From May 26-31, 2022, several members of the ViRe team attended the 72nd International Communication Association Conference, entitled “One World, One Network?" The conference, one of the largest in media and communication research, was held in Paris, France. ViRe-team members participated with six accepted papers.

In the panel “Social media are visual media: Culture, practice and change,” Seraina Tarnutzer presented the paper “Firsties – Where it all begins: A visual analysis of photographs taken during the initiation phase of couple relationships,” also on behalf of Katharina Lobinger. In their paper, they identified different image types of “firsties,” couple pictures of the relationship’s initiation phase. In general, “firsties” were found to be perceived as highly important visual artifacts for the relationship and a crucial part of the visual chronology of the couple.

The ViRe-team members also took part in the interactive poster session of Visual Communication Studies. Federico Lucchesi presented a paper entitled “Limited uses but important social functions: Maintaining romantic relationships through visual interpersonal communication on social network sites.” The work showed how the role of interpersonal communication on social network sites should be understood as interdependent with mass-self communication and other channels of romantic partners’ communicative repertoire. Furthermore, his study identified three social functions that are accomplished through the interpersonal visual exchange. In the same session, Seraina Tarnutzer presented a paper as a poster entitled “Image type analysis revisited: A visual analytical approach for analyzing visuals in communication practices”, also on behalf of Katharina Lobinger. In their work, they proposed a methodological approach for visual analysis, based on image type analysis. However, in their approach, they identify image types as embedded in communication practices which allows for also grasping social functions and uses of images when creating image types.

Together with the project partner Asko Lehmuskallio from Tampere University, Katharina Lobinger was part of the ‘Partner panel: ECREA’ entitled “Photojournalism and image labour: Contemporary challenges and perspectives." Katharina Lobinger presented a paper entitled “The pressures on visual journalistic cultures in a fragmented market." In her talk, she discussed diverging trends in Swiss media market that on one side are reinforcing visual reporting, and on the other one are raising concern regarding the deterioration of the quality in visual journalism. The study underlined the importance of visual elements in the news for public opinion formation, framing news stories, identification, and social integration.

In another ICA22 panel, together with Cornelia Brantner, Katharina Lobinger presented a paper entitled “Nothing learned! The media-ethical discourse on the visual coverage of the 2020 terror attack in Vienna.” Furthermore, together with Nina Springer, Cornelia Brantner, Claudia Wilhelm, Ines Engelmann, Helena Stehle, and Hanne Detel, Katharina Lobinger contributed to the paper entitled “The online communication disinhibition model: Toward a holistic understanding of benign and toxic online communication." Finally, our ViRe-Team member Petra Mazzoni participated as a co-author in the presentation of the paper “Comparing the governance of artificial intelligence in public service media.”