Photojournalism Research Articles

The Role of Photography in Breaking News Events: The Trump Assassination as an Example

This paper explores the role of photography in breaking news events through photographs taken by Evan Vucci during the Trump assassination. Using content analysis, the study analyzed 105 public articles to explore the visual guiding power of photography and how the media uses images to influence public opinion. The study found that photography can quickly attract public attention and influence the emotional level, while media can shape a specific narrative framework through selective display. The life of a news report lies in vividness, truth, and vividness. The same is true of news photography. Capturing real moments with both visual and emotional impact is the best news photo [1]. Meanwhile, it points out the shortcomings of China’s WeChat in reporting, such as ignoring the victims and the deep-rooted causes, and suggests that the media should reflect on the problems in reporting and take social responsibility. The study also offers suggestions for future reporting practices, emphasizing the key role of photojournalism in shaping public perception and the importance of media ethics. The limitation of the study is that the sample mainly focuses on WeChat, with a short timeframe, and future research will expand the sample and deepen the analysis of the audience’s psychological and emotional responses.

And the Winner Is - Anthropocentrism and Speciesism: Writing a History of Animals in New Zealand’s Agricultural and Pastoral Events

The paper explores news photographs from New Zealand between 1900 and 1932 and unpacks the happenings at agricultural and pastoral events. It utilizes an archival research strategy to find the news coverage of such events that is informed by an animalcentric philosophy. As such, it engages with critical posthumanist and poststructuralist thought. This allows the presence of nonhuman animals as sentient beings to be recognized and challenges previous approaches of scholarship. Thus, the paper writes farmed nonhuman animals into the history of agricultural and pastoral events. In illustrating what occurred at these events, the paper illuminates the anthropocentric bias and speciesism-grounded principles embedded in human attitudes toward farmed nonhuman animals. Humans treat fellow sentient beings unfairly and unjustly, which is problematic when nonhuman animal sentience provides moral worth. This study contributes to studies in leisure’s ‘animal turn’ by focusing on the entanglements of human and farmed nonhuman animals in events.

Worth a Thousand Words: Crime Scenes Represented by Photojournalists and Forensic Photographers in Brazil

ABSTRACT This article compares how crime scenes are represented by photojournalists and forensic photographers in the city of Brasília. It starts from the premise that crime scene photography adheres to the social and professional contexts of the professional group that is taking it who, in turn, determines its identities, practices and conventions. The methodology consists of an analysis of 168 photos taken of three cases of femicide that occurred between 2016 and 2019, and in-depth interviews conducted with three photojournalists and three forensic photographers. News photographs place their importance on the selection of information that is going to be shown to their audience, usually choosing people and elements that evoke emotions. Forensic photographers emphasize documentation and control, using high-angle shots to capture everything. Both fields claim objectivity in their production, but in opposite ways, as forensic photography attempts to prove what is shown, and news photography hides and distorts elements to appeal to its audience. This paper looks at the role photography plays in building social reality, showing the same scene from the same incident and how its representation may differ according to who makes the image, the protocols they follow, and also who these images are taken for.

Building and maintaining a volunteer community: experiences of an image archive

The ETH-Library’s Image Archive has been using the knowledge of volunteers for over 15 years to identify photographs (aerial images, documentary and scientific photographs, press photography, etc.) correct and improve image metadata or georeference images. The first big challenge in starting so-called crowdsourcing projects is how to find people who might be enthusiastic about such a project. The second big challenge is how to maintain a community and keep it going over a longer period. A variety of experiences, tips as well as do’s and don’ts are discussed in the article.

The Effect of News Photo Sentiment on Stock Price Crash Risk Based on Deep Learning Models

The Effect of News Photo Sentiment on Stock Price Crash Risk Based on Deep Learning Models

Images, clusters and types – Making sense of (large) image corpora and related practices in and with digital media

In November 2021, the Visual Communication Division of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) celebrated its 20th anniversary at the University of Trier with a one-year pandemic delay. Marion G. Müller, Katharina Christ and Christof Barth organized an excellent conference to mark the occasion and to reflect on past and current trends, topics, and challenges in visual communication research. Resuming the thematic scope of the division’s first conference held in Hamburg in 2000, the conference focused on “The power of images – Images of power. On visual political communication in digital contexts.” While analyses of press photography in the tradition of political iconology were the main approaches twenty years ago, the program of the anniversary conference demonstrated diversified thematic foci and methodological approaches. The presentations examined a broad range of visual digital media and visual communication exerted by various actors ranging from the press to politicians to activists and citizens. Concurrently, we also saw a considerable diversity concerning methodological approaches and a rising influence of computational methods for analyzing the increasingly large numbers of images in digital media environments. With the panel “Image type / image cluster analysis as an approach to analyzing large numbers of images in online environments,” a discussion on diverse methodological approaches and their potentials and challenges among our members started. After the conference, we decided to open up our internal discussion and reach out to international colleagues working on similar questions. The long-term result is this Thematic Section on diverse methods for structuring image data corpora drawing on different traditions of visual analysis.

Picturing a quality local news visual: Perspectives from non-specialist journalists

This study explores a key question around local visual news: what do non-specialist journalists regard as a quality news visual? This study focuses on still images as the most ubiquitous building block in the local visual news landscape, whether as thumbnails that are shared with links on social media platforms, as hero images accompanying articles, as photo galleries, or as still frames extracted from videos. Much of what we know about a quality news visual comes from the perspectives of visually literate specialists: photo editors, photojournalists, and related roles. Yet, despite the ubiquity of photographs within print and digital news, they are increasingly being made not by staff photojournalists but, rather, by freelancers, words-based reporters, or community members. As these dynamics have shifted over the past two decades, scholarship has struggled to keep up with how non-specialist journalists define the attributes and properties of a quality news visual. This study aims to address this gap within the context of local and regional news using an interview-based approach and finds that interviewees most commonly defined quality news photographs through the lens of news values, followed by technical considerations and narrative dimensions, aesthetics, the perceived effect the visual had on the audience, how the visual was made and presented, and who or what was photographed.

Pulitzer Prize’s Breaking News Photography Intensifying Students’ Photojournalism

The recent surge in Pulitzer Prize-winning Breaking News Photography has prompted an exploration into its impact on student photojournalism. This research aims to investigate and analyze this phenomenon. The objective of this study is to assess the effects of recent Pulitzer Prize-winning Breaking News Photography on the intensification of student photojournalism. A qualitative approach, utilizing observational methods, was employed in this research. Sampling was conducted through cluster sampling, involving a total of 60 participants. The analysis of Pulitzer Prize-winning Breaking News Photography indicates a notable enhancement in the ability of students to produce high-quality journalistic photos. Assignments focused on reinforcing the essential principles of journalism have facilitated increased creativity in photo composition and improved accuracy in captioning. Moreover, the evaluation of student works uploaded to social media platforms has provided valuable insights for instructors. Additionally, the need for curriculum adaptation to emphasize skill development is highlighted, aiming to cultivate professional, integrity-driven, and honest journalists. The implications of this study underscore the significance of adapting curriculum structures to bolster skill development in student photojournalists, thereby fostering the emergence of journalism professionals characterized by integrity and honesty.

Slightly Out of Focus. Analysis of Ambiguity in Robert Capa’s Photography

The concept of Slightly Out of Focus, attributed to the photographer Robert Capa, is a line of research that invites us to delve into icons, such as the photographs “The Falling Soldier” and “Crawling through the Water”. Regarding the version presented by proponents of Robert Capa’s work and the results of recent investigations, there are some discrepancies regarding the classification of The Mexican Suitcase II and his photographic style. The conflicts concerning cameras lost negatives, and the effect of blurriness in both icons are coincidences that may form a pattern in the discourse about Robert Capa. This research also analyzes two theses on the biases of press photography and documentary photography. The first thesis considers that in press photography, staging is fraudulent information, but not in documentary photography. The second thesis posits that staging is an unacceptable fraud in both photographic biases. The methodology applied in both theses compares two icons of Robert Capa, considered typical of press photography, with two other icons by photographer Arthur Rothstein, namely, “Cattle Skull” and “Dust Storm”. Rothstein is a reference figure in documentary photography and the 1936 Resettlement Administration program, later known as Farm Security Administration. The press’s reaction to the staging of the photograph Cattle Skull left no doubt about the incompatibility of staging in the context of documentary photography.

Un-Settling Stereotypes: Photo Agency Visual Representations of Syrian Refugee Resettlement in the United States

ABSTRACT News photographs of Syrian refugees fleeing conflict have been found to perpetuate stereotypes of dehumanization, victimhood, security threats, non-integrable, and dependency. This content analysis examined pictures from news photo agencies to assess the extent to which images of Syrian refugees living in the United States were laden with these same stereotypes. Results revealed that the majority of images did not visually frame Syrian refugees as dehumanized, victims, and security threats, but many images did reinforce stereotypes about refugees being non-integrable and dependent.

Scientists in the news photos: Photographic portraits of scientists in China (1949-2022).

Photography plays an important role in science communication. This study investigates the photographic portraits of scientists in the news media in China from 1949 to 2022. The data consist of 1,071 photographs published in People's Daily, the most influential newspaper in China. The photographs are analysed according to a framework based on previous studies on the visual representation of scientists. Analysis shows an overall image of scientists that demonstrates distinctive 'Chinese' features, such as the prominence of group photos and governmental honours. Diachronically, the visual image of scientists evolved from the early farmer scientists acclaimed in midst of political struggle to social elites and stars celebrated as China's hope for indigenous innovation. The study enriches our understanding of the visual representation of scientists in China, and sheds light on the influence of culture, politics and social positioning of science and technology on the image of scientists created by the media.

“Being there”: How Photojournalists Navigate Making Images During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, this paper explores visual journalists personal experience with safety concerns as they gather imagery. It delves into visual journalists’ impressions of organizational support and job satisfaction in times of crisis and how that relates to the images they produced and their impression of the journalism industry broadly. In this exploratory study, scholars partnered with the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) to survey 161 visual journalists about how they conducted their work in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, exploring the question: How has the pandemic affected visual journalists tasked with bearing witness and making images that must take place in person? Guided by the hierarchy of influences model, findings indicate that visuals journalists (individuals) and their routines were disrupted during the pandemic, leading to subsequent changes in visual content produced. Moreover, journalists experienced decreases in overall job satisfaction, especially when they felt their news organizations did not prioritize their safety. This research discusses what this means for photojournalism and how professionals should reexamine the burden of bearing witness.

"Hot Media" and "Cold Media" in Photo News—Comment on the Winning Works of News Photography and News Cartoon Category of Hainan News

"Hot Media" and "Cold Media" in Photo News—Comment on the Winning Works of News Photography and News Cartoon Category of Hainan News

The contrast of Chinese economic images built by the internal and external media from the perspective of photo news about poverty alleviation

The contrast of Chinese economic images built by the internal and external media from the perspective of photo news about poverty alleviation

The image of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on the front pages of “Rzeczpospolita” and “Gazeta Wyborcza” – an analysis of the framing of war photographs

This article aims to illustrate the initial weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as well as the preceding period, through press photography displayed on the front pages of two influential Polish daily newspapers, “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita”, from February 1 to March 31, 2022. Research method: The study utilizes visual framing theory, a less commonly applied approach in visual research compared to classical framing analysis and not as extensively discussed in media studies. Results: The investigation reveals that “Gazeta Wyborcza” and “Rzeczpospolita” did not significantly differ in their daily visual representation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both newspapers predominantly featured photographs highlighting the conflict frame. Frames focusing on political leadership and military aspects were less prominent. High saturation of photography with the frame of human interest was revealed. Originality/Cognitive value: This article contributes to the understanding of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is depicted in the non-verbal content of leading Polish dailies.

Significance of Captions in News Photography

Journalistic prose, accessible to individuals with diverse educational backgrounds, resonates effectively in the realm of photojournalism. When presenting a photograph that encapsulates the essence of an event alongside informative content, it is essential to include the name and a descriptive caption beneath the photo. Whether the image features a prominent personality, a specific location, or a compelling portrait, this practice elevates factual details into meaningful and impactful information. Encountering a magazine cover image without accompanying captions for the first time often sparks surprise or prompts a page turn. Therefore, it is a lapse for the photojournalist to overlook the inclusion of a comprehensive photo description. Individuals possessing discerning skills directly engage with the visual narrative, and the absence of contextual explanation renders the invested time and effort ineffectual. The failure to provide elucidation implies a depreciation of the photographer’s meticulous work. Once a photo description is published, it stands as an immutable record, underscoring the irrevocable nature of this crucial aspect. Хураангуй. Гэрэл зураг нь сэтгүүл зүйн мэдээлэлд чухал ач холбогдол бүхий баримт байдаг. Гэтэл Монголын хэвлэл мэдээллийн хэрэгслүүд нь мэдээллийн гэрэл зурагт төдийлөн ач холбогдол өгөхгүй байгаа дүр зураг ажиглагдах болов. Иймд бид судалгааныхаа хүрээнд өдгөө эрчимтэй хөгжиж буй мэдээллийн шинэ хэрэгсэл болох сайтуудад нийтлэгдсэн мэдээллийн гэрэл зургуудад ажиглалт хийж үнэлэлт дүгнэлт өглөө. Түлхүүр үг: Фото сэтгүүлч, гэрэл зургийн сэтгүүл зүй, тайлбаргүй гэрэл зураг, агуулга, гэрэл зургийн ач холбогдол

Historical Development of Mongolian Press Photography

How long has press photography developed in Mongolia, some of the measures taken to develop it, how it has developed, and the current situation will be briefly discussed. Having Mongolian photojournalists At the national level, it has been developing as a type of photojournalistic activity since the middle of 1940. Since then, the daily newspapers "Unen", "Höldölmör", "Zaluchuudyn Unen", "Pioneer's Unen", "Ulaanbaatar News", "Literature Art", "Ulaan Od", "Ekh orny Manaa" newspapers, "Modern Mongolia", "Science and life" magazine, State Photo and MONCAME agency have many photojournalists and photo reporters working. By the 1970s, the photography report type had been steadily developed and photographs, photo news, reports, and portraits taken by our first photographers were published regularly. Issue of phasing of the development of photojournalism in Mongolia. In this study, the development of Mongolian photography, especially the history of photojournalism is reviewed in phases as follows: The beginning of photojournalism in Mongolia - 1940 - early 1960s. The period of development of Mongolian professional photojournalism - from 1980 to 1990 Photojournalism of market and social transition period – 1990-2010, From 2011 until now, as "Digital or modern photojournalism". Thus, the photojournalism development can be reviewed in 5 phases. We considered in addition to the development of photography technology, the time when professional photographers appeared. As for today, the role of photography in the media is increasingly decorating the appearance of newspapers, and the quality of the information delivered to the readers is becoming a unique pattern. Монголын хэвлэлийн гэрэл зургийн түүхэн хөгжил Хураангуй: Монголд хэвлэлийн гэрэл зураг хэдий үеэс үүсэж хөгжсөн, түүнийг хөгжүүлэх талаар авч хэрэгжүүлсэн зарим арга хэмжээ, хэрхэн хөгжиж ирсэн чиг хандлага, одоогийн нөхцөл байдлын талаар товч авч үзэх юм. Монголд анх гэрэл зураг хөгжсөн нь хэвлэл мэдээллийн гэрэл зураг, гэрэл зургийн сэтгүүл зүй хөгжих үндэс болсон бөгөөд үндэсний гэрэл зургийн сэтгүүлчид төрж, мэргэжлийн төвшинд хөгжүүлэх талаар төр, засгаас авч хэрэгжүүлсэн олон талт арга хэмжээний үр дүнд тусгайлсан мэргэжлийн гэрэл зургийн сэтгүүлчдийг гадаадын их, дээд сургуульд сургаж, дээд боловсрол эзэмшүүлж байжээ. Фото сэтгүүл зүйд залуу үе түрэн гарч ирэхийн зэрэгцээ тодорхой төрөл, сэдэв, чиглэлүүдээр дагнасан сайн дурын клуб, бүлэг, нийгэмлэг, агентлаг болон ажиллаж байгаа нь гэрэл зургийн сэтгүүл зүйн хөгжлийн мөн нэгэн хэлбэр гэж болно. Өдөр тутмын сонин, сэтгүүлүүд болон хэвлэл мэдээллийн хэрэгслүүд өөрийн редакцадаа /зарим нь редакцтай эсэхэд эргэлзээтэй/ гэрэл зургийн редактор байтугай сурвалжлагч, гэрэл зурагчингүй ажилладаг. Олонх нь интернэтээс зургаа авч байгаа нь энэ цагийн гэрэл зургийн сэтгүүл зүйн хөгжилд ухралт болдог. Гэвч хөгжил дэвшилд дамжих, туулах ёстой “тийм” цаг үе, зүй тогтол гэж бий гэдэг. Цаашид бид гэрэл зургийн сэтгүүл зүйн хөгжлийг үечилж, тухайн үеийн байдал, өнөөгийн төвшинд хүрэхэд хэрхэн нөлөөлсөн талаар нарийвчлан судлах хэрэгцээ энэ салбарт бий. Түлхүүр үг: Фото сэтгүүл зүй, түүхэн фото, фото зургийн хөгжил

Artificial Intelligence as a Disinformation Tool: Analyzing News Photos on Climate Change in The Example of Bing Search Engine

İklim değişikliği, günümüzün en büyük ve acil sorunlarından biridir. İnsanı ve birçok türü tehdit eden bu krizde, iklim haberlerinin önemi büyüktür. Ancak son yıllarda yapay zekânın her alana yayılmasıyla birlikte dijital medyada yer alan ve arama motorlarının optimizasyonuyla bir araya getirilen haber fotoğraflarının bu konuda yetersiz kaldığı ve daha çok çeşitli tasarım programlarıyla oluşturulan tek tip ve benzer görsellerin yer aldığı gözlemlenmektedir. Yapay zekâ, filtreleme yapmadan sayısal tabanda bulunan tüm verileri bir araya toplaması nedeniyle bilgi kirliliğine neden olmakta ve iklim gibi spesifik konularda da dezenformasyon risklerine yol açmaktadır. Bu durum, kamuoyunun doğru bilgilendirilmesini zorlaştırmaktadır. Sosyal bilimlerde nitel bir araştırma yöntemi olan doküman analizinin kullanıldığı çalışmanın örneklemini, Similarweb’in, Temmuz 2022 ve Haziran 2023 arasında gerçekleştirdiği analizler sonucunda en çok kullanılan arama motorları arasında ikinci sırada yer alan ve Şubat 2023 itibarıyla yapay zekayâ entegre edilen “Bing” arama motoru oluşturmaktadır. Örneklem dâhilinde bulunan yapay zekâ destekli arama motorunun sohbet kısmına “iklim değişikliği ile ilgili haber fotoğrafları” anahtar kelimeleri yazılarak ‘görseller’ sekmesinde yer alan görseller baz alınıp çalışma alanı sınırlandırılmıştır. Çalışma kapsamında bulgulara ulaşmak için amaçlı örnekleme yöntemleri içerisinde yer alan ‘maksimum çeşitlilik örneklemesi’ kullanılmış, iklim değişikliğinin ana kavramlarından olan kuraklık, buzulların erimesi ve aşırı ısınma ile üç kategori oluşturulmuştur. Belirlenen her bir kategori için 10 adet haber fotoğrafı incelenmiştir. Elde edilen veriler doğrultusunda yapay zekânın haber fotoğraflarını ve görsellerini ayırt etmeden bir araya toplamasının, habercilikte ‘haber fotoğrafçılığı’ olarak adlandırılan kavramı zedeleyerek dezenformasyona yol açtığı gözlemlenmiştir.

Interdisciplinary approach to defining outdoor places of knowledge work: quantified photo analysis.

Working outdoors is an emerging, sparsely studied phenomenon in knowledge work. Office tasks have traditionally been considered to belong to indoor environments. The worldwide pandemic of COVID-19 has increased and changed attitudes toward multilocational working. The aim of this method study is 2-fold: first to define for interdisciplinary context outdoor environments when they are used as places of outdoor knowledge work and second to quantify the thematic photo analysis to support interdisciplinary understanding of the places of outdoor knowledge work. The review of literature has been one of the methods to support the interdisciplinary approach of this article. The photographs of outdoor knowledge workplaces and views from the workstations are studied through photo analysis customized from the existing press photograph analysis. First, we defined outdoor environments when used as places of outdoor knowledge work, as unconditioned outdoor or semi-outdoor places (opposite to closed indoor spaces with stable, conditioned indoor climate) providing favorable action possibilities as sources of comfort and mitigating unfavorable conditions, for example, by microclimatic solutions. Instead of defining all spaces as outdoor environments not fulfilling a stable indoor climate (conditioned) definition, adaptation to thermal and physical environments also brought semi-outdoor space into the definition. In this context, favorable latent action possibilities (affordance) in the built environment are often related to microclimate as a source of comfort. Second, we focussed on photo analysis. The proposed model is based on journalistic photo analysis PPSA and the pOKW model, which have been further developed in this study to pOKW2 model for analyzing mobile-based collected self-reported photographs by the occupants. In this pOKW2 model, the photographs would have time-location information enabling the combining of data from other datasets and thereby reducing the number of characteristics to be analyzed from the photograph. We proposed rating (in numeric form) to detect the favorable and unfavorable characteristics in the photographs most likely supporting or hindering conditions of outdoor knowledge work. This quantification would enable the use of machine vision analysis and would support handling large quantities of photographs and their combination with other datasets in interdisciplinary research. The quantification of the photo analysis (pOKW2) includes the readiness to combine the analysis results with other time-location-specific datasets in an interdisciplinary research collaboration to advance our understanding of latent action possibilities for outdoor knowledge work.

‘Satrah Din, Satrah Saal’: Media, Propaganda and Virtual Warfare in the India-Pakistan War of 1965

The 1965 India-Pakistan War, also known as the Second Kashmir War or the ‘Seventeen-Day War’, is usually understood through the lens of military history, regional geopolitics and the long-standing ‘Kashmir question’. This article looks instead to the construction of social and political meaning around the conflict through an examination of the war’s mediatisation in Pakistan. An analysis of different media forms—including radio broadcasts, news dailies, press photography and popular poetry—reveals how a war imaginary was shaped by both domestic crises and global ideological dissension, extending beyond the notion of a timeless Indo-Pak enmity. Taking place at a pivotal moment in the global Cold War, public narratives were built upon not only state agendas but also popular concerns regarding militarism, sovereignty and the politics of aid. These framings ultimately illustrate the deeper entanglements that exist between war, media and mass publics—extending beyond the goals of wartime propaganda alone to produce new national imaginaries and collective subjectivities.