Editor's introduction: visual studies,digital imaging and new media

This study explores the repetitive patterns of visual representations in contemporary U.S. local television news by looking at the coverage of the ‘fall of the Berlin Wall’ in November, 1989. Feature stories from three television stations in Minneapolis‐St. Paul are examined as typical examples from a local U.S. television station. The main research questions are: what aspects of the conflict between East and West Germany were included in the television coverage, and which were left out? How was the background to the event, both historical and ideological, presented in the reports? How was the Berlin Wall and the changes associated with its dismantling represented visually? The project has been informed by the analysis national news coverage in the United States and West Germany which provided a cross‐cultural dimension to the study.