European Journal of Scientific Research - EuroJournals

750 Muhammad Nawaz Mahsud, Muhammad Khalid and Firasat Jabeen
ways. Visual images are among the media’s most potent resources, there is a silver of truth in the
warnings of those 1920s editors who feared photos might lower journalistic standards. Modern news
audiences expect to see photos, and they often count on the images to help decide what is worth their
time and attention. Those photos and their Cutlines then draw readers deeper into the page and lead
them to the accompanying stories. (Cutlines, used synonymously with the term captions by most
journalists, are short blocks of text that explain pictures in terms of who is shown, what is happening,
and when, where and why the photo was taken, pp. 205).
Many studies have focused on the concept of “attitudes”, or peoples’ general predisposition’s to
evaluate other people, objects, and issues favorably or unfavorably. The attitude construct achieved its
pre-eminent position in research on social influence because of the assumption that a person’s attitude
is information, on the one hand, and behavioral change, on the other (Peterson and Thurstone, 1933).
Over the past 50 years numerous theories of attitude change and models of knowledge- attitude-
behavior relationships have been developed (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993; McGuire, 198; Petty, Unnava,
and Strathman, 1991). Although the person ability to learn and recall new information was often
thought to be an important casual determinant of and prerequisite to attitude and behaviours change.
Little empirical evidence has accumulated to support the view that message learning is a necessary step
(Greenwald, 1968; McGuire, 1985; Petty and Cacioppo, 1981). The message comprehension and
learning can occur in the absence of attitude change, and that a person’s attitude can change without
learning the specific information in the communication that is, a person might be able to comprehend
all of the intended information perfectly, but not be persuaded either because the information is counter
argued or seen as personally irrelevant. On the other hand a person might get information all wrong
(scoring zero on a knowledge test) but think about it a manner that produces the intended change. This
analysis helps to why previous research on mass media effects has sometimes found that message
learning and changes in knowledge occur in the absence of attitude change and vice-versa (Petty,
Baker and Gleicher 1991).
The attitude change process involves considerable cognitive work does not mean that the
attitude formed will be rational or “accurate one”. However the important point is that a rather
thoughtful process in which people attend carefully the issue relevant information presented changes
sometimes attitudes. Examine this information in the light of their relevant experiences and knowledge
and evaluate the information along with the dimensions they perceive central to the merits of the issue.
People engaged in this effortful cognitive actively have been characterized as engaging in “systematic”
(Chaiken, Ciberman, and Eagly, 189), “mindful” (Palmerio et al. 1984), and “piecemeal” (Fiske and
Pavelchak, 1986) processing. Different media sources have an impact on peoples’ ability to think about
message specially people are generally better able to process messages that appear in the print media
than those that are controlled externally (e.g., radio and television; Chaiken and Eagly, 1976; Wright,
1981).
This study entails critical and comparative analysis of the pictorial coverage given by two
leading English dailies ‘Dawn’ and ‘The Nation’ to know what events, celebrities, festivals etc are
given importance for pictorial coverage, what are the priorities regarding pictorial display in terms of
the number and the space devoted to the pictures. This study will help to make pictures that are
published in newspapers more effective, theme centered and influential. Because, there is no denying
of the fact that pictorial display plays very important role in making a newspaper recognized.
Methodology
The present study focuses on the print media. “Newspapers and magazines are still the easiest media to
access on the train or bus” (Frost, 2003). Two English elite newspapers ‘Dawn’ and The Nation’ are
selected due to their credibility and value of permanence. All the issues of the said papers published
form January 1 st , 07 to March 31 st , 07 are the universe of the study. Pictures of events and personnel—
international, national, provincial, and regional importance—published by all the selected newspapers’
pages in the prescribed period are taken as unit of analysis. The reason is simply to learn about the
recent trends of pictorial coverage given by both the selected newspapers. Moreover the selected time