[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-82462-en":3,"doc-seo-82462-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":83},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},82462,1099513958607,"Jiven","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/100002390cf8733938c?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1778829742770036399",8,"Research & Report","Comparing the Emotional Impact of Thematic Versus Episodic Framing in Visualization Text","Textual framing in data visualizations shapes how people comprehend, recall, and perceive bias, yet its impact on viewers’ emotions is less studied. This study compares episodic framing, which foregrounds a specific event, with thematic framing, which foregrounds broader trends. A preregistered online experiment (N=800) exposed participants to identical U.S. mass-shooting charts that differed only in the title framing. Episodic framing increased negative emotional valence more than thematic framing, while thematic titles with annotations had no added effect.","Comparing the Emotional Impact of Thematic Versus Episodic Framing in  \nVisualization Text  \nPoorna Talkad Sukumar*  \nDepartment of Media Communications Munster Technological University  \nMaurizio Porfiri†  \nTandon School of Engineering New York University  \nOded Nov‡  \nTandon School of Engineering New York University  \narXiv :2607 .00103v1 [ cs .HC] 30 Jun 2026  \n\n| Thematic title Thematic title + annotation Episodic title + annotation |  |  |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| 949 people have died in mass shootings since 2001\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>Source: The Violence Prevention Project | 949 people have died in mass shootings since 2001\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>Source: The Violence Prevention Project | In Uvalde, 19 children lost their lives—one of many mass shootings devastating families since 2001\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>Source: The Violence Prevention Project |\n\nFigure 1: Experimental conditions showing textual framing manipulations. All conditions display identical bar charts of U.S. mass shooting data (2001–2024), with the top chart showing the number of people killed per year and the bottom chart showing the number of incidents per year; only the title and annotation vary. Left (T): a thematic title summarizing overall deaths (“949 people have died in mass shootings since 2001”) . Center (T+Ann): the same title with an annotation marking a specific event (“Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas”) . Right (E+Ann): an episodic title referencing that event (“In Uvalde, 19 children lost their lives—one of many mass shootings devastating families since 2001”), paired with the same annotation.  \nABSTRACT  \nAlthough 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.  \nIndex Terms: Visualization; Journalism; Mass Shootings; Textual Framing; Emotion; Episodic Framing; Thematic Framing  \n* e-mail: [poorna.t.s@gmail.com](poorna.t.s@gmail.com)  \n†[e-mail: mporfiri@nyu.edu](e-mail: mporfiri@nyu.edu)[ ](e-mail: mporfiri@nyu.edu)‡e-mail: [on272@nyu.edu](on272@nyu.edu)  \n1 INTRODUCTION  \nTextual elements in data visualizations—such as titles, annotations, and captions—play a central role in shaping how viewers attend to and interpret visualizations. These elements guide attention and serve as anchors for interpretation, influencing what viewers remember and ultimately take away from a visualization [2, 3, 11, 26, 31] . A growing body of research has examined how textual framing in visualization influences comprehension, recall, and perceptions of bias or neutrality [12, 13, 25], where framing refers to shaping how people interpret issues by emphasizing certain aspects while omitting others [6] .  \nHowever, textual framing is not just about cognitive resonance, but also about emotional processes [1] . By selectively emphasizing certain aspects of a dataset, framing can shape not","cbCairZeW10f76vO","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairZeW10f76vO","pdf",1153074,3,1,5,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n# Experimental Method\n## Conditions and Stimuli\n# Results\n## Emotional Valence\n## Policy Attitudes and Mediation","[{\"question\":\"What were the key findings regarding emotion and policy attitudes?\",\"answer\":\"Episodic framing produced significantly more negative emotional valence than the thematic conditions. Framing did not significantly change policy attitudes directly, but mediation analysis showed that increased negative emotion under episodic framing predicted greater support for gun control.\"}]",1784180618,13,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":78,"head_meta":80,"extra_data":82,"updated_unix":28},"comparing-the-emotional-impact-of-thematic-versus-episodic-framing-in-visualization-text","",{"@graph":36,"@context":77},[37,53,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,50],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/comparing-the-emotional-impact-of-thematic-versus-episodic-framing-in-visualization-text/82462/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":41,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-23","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What were the key findings regarding emotion and policy attitudes?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Episodic framing produced significantly more negative emotional valence than the thematic conditions. 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