The multiple functionality of news images

Abstract

In this chapter, I take a functional approach to the analysis of press photographs in and of themselves. This approach draws on the grammar of visual design, that is, the systems of meaning-making for images introduced by Kress and van Leeuwen (1990/1996, 2006). For SFL theorists who are working with multimodal texts, this work has proved an invaluable resource, and one that is compatible with the metafunctional approach (see below) introduced by Halliday (e.g. 1985) for the analysis of verbal text. Briefly here, Kress and van Leeuwen argue that images, like language, fulfil three major functions (2006, p. 15). Using Halliday’s terms, images represent the world around us ideationally and images enact social relationships interpersonally. Textually, images also present a coherent whole, which is both internally coherent and coherent in relation to its environment. As far as the visual is concerned, Kress and van Leeuwen label these three metafunctions: representation (ideational), interaction (interpersonal), and composition (textual). Throughout the chapter, I will explain and illustrate Kress and van Leeuwen’s metafunctional approach to image analysis by making specific reference to the realization of these functions in the work of press photographers. At the same time, I will draw on the analysis of the 1000 images in the image-nuclear news story corpus (INNSC) and demonstrate the range of meanings that dominate this particular set of news images.