While media images can ease political information perception and processing, the impact of images on behavioral intentions to engage in protest is relatively unexplored. We ask: Under what conditions can news images of protest “move” people and affect the willingness to participate? Aiming to answer this question from an information-processing perspective, we shed light on the nexus between spontaneous, sensory behavior and cognition in response to news media images of protest. We conducted a multigroup experiment in which 143 recipients were randomly exposed to four news images of protest and their visual attention monitored. Multilevel regressions indicate that viewers fixate on images of protest prior to accompanying texts. When exposed to protest images with a negative valence, an increase in the observation duration for protest images increases the recipient’s willingness to participate. Contrariwise, when viewing protest images with a positive valence, a longer observation duration does not increase participatory intentions. Irrespective of image valence, the greater the salience that viewers subjectively ascribed to the image, the greater their willingness to protest concerning the depicted issue. Our analysis also reveals a cross-level interaction effect indicating that the impact of image observation duration on the willingness to engage is conditional on individual levels of political interest: The positive effect of observing protest images on the willingness to protest is especially increased, if an individual is highly politically interested. These results indicate that, under certain conditions, media images are efficient carriers of political content that can motivate citizens to protest.

尽管媒体图像可以简化政治信息的感知和处理，但是图像对进行抗议的行为意图的影响却相对较少。我们问：在什么情况下，抗议的新闻图片会“移动”人们并影响参与的意愿？为了从信息处理的角度回答这个问题，我们阐明了自发的，感官的行为与认知之间的联系，以回应新闻媒体的抗议形象。我们进行了一项多组实验，其中143个接收者被随机暴露于四张抗议新闻图像中，并监控了他们的视觉注意力。多级回归表明，观看者在附随文字之前会先注视抗议的图像。当暴露于带有负价的抗议图像时，抗议图像观察持续时间的增加会增加接受者的参与意愿。相反，当以正价观看抗议图像时，较长的观察时间不会增加参与意愿。不管图像的价格如何，观看者在主观上对图像的重视程度越高，他们就所描述的问题进行抗议的意愿就越大。我们的分析还揭示了一个跨层次的交互作用，表明图像观察持续时间对参与意愿的影响取决于个人的政治利益水平：观察抗议图像对抗议意愿的积极影响尤其会增加，如果个人在政治上非常感兴趣。这些结果表明，在某些条件下，