Photography and Remote Warfare: An Inquiry into the Visual Representation of Cyber in News Images

Abstract

While the importance of new technologies for warfare has only grown, the images used to represent them have remained static. Online image searches of ‘cyber attacks’, ‘cyber security’ or ‘cyber warfare’ pull up image after image that all look the same: rows of 1’s and 0’s, a hooded man in front of a computer, a padlock. To date, little attention has been given to the ways emerging technology is visualized and therefore image-makers have little research to go on when they are considering making images on these topics. Similarly, journalists, campaigners and policymakers have little evidence on which to base decisions they are having to make regularly when selecting images. This paper looks at the importance of news images for shaping our political realities and how remote warfare – that centers on less visible warfare – poses new challenges to photojournalists. This shift in warfare coincided in the early 2000s with both the “visual turn” in security studies and the “postphotographic” age. Through a series of qualitative interviews with cyber experts from Europe, the US, and Russia, this paper sheds light on how current cyber images are interpreted, offering a first step to understanding what current cyber visual discourse is saying, how, and why.