Effects of visuals in solutions journalism: A social media eye-tracking experiment

Bart Wojdynski, Kyser Lough, & Sohyun Park (current Ph.D. Student) (2023, August). “Effects of visuals in solutions journalism: A social media eye-tracking experiment.” Paper accepted for presentation at the 106th Annual Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), Washington, D.C.

Abstract: This study adds to the growing body of work on the verbal and visual audience effects of solutions journalism by examining the impact on the attention users pay to news information presented on social media on a mobile device. A 2 (visual framing: solution vs. problem) x 2 (textual framing: solution vs. problem) mixed-factorial smartphone eye-tracking experiment isolated the visual and text effects to better understand how users process social media news posts about solutions journalism stories. The results suggest that the use of photographs related to the solution featured in the story led to greater attention to the post, but only when paired with problem-oriented text. The use of solutions images also led to higher intentions to read the full story and to share it, but had no impact on trust.