Analysis of Directing Recipientsʼ Attention Through the Cover Design of Selected Polish Opinion Weeklies
Analysis of Directing Recipientsʼ Attention Through the Cover Design of Selected Polish Opinion Weeklies

Summary/Abstract: Contemporary print media face the challenge of capturing and sustaining audience attention in an era of near-instant communication. The magazine cover has become a crucial element of communication strategy, designed to attract attention and evoke emotions. In this paper we examine the role of covers in publisher–reader communication, by analysing selected Polish opinion weeklies, Newsweek Polska, Polityka, and Wprost. We focus on variables influencing the perception of political communication and its actors. Politicians are often depicted in negatively charged poses, with microexpressions conveying core emotions. These function as elements of visual rhetoric, where microexpressions operate as visual arguments. Notably, such expressions are sometimes digitally constructed. The study demonstrates that nowadays technical means enable the management of cognitive and affective responses. As a result, publishers can influence readers’ emotions and attitudes by emphasising or fabricating gestures, postures, and emotional expressions of political figures.

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