Essay on Evaluate Visual Reporting

Submitted By shirley1130
Words: 743
Pages: 3

Literature Review
1.1 Picture and Photograph
Nowadays, the annual reports no longer just convey simple financial data and number, they need to provide a wide range of information to users and potential investors. With the development of the visual reports provided by companies, Davison (2007) suggests that the expending use of graphs, pictures, photographs and other visual forms in the annual reports to convey information seemed to be useful tools of connection. This paper has built a model to explain photographs in accountability report from Barthes' theoretical work on photograph. Campbell et al., (2009) examine the face work in annual reports. The findings suggest that the use of these pictures may be more effective, and make the connection closely between the readers and corporations.

Visual images are very important in the visual reporting by company, such as pictures and photographs. Firstly, Davison (2008) considers that many companies’ annual reporting which increase more rhetoric and repetition of words and pictures, take Annual reviews of British Telecommunication plc for example. This behavior causes highlighted and emphasized intangibles like corporate visual Image. The study built a model of conceptual framework to theoretical and empirical work. Especially, this research finds this model which examines companies use more useful discretion pictures and words in companies’ annual reporting. It is very benefit and significant to evaluation of users and readers impression. Secondly, Matilal and HÖPFL (2009) discuss connection between photographic representation aspect s and accounting statements. This paper finds the photographic rhetoric power in the tragedy which catching and comparing through the photographs, for example, it was the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in India in 1984. The research suggests the image of photograph implies not merely figures and statement, but life and death too. This emphasizes photographic farce in the tragedy. Sometime these tragic images cites in the company’s annual reporting.

1.2 Graph
Beattie and Jones (2008) studied the relationship between graphs and company performance and they get the conclusion that corporate performance can be changed by graphs, and impression management is the main theory to activate financial graphs research. This article pointed out that graphs are used to “manage” the impression of firm’s performance, especially in key financial variable like income, earnings, sales and EPS. By using graphs, readers can draw a different impression of direction change and percentage change which makes financial statement looks better when showing the same information. Company seems to more likely to use graph when company makes a good performance because graphs can get more attraction. However, when company makes a bad performance they less graphs in their annual report in order to transform readers’ attention. Graphs play an important role in interprets the company’s financial position and performance to readers (Beattie and Jones, 2000). Besides that, careful consideration should be given to the desirability of introducing graphical standards. By increasing the standards of