Impact of Photographs and its Placement in News Articles on Readers

The research is carried out to study the impact of photographs and its placement on readers in newspapers. Photographs and headlines are heavyweights, attracting attention more than any other element on a page. It evaluates the terms of placement of photographs as well. Photographs in newspapers are researched through semiotics analysis, content analysis and other qualitative techniques. This study undertakes both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The researcher has used a random sampling with a sample size of 108. The analysis is also made on the basis of in-depth interviews with experienced members of print organisations. Based on the analysis of the data collected, the research has thrown light upon findings that, even before scanning pages in detail, the first elements seen by a reader are the photographs. Both the genders have equally shown that photographs are the first component that attracts them to read an article. A well placed photograph plays an important role by breaking the monotony of text and leads to the visual appeal of a reader.