Visual framing of the European refugee crisis in Der Spiegel and CNN International: Global journalism in news photographs

Abstract

Building on previous research that has theorized and operationalized the concept of global journalism, this study analyzed 287 photographs published on CNN International and Der Spiegel online news sites to examine the evidence of global journalism practices in visual news content. The results of the quantitative content analysis revealed that the transnational news outlet CNN International more frequently used close-ups and tracking shots to feature refugees in its visual reportage than the German news magazine Der Spiegel. The large presence of the ‘human interest’ and the ‘lose/gain’ frames in CNN International’s visual coverage emphasized the humanitarian aspect of global suffering. In contrast, apart from the ‘human interest’ frame, the ‘law and control’ and ‘xenophobia’ frames were adopted in Der Spiegel’s visual coverage. Using such a comparison, this study discussed if news sources’ capacity of managing the visibility of suffering could reflect a cosmopolitan viewpoint on a global issue.