Visual Framing of Three Major Earthquakes in the New York Times and USA Today
Abstract
This paper studied how The New York Times and USA Today visually framed the Haitian earthquake of 2010, the Japan earthquake of 2011 and the Nepal earthquake of 2015. By employing a tiered model of visual framing this study undertook a comparative analysis of news images from both papers to tease out the common visual themes and to illustrate the visual similarities and differences between the photographs from both papers. This study also examined news images to determine if the papers used news photographs as symbolic tools or markers to represent the residents and the built environment of the countries impacted by the earthquakes. The results from this analysis revealed the dominant overarching theme that was commonly referenced by both papers and brought to the fore significant differences and similarities between the images analyzed from both papers for all three disasters. Newspaper coverage of the three catastrophic eventsalso brought to light some of the symbolic dimensions of the coverage which helped determine the degree or the extent both papers constructed a personalized and distinct perspective of the disasters through visual imagery. © Center for Global Research Development www.cgrd.org 16 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... 16