Generic Visuals in the News

“Generic visuals” are images like stock photos and simple data visualizations, which have standardized formats and appearances and circulate with increasing frequency in the news media. Despite our growing exposure to generic visuals, very little is known about the role that they play in journalism. Research into visuals in the news has tended to focus on iconic photos or award-winning visualizations, and analyses of visual news media are therefore primarily studies of the spectacular. As a result, the mass of mundane images that surround us daily remains unacknowledged and under-researched. This chapter draws on research which aimed to fill this gap, by exploring the role that generic visuals play in the circulation of news.