Compare methods

	Visual Framing Analysis	Manifest Content Analysis
Field	Communication	Communication
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2011	1952
Originator	Visual framing scholarship (Rodriguez & Dimitrova; Messaris & Abraham)	Bernard Berelson; codified by Klaus Krippendorff
Type	Analysis of how images frame issues through selection and emphasis	Systematic quantitative coding of explicit message content
Seminal source	Rodriguez, L., & Dimitrova, D. V. (2011). The levels of visual framing. Journal of Visual Literacy, 30(1), 48–65.	Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN: 9780761915454
Aliases	Visual frame analysis, Image framing analysis, Levels of visual framing, Görsel Çerçeveleme Analizi	Quantitative manifest coding, Surface-content analysis, Manifest-level content analysis, Berelson content analysis
Related	4	5
Summary	Visual framing analysis examines how images — photographs, video stills, infographics — frame an issue by selecting and emphasizing certain aspects of reality, just as verbal frames do. Building on framing theory and the multi-level model articulated by Rodriguez and Dimitrova, it interprets visuals across levels from what is literally depicted to the ideological meanings they carry, recognizing that images frame powerfully and often covertly.	Manifest content analysis is a quantitative research technique that systematically counts the explicit, surface-level features of communication messages — words, sources, themes, images, or actors that are directly visible in the text or media artifact — according to a predefined coding scheme. Rooted in Bernard Berelson's classic definition of content analysis as the 'objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication,' it is one of the foundational empirical methods of mass communication and media research.