Sensational Design: Layout and Typography in the Visual Rhetoric of Information Disorder

Abstract

Political communication in the United States today is often characterized by ‘information disorder’. However, studies of information disorder do not take into account the role of design in contributing to this phenomenon. Through a visual analysis of American political communication, specifically 19th-century sensational newspapers and 21st-century post-factual websites, this paper addresses gaps in current studies by analyzing two design elements: layout and display typography. In doing so, this study demonstrates how it is possible to use visual analysis to uncover the various presentations of the visual rhetoric that characterizes information disorder. This paper begins by situating sensational design within literature on design theory and visual rhetoric, sensationalism, and political aesthetics. The paper then examines layout and display typography in case studies of American political news from both 19th-century sensational newspapers and 21st-century post-factual news websites, two periods of ‘information disorder’ in American media, to understand how the visual rhetoric of ‘sensational design’ manifests differently in the two eras of ‘information disorder’. The paper concludes with a discussion of how layout and typography ‘act’ as elements of visual rhetoric, how design can be incorporated into current conceptions of political aesthetics, and the implications of such a relationship.