Abstract
In the digital age of global media networks, where pictures travel more easily than ever before, images of war, violence and human catastrophes have a strong impact on security cultures. In this article, I briefly summarize the recent ‘visual turn’ in critical security studies and introduce an iconological approach. Taking images as images seriously, thus, is the first goal of this contribution. Secondly, by applying this approach to the case of a TIME cover showing a young Afghan women whose ears and nose were cut off, this article shows how this image constructs a visual icon of a responsibility to protect, including a tension between securitizing and depoliticizing effects on gender and human rights. In conclusion, I argue that images are a powerful expression of security cultures students in IR should pay more attention to.
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