Visual framing and implication to multimodal framing : A systematic review of publications during 1970–2021

Xu, Yi (2023) Visual framing and implication to multimodal framing : A systematic review of publications during 1970–2021. In: UNSPECIFIED.

Abstract

Over the past decades, visual framing has received increasing popularity. Amid the "multimodal turn", scholars proclaimed a multimodal framing approach to integrate or at least parallel the analysis of different modalities and their relationships in communication. However, both visual and multimodal framing faced the challenges in theoretical inconsistency and a hodgepodge of methodological approaches. The present study provides a systematic review of visual framing publications during 1970–2021. Using a quantitative content analysis, articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals (N=448) were analyzed in order to describe topics, theories, methods, modalities of analysis unit, and media sources. The results reveal that the most common topics are war and conflict, photojournalism, identity, stereotypes, and presidential election. Most studies deal with visual depictions and styles, whereas less focus on connotation and ideology. Qualitative methods are predominantly used, while quantitative studies are increasing. Social media and multimodal unit of analysis attract more scholarly attentions. As for implications to multimodal framing, the equality of various modalities in framing and mode-specific functions are generally recognized, whereas studies on intermode relationships and contextual factors are rare. Additionally, the geographically disproportionate distribution requires more contributions are expected from African, Asian, and Latin-American perspectives.