Comparing the Emotional Impact of Thematic Versus Episodic Framing in Visualization Text

2026-06-30

AI Summary

This study investigates how textual framing—thematic versus episodic—in data visualizations influences viewers’ emotional responses and policy attitudes, addressing a critical gap in understanding the affective mechanisms underlying persuasive visualization. Through a preregistered between-subjects online experiment, the authors compared identical charts paired with different textual framings: thematic headlines, annotated thematic headlines, and episodic headlines accompanied by the same annotation. Results demonstrate for the first time that episodic framing elicits significantly stronger negative emotions, which in turn mediate increased support for gun control policies. In contrast, adding annotations to thematic framing did not alter emotional responses, and textual framing exhibited no direct significant effect on policy attitudes. These findings underscore the pivotal mediating role of emotion in the persuasive impact of data visualizations.

Abstract

Although textual framing in data visualizations is known to influence comprehension, recall, and perceptions of bias, its effects on viewers' emotional responses remain underexplored. Drawing on two widely studied framing strategies in political communication, we examine how episodic framing (foregrounding a specific event) versus thematic framing (foregrounding broader trends) affects emotional and attitudinal responses to visualizations. We conducted a preregistered, between-subjects online experiment (N = 800) in which participants viewed identical visualizations of U.S. mass shooting data that varied only in textual framing: a thematic title, a thematic title with annotation, or an episodic title paired with the same annotation. Results show that episodic framing elicited significantly more negative emotional valence than both thematic conditions. In contrast, adding an annotation to a thematic title did not alter emotional impact. While framing did not significantly affect policy attitudes, mediation analysis revealed a significant indirect effect: increased negative emotion under episodic framing predicted greater support for gun control. These findings position emotion as a critical, yet underexamined, dimension of how textual framing shapes responses to data visualizations.

Problem

• emotional impact
• textual framing
• data visualization
• episodic framing
• thematic framing

Innovation

• episodic framing
• thematic framing
• emotional valence
• data visualization
• mediation analysis