Previous research in political communication has shown that visual news coverage can affect news consumers’ evaluations of political candidates. Yet, so far, the effects of subtle (positive/negative) visual background cues on candidate evaluation remain largely unclear. Also, the role of individuals’ media trust has not been explored in this context. That is, trusting individuals may interpret subtle visual cues in different ways compared with mistrusting individuals. Drawing from theory on visual communication, media trust, and the persuasion knowledge model a quota-based online experiment revealed that media trust moderates the relationship between the exposure to negative visual cues and candidate evaluation in the context of a political scandal. Mistrusting individuals showed more positive candidate evaluations, whereas trusting individuals showed more negative evaluations. Thus, visual background cues can have a polarising effect on citizens’ evaluations of political actors and influence the electorate in very different ways. Implications for journalism practice are discussed.

先前对政治传播的研究表明，视觉新闻报道会影响新闻消费者对政治候选人的评价。然而，到目前为止，对候选者评估的微妙（正面/负面）视觉背景线索的影响仍然不清楚。同样，在这种情况下还没有探讨个人媒体信任的作用。也就是说，与不信任的人相比，信任的人可能以不同的方式解释细微的视觉提示。基于视觉交流，媒体信任和说服知识模型的理论，基于配额的在线实验表明，在政治丑闻的背景下，媒体信任可以缓解负面视觉提示的曝光与候选人评估之间的关系。不信任的人对候选人的评价更高，而信任的人表现出更多的负面评价。因此，视觉背景暗示可以对公民对政治参与者的评价产生两极分化的影响，并以非常不同的方式影响选民。讨论了对新闻实践的影响。