The Impact of Visual Design on Public Participation. Case Study in Cyberjournalism

Indispensable for the proper functioning of democratic societies, journalism assumes a pivotal role in democracy and the community. Although information is the primary element in this area, the visual communication design is equally relevant. Placed on the same level as language and communication, cyberjournalism and visual communication contribute to creating the social world. Moreover, the effects of visual communication appear before one realises or reflects on them, influencing greater or lesser public participation. This manuscript seeks to understand how visual communication and the design adopted by online news platforms can affect public participation in cyberjournalism. To conduct this study, a literature review and methodological analysis were carried out, which focus focused on three online news platforms and the public. The analysis corpus is divided into five moments that address themes of cyberjournalism, participation design, design principles, design elements, credibility, and confidence. The results we obtained are relevant for distinct areas: Human-Computer Interaction, allowing the adoption of more conscious techniques in terms of interface and communication design; for the public, since what is at stake is the knowledge they derive from news content; and for news producers, encouraging quality consumption and informed participation in increasing digital literacy through the adoption of meaningful techniques towards more conscious forms of interaction.