The reporting of geopolitical conflicts and human rights issues in international news media highlights the journalistic and ethical responsibilities of editors, reporters, and photographers in terms of what stories are told, and how they are produced. Imagery such as video, photographs, illustrations, and graphics can play an important part of this process, which is sometimes understood as visual framing.

This past spring, Department of Journalism graduate Eli Voorhies presented innovative research in this area at a leading scholarly conference, examining how global news media differ in how visuals are used within human rights reporting. The media research was presented at the Association of Borderlands Studies annual conference, held in Seattle. Eli’s study, titled “Shadows on the Wall: How The New York Times and Al Jazeera visually frame the Uyghur oppression,” was presented in the Community Borderlands panel alongside border policy and communication research from professors Sara Svensson of Halmstad University in Sweden, James Garber of San Diego State University, and Christina Keppie of Western Washington University.

Western professor emeritus Don Alper, who founded WWU’s Border Policy Research Institute in 2005, chaired the panel, which collectively focused on localized or regional borderlands issues across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Voorhies’ research project was developed last winter in Derek Moscato’s Senior Media Research Seminar, before being selected by the Border Policy Research Institute for presentation in Seattle.