Assistant Professor of Visual Communication

About

  • Role

    Faculty

  • Position

    • Assistant Professor of Visual Communication

  • Concentration

    • Visual Communication
    • Political communication
    • Digital Journalism
    • Visual Communication, New media, Content Graphic Design, Data Visualization, Motion Graphics, Non-Linear Storytelling
    • Social Media
    • Content Creation/Video Production

  • Department

    • Journalism & Media Communication

  • Education

    • PhD Indiana University

Biography

Born and raised near Milan, Italy, he moved to the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Media and Communication from The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington (2022).

Education:
Ph.D., Media and Communication, Indiana University Bloomington; M.A., Royal Holloway, University of London; B.A., University of Milan, Italy

Research Interests:

Umberto Famulari is an Assistant Professor of Visual Communication. His research primarily examines the interaction among multimedia storytelling, digital media, visual communication, and political communication.

One stream of his scholarship focuses on how media create content using text and visuals, and how multimodal representations influence audience attitudes, emotions, behaviors, and policy support.

A second line of research examines multi-platform storytelling, visual communication, and politics. He is particularly interested in understanding how politicians and public institutions strategically employ visuals and text to influence political support and online engagement.

He has published in a variety of academic journals, including Visual Communication Quarterly, Journalism Studies, The International Journal of Press/Politics, Journalism Practice, Atlantic Journal of Communication, Newspaper Research Journal, and the Journal of Italian Media Studies.

Publications

Selected Publications:

Famulari, U., Hatley Major, L. (in press). Visualizing election campaigns: How online news in Germany, Poland and the United States use camera techniques to portray politicians running for office. Visual Communication Quarterly

Famulari, U., Hatley Major, L. (in press). Visual journalism and the representation of politicians, in T.J. Thomson and N. Dahmen (eds), The Routledge companion to Visual Journalism, Routledge.

Steffan, D., Grabe, M. E., & Famulari, U. (2024). Multinational and Multimodal Character Framing of Political Candidates in Online News: Do Political and Media System Classifications Matter?. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 19401612241285665.

Famulari, U., & Hatley Major, L. (2024). The influence of visual and textual frames on people’s perception of migrants. Communication and the Public, 20570473241249769.

Famulari, U., & Hatley Major, L. (2023). Photojournalists’ visual framing of criminal jury trials in national US digital news. Newspaper Research Journal, 44(2), 206-222.

Famulari, U., & Major, L. H. (2023). News stories and images of immigration online: A quantitative analysis of digital-native and traditional news websites of different political orientations and social media engagement. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 1-20.

Famulari, U. (2021). The strategic use of visuals on Facebook: A multimodal analysis of images and audience reactions during the campaign for the 2019 UK general elections. Visual Communication Quarterly, 28 (4), 199-211.

Famulari, U. (2020). Framing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy: A quantitative content analysis of visuals and stories in U.S. cable news and newspaper websites. Journalism Studies, 21 (16), 2267-2284.

Famulari, U. (2020). Defining problems and struggling to find solutions: Framing Roma people in Italian news websites. Journal of Italian Media & Cinema Studies, 3(2), 375-397.