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Chapter 6136Second way of using visual and textual narratives: Different degrees of coherenceIn this study, I also set out to figure to what extent visual and textual narratives are coherent, in the sense that they convey a single frame. In Chapter 3, we found that in their framing process, when coalitions employ visual and textual narratives, there are multiple degrees of coherence between visual and textual narratives. In the Dutch and New York online fracking controversies, flames, for example, when depicted in a particular way, are shown to repeat the textual frame of a coalition of environmental risk. On the contrary, in the South African fracking controversy, a visual symbol of a water-pumping mill constructs a storyline of energy independence that is slightly different from the coalition’s textual frame of fracking as potentially risky in specific local circumstances. Both frames, visual and textual, attend to the local context in which the fracking technology should be evaluated, but while the textual frame highlights the unknowns, the visual storyline illuminates what already exists. The different degrees of coherence can cause a strengthening of a textual narrative using visualisations or a weakening of it, to the extent that visualisations can contribute to the breaking apart of a coalition or the uniting of multiple discourse coalitions, thus influencing their formation (see Metze & Dodge, 2016). Chapter 3 gives several examples of this potential in the context of the Dutch, New York and South African online fracking controversies.Third way of using visual and textual narratives: Composite image–text meaningThe comparison of the use of visual narratives to that of textual narratives, conducted in Chapters 3 and 4, leads to the conclusion that the complete meaning of a contested issue is conveyed by narratives composed of both visualisations and text. The two modes, the visual and textual, commonly coexisting in online communication, construct a single multi-layered meaning. This idea has been further developed in Chapter 5, by coining the concept image–text storyline, a storyline that is constructed through the use of visual content, qualities and techniques, in combination with text. Using this concept, we found that on Twitter, in a nanotechnology-in-food context, actors give positive, negative and neutral meanings to the technology by using a variety of image–text storylines. Positive Tweets commonly narrate image–text stories of food security and food sustainability, and negative tweets commonly narrate image–text stories of food contaminants and health concerns. On the open Web, in the same context, visualisations and their accompanying text narrate image–text storylines similar Efrat.indd 136 19-09-2023 09:47