Abstract
The Cameroonian daily press is now taking a new look at the use of photography in its columns. Photography is therefore at the heart of the new information system: the application of a new formula, a photographic formula, therefore visual, which is a novelty. The aim of our article is to highlight how the Cameroonian daily press constructs the discursive staging of this visual content. It proposes to examine the ways in which the news image in Cameroon Tribune is constituted in journalistic writing. In this article, we will analyse the photographic content of the daily newspaper Cameroon Tribune. The corpus consists of 1245 photographs from 25 issues published between 21 October and 22 November 2019. The technique used is media content analysis, which allows us to produce exhaustive descriptive statements that meet the criteria of scientific validity and reproducibility. Emancipated from its strict illustrative function, photography in the daily newspaper Cameroon Tribune then becomes fully a means of information and communication, in the same way as text. This translates into the construction of informative sets such as the importance of the surface area of the visual content which gives pride of place to the visual, giving an impression of abundance that is perceptible from the Front Page. One of the important features of the newspaper’s iconography is the great positivity of its images, which reinforces the closeness between the reader and the news. In total, the newspaper highlights photographs of limited informative interest: these are portraits that show the faces of the protagonists of the articles, to the detriment of current events.
Highlights
The so-called “functional” photography (Moles, 1981) [1], has become a medium of information so much used by our contemporary media
In order to provide an exhaustive survey of the visual content of Cameroon Tribune, we first present the results, mainly quantitatively, according to each of the variables used as a unit of analysis when processing the images: types of format, headings, number of images, etc
It stipulated that Cameroon Tribune, like all media, has its own way of expressing itself, which reaches different audiences, and that this can be seen in the way images are treated
Summary
The so-called “functional” photography (Moles, 1981) [1], has become a medium of information so much used by our contemporary media. The rhythm of daily life and, above all, the mass of information that we have to process and use do not encourage us to adopt a divergent attitude in front of visual documents, favouring contemplation. We are more and more solicited by the producers of visual supports, to read much more than just looking at images, which present a minimum of practical interest. We are increasingly inclined to develop a functional perceptive attitude to images. It should be noted, that the general context in which the print media operates in Cameroon is influenced by a wide variety of titles, which have so far published few black-and-white photographs, partly for technical reasons, and because of the economic difficulties faced by newspapers
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