Abstract:

The paper presents findings about impacts typographic order on the perception of the credibility of newspapers. The study is based on a comparative analysis between a group of selected English and Turkish newspapers. It is the main purpose to understand the influence of the elements of macro-typographic design over the perception of the credibility of newspapers, and thus, to have information about the effect of the newspaper as a mer communication channel/form (medium) on its message (meaning). The analysis has two steps. The first step includes an evaluation on the design identity of newspapers concerning fundamental principles of design. In the second step, a group of participants are asked to evaluate front/index pages of selected newspapers' printed and online editions in regard to their credibility and recognizability. As a general result, the findings endorses the notion that there is a strong relationship between typographic design and the perception of reliability or seriousness as to the newspapers. Yet, this link becomes more obvious and powerful if only the identity of the newspaper cannot be recognized from the content. Where English newspapers are more successful in forming coherence between their content and visual identity, and in carrying this to their online editions, Turkish newspapers become "anonymous" in a visual manner closer to "soft news" newspapers.

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