100 respondents (20%) came from students majoring in foreign language colleges, 100 respondents (20%) came from the English language education department, and 300 respondents (60%) came from the Indonesian language and literature education department. The respondents were divided into two groups: experiments that used micro-learning and controls that used traditional methods. The learning design includes the introduction of learning objectives, understanding of storytelling elements, example video analysis, storytelling exercises, as well as recording and feedback. The results of statistical analysis using the Mann-Whitney test showed a significant difference between the two groups, with a significance value of 0.000 (p < 0.05), which indicates that the micro-learning method has a positive and significant influence on improving students' storytelling skills compared to the traditional method. This indicates that we can reject the null hypothesis (H₀) which states that there is no significant difference between the two groups, and accept the alternative hypothesis (H₁) which states that there is a significant difference. These findings indicate that this approach is not only relevant for language teaching, but can also be adapted to various other forms of learning. With its flexible structure and customizable content, micro-learning can be applied in a variety of disciplines, such as science, mathematics, and art, by utilizing a variety of visual and narrative media.

Visual Politics, Protest, and Power: Who Shaped the Climate Visual Discourse at COP26?

ABSTRACT Despite the importance of visual imagery for how people conceptualise issues in the news media, most research on journalism and communication prioritises textual media. This research examines the visual imagery accompanying news stories about the 2021 UN Climate Summit in Glasgow (COP26). Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyse over 1,300 images from eight UK news outlets using content and critical visual discourse analysis. We then contextualise these images, drawing on interviews and participant observation with key visual media actors including image agency photojournalists and news journalists, editors and correspondents. First, we find that the visual discourse of COP26 is limited to politicians and “talking heads” imagery, and images of protest. Second, we explore the journey that images take through the news media ecosystem, from the camera lens to the published news article, identifying the sources of power which act on visuals throughout this journey. Sources of power can be obvious (e.g., individual photographers), whilst others are obscured or misattributed (e.g., curation and editing). Overall, we empirically demonstrate the importance of understanding the networked nature of images and how they move through a complex globalised media ecosystem, rather than conceptualising them simply as static objects in the news cycle.

Analysis of Hindu Teachings Messages Karmaphala and Tri Hita Karana in Pulau Plastik Movie Series

Educational documentary film is a visual media tool used to convey certain messages to the audience. One of them is the film series Pulau Plastik by Dandhy Dwi Laksono. In the film, it describes the dangers of plastic for the environment and humans by using the terminology of Hindu teachings, such as Karmaphala and Tri Hita Karana. The purpose of this study is to analyse the meaning of Hindu ecological teachings and also describe how films using religious messages can make the audience understand the teachings themselves while building environmental awareness. This research is a qualitative literature research, using a sociological approach to study the relationship between religion and society, then through descriptive analysis methods to collect related data. The findings of this research show that religious teachings that are often considered transcendent can be grounded using visual media. Hindu ecology is contained in the teachings of Tri Hita Karana and also Karmaphala which explain that the mutual relationship between nature, humans, and God is aimed at achieving happiness and peace.

Investigating Effects of Future Path Visualisation on Path Choices During Collision Encounters

AbstractSafe navigation choices made in walkable spaces highly depend on how a traveller perceives and understands the threat from surrounding travellers’ movements. Hence, if a visual medium like an AR headset provides an augmented view where future paths of others are already shown virtually, this could influence the way a person decides to avoid a potential collision. In this work, taking walking conflicts as an example, we first propose different ways of showing the future path in AR and then investigate whether people decide to walk more safety-consciously when seeing AR information. For this, we conducted a web-based user study (n =27), in which participants sketched a walking path that they preferred when avoiding collisions in different crossing scenes. Each scene in the study contained another person walking and crossing the participant’s expected path, while the prediction of the another person’s future walking path was either not visualised or augmented with a virtual arrow. Participants were then expected to sketch a path to their destination while not colliding with the person in the scene. By applying a sketch transformation pipeline, the participants’ drawings were transformed to trajectories of the preferred walking paths, which where then simulated to estimate the conflict severity using the Post Encroachment Time (PET) metric. The study verified that people choose to adapt their walking paths when seeing the future path information, and also react differently to different types of 3D arrow visualisations that represent the same future path.

Fable Puppet Show as an Alternative Communication Media Moral and Character Education of Elementary School Students

Wayang Beber is one of Indonesia's cultural heritages, and it contains moral values relevant to children's character education. This research aims to explore the effectiveness of Wayang Beber Fabel as a visual communication medium in character education for elementary school students, as well as contributing to the preservation of local culture. The research uses a qualitative phenomenological approach. The method involves participant observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis as data collection techniques. The research subjects included elementary school students and teachers who used Wayang Beber Fabel media in teaching and learning activities. Data analysis was done using thematic methods to understand student responses and identify challenges in implementing this media in the elementary school environment. The research results show that Wayang Beber Fabel can attract students' interest and deepen their understanding of character values such as honesty, responsibility and tolerance. Hopefully, this research will also contribute to character education in Indonesia by presenting local culture-based media that can be integrated into the elementary school curriculum. It is hoped that the findings of this research can promote the use of traditional art as an educational instrument. Not only does it support learning in schools, but it also strengthens national cultural identity.

Markov Progressive Framework, a Universal Paradigm for Modeling Long Videos.

The computational complexity of video models increases linearly with the square number of frames. Thus, constrained bycomputational resources, training video models to learn long-term temporal semantics end-to-end is quite a challenge. Currently, the main-stream method is to split a raw video into clips, leading to incomplete fragmentary temporal information flow and failure of modeling long-term semantics. In this paper, we design the Markov Progressive framework (MaPro), a theoretical framework consisting of the progressive modeling method and a paradigm model tailored for it. Thecore idea of MaPro is to find a paradigm model consisting of proposed Markov operators which can be trained in multiple sequential steps and ensure that the multi-step progressive modeling is equivalent to the conventional end-to-endmodeling. By training the paradigm model under the progressive method, we are able to model long videos end-to-endwith limited resources and ensure the effective transmission of long-term temporal information. We provide implementations of this theoretical system on the mainstream CNN- and Transformer-based models, where they are modified to conform to the Markov paradigm. As a general and robust training method, we experimentally demonstrate that it yields significant performance improvements on different backbones and datasets. As an illustrative example, the proposed method improves the SlowOnly network by 4.1 mAP on Charades and 2.5 top-1 accuracy on Kinetics. And for TimeSformer, MaPro improves its performance on Kinetics by 2.0 top-1 accuracy. Importantly, all these improvements areachieved with a little parameter and computation overhead.

The Utilization of Infographic-Based Learning Media to Increase Students' Interest in Learning

Technological developments have had a major impact on education, especially in increasing the effectiveness of the learning process. Infographics are one of the innovative and technology-based learning media, which combines information with interesting visual elements. This study analyzes various literature to examine the influence of the use of infographics in learning on students' learning interests. The results of the study show that infographics can increase students' interest in learning by presenting information visually, making it easier to understand, and making the material more interesting. Infographics also help students remember information, increase engagement, and support independent learning. In addition, infographics are easily accessible and shared digitally, making it easier for students to repeat the material. Research shows that students are more focused and motivated when using visual media compared to conventional lecture methods. Therefore, the use of infographics as a medium of learning can be used as an effective strategy for overcoming various obstacles in learning activities and resulting in an improvement in the quality of education. Educators are advised to utilize infographics in their learning strategies to achieve more optimal results. In conclusion, infographics are an effective tool to make learning more interactive and interesting and to increase students' interest in learning.

Craft breweries, neolocalism and visual social media marketing

Purpose Craft breweries have a growing role in the beer tourism niche as a place-based attraction but also in daily life as a community space. Research has examined how such breweries can appeal to both tourist and local markets through neolocalism in the form of place branding and local embeddedness. This paper aims to consider the extent to which breweries communicate neolocal themes in visual social media marketing through Instagram images. Design/methodology/approach This research examines 3,299 Instagram images posted on the official accounts of 13 Houston, Texas (USA) microbreweries and taproom breweries over the course of 2022. Content-semiotic analysis identifies key themes in these images and explores the extent to which breweries signify neolocal themes through these images. Findings Manifest image content generally appeals to interests in consuming beer and communicates logistical information about if, and when, to visit the brewery. Elements in Instagram images have the potential to convey meanings about neolocalism in the craft beer product, branding, local embeddedness and place-based experiences but such strategies have not been extensively developed or used. Originality/value Although both academic and industry sources recognize the importance of social media and visual content in connecting with potential consumers, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to examine the extent to which breweries employ neolocal strategies through social media marketing.

ENHANCING ARABIC VOCABULARY MASTERY THROUGH THE USE OF IMAGE MEDIA

In This study, the problem examined is how dhe use of visual media can enhance vocabulary mastery in Arabic language. The objective of this research is to describe dhe use of visual media in impriving vocabulary mastery in Arabic language for students. The benefits of this research for learners are anhanching their Arabic language proficiency. Meanwhile, the benefits for teachers include improving their skills in employing appropriate methods during the learning process and enhancing their ability to select more effective learning media. This research employs a qualitative approach using interview methods. Based on the findings, it is evident that the use of visual media can enhance vocabulary mastery in Arabic language learning. The steps for using visual media to improve Arabic vocabulary mastery are as follows: 1. The teacher presents images of vocabulary words to be taught, and students guess the word depicted; 2. The teacher provides the vocabulary words in Arabic: 3. Students repeart after the teacher; 4. Students memorize the new vocabulary words.

Resepsi dan Transformasi Narasi Serat Menak Yasadipuran dalam Penciptaan Wayang Menak Gaya Surakarta

Serat Menak is a grand corpus of Javanese-Islamic text that is adopted from the Islamic epoch, Qissa-I Emir Hamza or Hikayat Amir Hamzah, which has widely spread in Asian region in the middle of second millenium CE. The popularity of Serat Menak made this text has many variants, and the one which is largely recognized was Yasadipura I (1729-1803)'s version which was composed in the beginning of Surakarta era. The text of Serat Menak Yasadipuran then become very well-known in Java, and became the inspiration for some branches of performing arts, such as wayang, whether in its kulit, golek, krucil, or wong formats. One of these wayang genres that took its repertoire from Menak tales was wayang kulit menak, which was introduced in Surakarta in the first quarter of 20th century, the creation of Sutarja Truna Dipa (STD) which has not being scientifically studied yet until this present day. This article aims to identify how far was the relation between STD's Surakarta wayang kulit menak with Serat Menak Yasadipuran, using Wolfgang Iser's Rezeption Aesthetic approach to obtain the reception and transformation patterns from textual narratives to visual forms. The result of this research concluded that STD's Surakarta wayang menak was a living artwork which evolving along times. On the other side, STD as the implied reader has been consistent in recepting Serat Menak Yasadipuran with some additions and adaptations, which was done to fulfil the needs of performance. Innovations done by STD to his wayang menak creation were not limited in the term of transformation from textual to visual media, but also filling the gaps (leerstellen) with the rich formal interpretation, which are completing the narrative of Serat Menak, so it will be more interesting to be played.

The Influence of Using Audio Visual Media, Direct Demonstration and Learning Motivation on Learning Outcomes

The Influence of Using Audio Visual Media, Direct Demonstration and Learning Motivation on Learning Outcomes

Robust Dual Gaussian Splatting for Immersive Human-centric Volumetric Videos

Volumetric video represents a transformative advancement in visual media, enabling users to freely navigate immersive virtual experiences and narrowing the gap between digital and real worlds. However, the need for extensive manual intervention to stabilize mesh sequences and the generation of excessively large assets in existing workflows impedes broader adoption. In this paper, we present a novel Gaussian-based approach, dubbed DualGS , for real-time and high-fidelity playback of complex human performance with excellent compression ratios. Our key idea in DualGS is to separately represent motion and appearance using the corresponding skin and joint Gaussians. Such an explicit disentanglement can significantly reduce motion redundancy and enhance temporal coherence. We begin by initializing the DualGS and anchoring skin Gaussians to joint Gaussians at the first frame. Subsequently, we employ a coarse-to-fine training strategy for frame-by-frame human performance modeling. It includes a coarse alignment phase for overall motion prediction as well as a fine-grained optimization for robust tracking and high-fidelity rendering. To integrate volumetric video seamlessly into VR environments, we efficiently compress motion using entropy encoding and appearance using codec compression coupled with a persistent codebook. Our approach achieves a compression ratio of up to 120 times, only requiring approximately 350KB of storage per frame. We demonstrate the efficacy of our representation through photo-realistic, free-view experiences on VR headsets, enabling users to immersively watch musicians in performance and feel the rhythm of the notes at the performers' fingertips. Project page: https://nowheretrix.github.io/DualGS/.

From Screen to Society: Exploring Gender Dynamics in Moroccan Cinema

One of the most sophisticated, collaborative, and by far artistic expressions is cinema. It is a visual medium that is creatively employed to either expose or construct an alternative module of reality. In a country with high levels of illiteracy, cinema can have a grand impact on people who are denied access to print publications. For the last decades, mostly in fictive molds, Moroccan filmmakers have exquisitely produced a variety of significant movies that tackle the position of women in the country. Conscious of the pervasively tremendous influence of cinema, their productions effectively coordinate between the reflection of existing realities and the structure of new ones. This paper examines the construction of women’s gender identity in Moroccan films. Given the profound influence that cinema has on the construction of people’s perception of the world, it is employed in this research to study the interplay of gender power relations in Morocco. It endeavors to investigate the way Moroccan filmmakers build on reality to produce new gender roles. Based on an interdisciplinary study, that includes a thorough physical, political, religious, and social analysis of women’s representation in Moroccan films, this paper focuses on four movies, namely Number One, The Forgotten (????????), Zineb Aghma’s Flower (???? ???? ?????), and Her Husband (???? ?????). To some extent, these films provide an idea about the organization of gender roles in the country. It reveals that contemporary Moroccan films are gradually defying traditional notions of femininity and gender roles.