Viorela Dan
Biographic Data
| ID | 4168918 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Viorela Dan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Viorela |
| FAMILY NAME | Dan |
| SIGNATURE | DAN V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5248-2502 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Power of Visual Framing in the Age of AI
This invited forum explores the complexity and power of visual framing in the field of journalism and mass communication. The forum brings together leading visual communication scholars who offer insights into how images continue to shape meaning and audience interpretations in an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven social media landscape. Contributions discuss framing as a constructive act of power, the interpretive agency of audiences, the inte…
Strategic Continuity and Evolving Toolkit
The infrastructures and actor constellations through which election campaign communication unfolds have changed, with platforms, influencers, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools reshaping how campaigns operate. This raises the question of whether contemporary campaign communication differs fundamentally from that of earlier election cycles. Current debates oscillate between two extremes: either contemporary campaigns are fundamentally transfor…
“I’ll Change My Beliefs When I See It”
Widespread concerns about the pervasiveness of misinformation have propelled one antidote to the center of scholarly attention: the journalistic fact check. Yet, fact checks often do not work as intended. While most fact checks are text only, a compelling theoretical argument can be made for using a video format instead. In this pre-registered experiment conducted in Germany ( N = 1,093), we investigated whether using video versus text can improv…
Deepfakes as a Democratic Threat
Concerns have been raised over AI-generated deepfakes and their impact on democracy. Unlike earlier forms of disinformation relying on text or traditional video-editing techniques (cheapfakes), deepfakes employ artificial intelligence, provoking speculations that they may be even more persuasive and harder to debunk. Using an experiment with a multiple-message design ( N = 2,085), we found that fake videos suggesting a sex, corruption, or prejudi…
Visuals as Identity Markers in Political Communication on Social Media
Politicians often rely on in-group markers of identity, aiming to signal their ideology to specific segments of the electorate. The impact of this practice on the electorate is insufficiently understood. In particular, we know markedly little about the effects of visual cues, a domain of utmost importance on social media. With previous research indicating that some politicians use more visual cues as identity markers than others, we set out to as…
Empowered, Handmaid, or Rejector? The Framing of Low Libido in Women according to Scholarly Investigations of Public Communication
The quest for a Viagra equivalent for women has both reignited concerns over female oppression and rekindled hope for gender equality. Communication about decreased desire in women has come under intense scrutiny, especially in terms of the ways in which it may legitimize one view or the other. We present a systematic review of academic research on public communication about low libido in women and drugs/devices designed to increase it. A total o…
Visuals’ function in health risk reporting
Given the scholarly neglect of visuals in health risk reporting, it remains unclear what types of visuals predominate in news coverage and why journalists choose to use them. Generating knowledge on this neglected part of journalistic work should facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of health risk reporting and its impact on society. In 2020 we conducted two studies with this goal in mind: a content analysis of visuals in the coverage of…
Frames and Journalistic Roles in Chinese Reporting on HIV
Journalists use both words and visuals to convey and interpret information, and the public is exposed to both when attending news. Yet, extant work largely neglects visuals’ contributions to news framing and how journalists perform their professional roles. We address this research gap in two integrative studies and use HIV reporting in China as a test case. Study 1 is a content analysis of seven newspapers (2000–2015) that sheds light on how wor…
Understanding Variations in the Framing of People Living With HIV
We explore the framing of people living with HIV in news photos from China through two studies. Study 1 consists of a Q-sort exercise and post-sorting qualitative interviews with 10 Chinese individuals. Insights are used to develop operational definitions of visual frames for use in Study 2, a quantitative content analysis. News photos of 290 people living with HIV are analyzed in Study 2 (2000–2015). Results reveal unique features of Chinese new…
Visual Mis- and Disinformation, Social Media, and Democracy
Explanatory Reporting in Video Format
In the last two decades, numerous scholars and professionals have argued that people need more assistance than provided by conventional reporting. Hopes have been placed on a new genre, most commonly known as explanatory reporting. This type of reporting provides context by answering “how” and “why” questions, going beyond conventional reporting’s focus on “who/what/when/where”, novelty and immediacy. Its proponents have argued that explanatory r…
Fighting the Infodemic on Two Fronts
Actors aiming to remedy the effects of health misinformation often issue corrections focused on individual outcomes (i.e., promoting individual health behaviors) rather than societal outcomes (i.e., reducing issue polarization). Yet, for highly politicized health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, such interventions run the risk of exacerbating societal cleavages, driving those holding opposing views further apart from one another. Interventions …
Visual Cues to the Hidden Agenda
Politicians’ reticence to communicate their views clearly increases the information asymmetry between them and the electorate. This study tested the potential of subtle ideological cues to redress the balance. By spotlighting visual rather than the already much-examined verbal cues, we sought to contribute to building theory on cue effects. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the effects from the literature on verbal cues could also be sh…
Political Public Relations
Political Public Relations and Strategic Framing
Frames advance coherent interpretations of issues that suggest specific problem definitions, causes, moral evaluations, and courses of action. As such, frames highlight certain aspects of an issue, and downplay or ignore others. While the use of frames is inevitable—i.e., the act of framing—actors do use frames strategically in their attempts to define issues in a way favorable to them and in their efforts to influence the course of action on iss…
The Diffusion of Innovations in Agricultural Circles
The use of antibiotics in agriculture contributes to antimicrobial resistance. We surveyed German farmers ( n = 336) on their intention to adopt alternative antimicrobial agents (AAA) and used the diffusion of innovations approach as a theoretical guide. (1) Farmers’ views regarding the relative advantage and complexity of AAA, (2) their use of and trust in information sources and channels, and (3) various individual and organizational characteri…
A Methodological Approach for Integrative Framing Analysis of Television News
This chapter lays out a set of procedures to investigate visual and verbal frames in news packages with an integrated approach. It provides an updated literature review on how audiovisual analyses can be conducted, reveals strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches, and adapts this advice to the necessities of visual news framing analyses. With a focus on issue framing, researchers will be guided through all the stages of the process from da…
A systematic review of frames in news reporting of health risks
Integrative Framing Analysis
Much of framing scholarship focuses either exclusively on the analysis of words or of visuals. This book aims to address this gap by proposing a six-step approach to the analysis of verbal frames, visual frames and the interplay between them--an integrative framing analysis. This approach is then demonstrated through a study investigating the way words and visuals are used to frame people living with HIV/AIDS in various communication contexts: th…
Still On the Beaten Path
This study discusses variations in the media coverage of the most prominent male and female EP candidates from Romania in the four weeks leading up to Election Day (May 8 to June 7, 2009). The verbal- and visual-framing analyses conducted focus on the visibility of these candidates, their viability (horse-race frame), and the balance between issue-related coverage (issue frame) and gendered coverage (trivialization frame). Our sample encompasses …
Still On the Beaten Path
This study discusses variations in the media coverage of the most prominent male and female EP candidates from Romania in the four weeks leading up to Election Day (May 8 to June 7, 2009). The verbal- and visual-framing analyses conducted focus on the visibility of these candidates, their viability (horse-race frame), and the balance between issue-related coverage (issue frame) and gendered coverage (trivialization frame). Our sample encompasses …
Integrative Framing Analysis
Much of framing scholarship focuses either exclusively on the analysis of words or of visuals. This book aims to address this gap by proposing a six-step approach to the analysis of verbal frames, visual frames and the interplay between them--an integrative framing analysis. This approach is then demonstrated through a study investigating the way words and visuals are used to frame people living with HIV/AIDS in various communication contexts: th…
Visual Cues to the Hidden Agenda
Politicians’ reticence to communicate their views clearly increases the information asymmetry between them and the electorate. This study tested the potential of subtle ideological cues to redress the balance. By spotlighting visual rather than the already much-examined verbal cues, we sought to contribute to building theory on cue effects. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the effects from the literature on verbal cues could also be sh…
Fighting the Infodemic on Two Fronts
Actors aiming to remedy the effects of health misinformation often issue corrections focused on individual outcomes (i.e., promoting individual health behaviors) rather than societal outcomes (i.e., reducing issue polarization). Yet, for highly politicized health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, such interventions run the risk of exacerbating societal cleavages, driving those holding opposing views further apart from one another. Interventions …
Frames and Journalistic Roles in Chinese Reporting on HIV
Journalists use both words and visuals to convey and interpret information, and the public is exposed to both when attending news. Yet, extant work largely neglects visuals’ contributions to news framing and how journalists perform their professional roles. We address this research gap in two integrative studies and use HIV reporting in China as a test case. Study 1 is a content analysis of seven newspapers (2000–2015) that sheds light on how wor…
Explanatory Reporting in Video Format
In the last two decades, numerous scholars and professionals have argued that people need more assistance than provided by conventional reporting. Hopes have been placed on a new genre, most commonly known as explanatory reporting. This type of reporting provides context by answering “how” and “why” questions, going beyond conventional reporting’s focus on “who/what/when/where”, novelty and immediacy. Its proponents have argued that explanatory r…
Visuals as Identity Markers in Political Communication on Social Media
Politicians often rely on in-group markers of identity, aiming to signal their ideology to specific segments of the electorate. The impact of this practice on the electorate is insufficiently understood. In particular, we know markedly little about the effects of visual cues, a domain of utmost importance on social media. With previous research indicating that some politicians use more visual cues as identity markers than others, we set out to as…
Still On the Beaten Path
This study discusses variations in the media coverage of the most prominent male and female EP candidates from Romania in the four weeks leading up to Election Day (May 8 to June 7, 2009). The verbal- and visual-framing analyses conducted focus on the visibility of these candidates, their viability (horse-race frame), and the balance between issue-related coverage (issue frame) and gendered coverage (trivialization frame). Our sample encompasses …
Integrative Framing Analysis
Much of framing scholarship focuses either exclusively on the analysis of words or of visuals. This book aims to address this gap by proposing a six-step approach to the analysis of verbal frames, visual frames and the interplay between them--an integrative framing analysis. This approach is then demonstrated through a study investigating the way words and visuals are used to frame people living with HIV/AIDS in various communication contexts: th…
A Methodological Approach for Integrative Framing Analysis of Television News
This chapter lays out a set of procedures to investigate visual and verbal frames in news packages with an integrated approach. It provides an updated literature review on how audiovisual analyses can be conducted, reveals strengths and weaknesses of existing approaches, and adapts this advice to the necessities of visual news framing analyses. With a focus on issue framing, researchers will be guided through all the stages of the process from da…
A systematic review of frames in news reporting of health risks
Political Public Relations
Political Public Relations and Strategic Framing
Frames advance coherent interpretations of issues that suggest specific problem definitions, causes, moral evaluations, and courses of action. As such, frames highlight certain aspects of an issue, and downplay or ignore others. While the use of frames is inevitable—i.e., the act of framing—actors do use frames strategically in their attempts to define issues in a way favorable to them and in their efforts to influence the course of action on iss…
The Diffusion of Innovations in Agricultural Circles
The use of antibiotics in agriculture contributes to antimicrobial resistance. We surveyed German farmers ( n = 336) on their intention to adopt alternative antimicrobial agents (AAA) and used the diffusion of innovations approach as a theoretical guide. (1) Farmers’ views regarding the relative advantage and complexity of AAA, (2) their use of and trust in information sources and channels, and (3) various individual and organizational characteri…
Visual Cues to the Hidden Agenda
Politicians’ reticence to communicate their views clearly increases the information asymmetry between them and the electorate. This study tested the potential of subtle ideological cues to redress the balance. By spotlighting visual rather than the already much-examined verbal cues, we sought to contribute to building theory on cue effects. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether the effects from the literature on verbal cues could also be sh…
Understanding Variations in the Framing of People Living With HIV
We explore the framing of people living with HIV in news photos from China through two studies. Study 1 consists of a Q-sort exercise and post-sorting qualitative interviews with 10 Chinese individuals. Insights are used to develop operational definitions of visual frames for use in Study 2, a quantitative content analysis. News photos of 290 people living with HIV are analyzed in Study 2 (2000–2015). Results reveal unique features of Chinese new…
Visual Mis- and Disinformation, Social Media, and Democracy
Explanatory Reporting in Video Format
In the last two decades, numerous scholars and professionals have argued that people need more assistance than provided by conventional reporting. Hopes have been placed on a new genre, most commonly known as explanatory reporting. This type of reporting provides context by answering “how” and “why” questions, going beyond conventional reporting’s focus on “who/what/when/where”, novelty and immediacy. Its proponents have argued that explanatory r…
Fighting the Infodemic on Two Fronts
Actors aiming to remedy the effects of health misinformation often issue corrections focused on individual outcomes (i.e., promoting individual health behaviors) rather than societal outcomes (i.e., reducing issue polarization). Yet, for highly politicized health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, such interventions run the risk of exacerbating societal cleavages, driving those holding opposing views further apart from one another. Interventions …
Visuals’ function in health risk reporting
Given the scholarly neglect of visuals in health risk reporting, it remains unclear what types of visuals predominate in news coverage and why journalists choose to use them. Generating knowledge on this neglected part of journalistic work should facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of health risk reporting and its impact on society. In 2020 we conducted two studies with this goal in mind: a content analysis of visuals in the coverage of…
Frames and Journalistic Roles in Chinese Reporting on HIV
Journalists use both words and visuals to convey and interpret information, and the public is exposed to both when attending news. Yet, extant work largely neglects visuals’ contributions to news framing and how journalists perform their professional roles. We address this research gap in two integrative studies and use HIV reporting in China as a test case. Study 1 is a content analysis of seven newspapers (2000–2015) that sheds light on how wor…
Empowered, Handmaid, or Rejector? The Framing of Low Libido in Women according to Scholarly Investigations of Public Communication
The quest for a Viagra equivalent for women has both reignited concerns over female oppression and rekindled hope for gender equality. Communication about decreased desire in women has come under intense scrutiny, especially in terms of the ways in which it may legitimize one view or the other. We present a systematic review of academic research on public communication about low libido in women and drugs/devices designed to increase it. A total o…
Visuals as Identity Markers in Political Communication on Social Media
Politicians often rely on in-group markers of identity, aiming to signal their ideology to specific segments of the electorate. The impact of this practice on the electorate is insufficiently understood. In particular, we know markedly little about the effects of visual cues, a domain of utmost importance on social media. With previous research indicating that some politicians use more visual cues as identity markers than others, we set out to as…
“I’ll Change My Beliefs When I See It”
Widespread concerns about the pervasiveness of misinformation have propelled one antidote to the center of scholarly attention: the journalistic fact check. Yet, fact checks often do not work as intended. While most fact checks are text only, a compelling theoretical argument can be made for using a video format instead. In this pre-registered experiment conducted in Germany ( N = 1,093), we investigated whether using video versus text can improv…
Deepfakes as a Democratic Threat
Concerns have been raised over AI-generated deepfakes and their impact on democracy. Unlike earlier forms of disinformation relying on text or traditional video-editing techniques (cheapfakes), deepfakes employ artificial intelligence, provoking speculations that they may be even more persuasive and harder to debunk. Using an experiment with a multiple-message design ( N = 2,085), we found that fake videos suggesting a sex, corruption, or prejudi…
The Power of Visual Framing in the Age of AI
This invited forum explores the complexity and power of visual framing in the field of journalism and mass communication. The forum brings together leading visual communication scholars who offer insights into how images continue to shape meaning and audience interpretations in an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven social media landscape. Contributions discuss framing as a constructive act of power, the interpretive agency of audiences, the inte…
Strategic Continuity and Evolving Toolkit
The infrastructures and actor constellations through which election campaign communication unfolds have changed, with platforms, influencers, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools reshaping how campaigns operate. This raises the question of whether contemporary campaign communication differs fundamentally from that of earlier election cycles. Current debates oscillate between two extremes: either contemporary campaigns are fundamentally transfor…
Political science (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Media Studies and Communication (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Social Media and Politics (6 works) · Media Influence and Health (5 works)