Watching the Watchers: A Meta-thematic Analysis of Media Effects Studies of Visual Communication

The world produces and consumes images at an unprecedented rate. Therefore, the need to understand the effects of these media is greater than ever before. Though the effectiveness of visuals in communication is widely assumed, it is also poorly understood. The great bulk of visual studies is in rhetoric. Visual studies of media effects are relatively few. Though there is little theory specific to visual communication, the growing body of literature on the effects of visual messages presents this question: What are the most influential media effects studies of visual communication, and how are they situated within communication theory? A meta-thematic analysis of the communication literature answers these questions using the Web of Science database to identify the most-cited papers on media effects of visual communication. A content analysis studied the types of visual media, communication theory, participant populations, experimental variables, research paradigms, and journals that publish these papers. This analysis describes several themes in this body of literature. Information-processing models dominate theory in this research, with "recall" surfacing as the most used dependent variable. These studies typically use either no guiding theory or a theory that differs from the larger communication field. Further analysis demonstrates the need for additional theory.