Infographics as a storytelling tool in UAE newspapers: a comparative study of Gulf News and Al Bayan

With the highly interactive and visually appealing forms of infographics in online news media, creating visually compelling designs and layouts using infographics becomes important for print media, from the traditional storytelling format of texts and photos to the use of infographics. Incorporating infographics appeals to audiences. Studies show that infographics appeal to readers and aid their comprehension, recall, and understanding complex news events. Infographics are a form of visual communication. Unlike still photos, layers of design elements, such as illustrations, charts, maps, and text, provide powerful news imagery that stimulates sensory experiences. Using content analysis, this exploratory research examined infographics in two major UAE daily newspapers: Gulf News (English) and Al Bayan (Arabic) in seeking how these publications utilised infographics in terms of their prevalent themes, contribution to the storytelling and narrative structure of editorial content, as well as their frequency, complexity and placement. The findings of the study show that both publications used infographics created in-house and sourced from news services to enhance storytelling. However, the form and use of infographics varied in terms of complexity and frequency in both publications.