My study compared photographic news coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests from two competing New York City tabloid newspapers on opposite sides of the political spectrum, the New York Post and the Daily News. The purpose of the study was to determine if each newspaper's political orientation affected the photographs that were selected and presented to the public and if the chosen photographs could persuade individuals to support or reject the rally. The principles of social proof were applied to determine if a pattern existed in the selection of photographs (content analysis) and the persuasive effects the photographs had on individuals participating in the study (experiment). Results from the content analysis indicated that the pattern of selection was slanted toward the political orientation of both media outlets. Results from the experiment showed limits to how far people could be persuaded. Results for the experiment also indicate that having dependents influenced an individual's decisions across both experimental conditions.
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