Hostile visual encounters: fighting to control photographic meaning in the DRC's digital age

Abstract

AbstractOn 16 July 2013, Simone Schlindwein, a German journalist, used her mobile phone to photograph a conflict-related image in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that later contributed to local riots and to her hasty exit across the border. From the ‘front’, she uploaded the photograph to her Twitter account and caused a melee of virtual and on-the-ground controversy that at record speed came to involve the United Nations, members of the Congolese diaspora, the Congolese army, the M23 rebel army propaganda office, and the residents of the region. This article starts from her image to ethnographically examine the resulting events and responses, both online and in the city of Goma. In so doing, it engages the heated regional debate as to whether the image was objectively captured or if the violence depicted was simply ‘playing for the camera’. Addressing the simultaneous online movement of the image through social media and news sites, the article argues that the combination of the socio-political climate, conflict and the uncontrollable narrative of the image created a perfect storm in which the entangled regional politics suddenly became visible.