News Audience Experiences with Local Visual News: A Digital Diary Study

Focusing attention on the visual mode in news is essential given the visual nature of online news environments, the necessity of engaging audiences inundated in a flood of content, and the way that visual news can spark a unique reaction with its viewers. Given this, the present study explores the topics represented in visual news—photographs, other types of images, or videos—that non-urban audiences regard as surprising, interesting, or remarkable. It also identifies the specific aspects that explain why participants find these examples distinctive. To do this, the project uses a digital diary study method to better understand news audiences’ in situ encounters with local visual news. Visuals related to four topics—crime and justice, nature/pets/animals, politics, and economics—were the most prevalent in the sample. Participants’ responses around why the examples were interesting, surprising, or remarkable coalesced around five reasons: aspects of the image or video itself, aspects of the presentation context, some personal connection to the image or video, a connection one’s friends, colleagues, or family have or could potentially have to the image or video, or the perceived relevance or impact of the example for the local community writ large.<p></p>