Analysing and Contextualising Regional, Rural, or Remote Visual News: A Two-Pronged Approach

<p dir="ltr">Visuals are an important component of both the non-urban news landscape and of the wider digital media environment where audiences increasingly turn to for news. Visuals help focus audiences’ attention and motivate them to explore further or divert their attention elsewhere. They also spark emotional reactions more easily and are also more memorable than words. But some forms of visual news have received greater scholarly attention than others and some news contexts – such as urban news and coverage of “special” events in contrast to routine coverage – have received more emphasis than others. This present study seeks to identify some of the key attributes of visual news in non-urban areas, explore how prevalent they are across six news outlets owned by different entities, and contextualise why the trends are what they are by drawing on insights from the journalists and editors who are employed at these outlets. In doing so, this study finds that these news outlets are drawing on a consistently narrow band of visual modes, are paying uneven attention to who or what is represented in their communities and how they are represented, and are adopting a largely consistent visual perspective and approach to framing their images.</p>