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Press Photography and Visual Rhetoric

This book chapter examines the role of press photographs in reflecting current events and their contribution to the formation of community identity and cultural iconography. The chapter identifies some common themes to be found in press photographs recording conflict and civil disturbances (1969-2010) from the US Civil Rights demonstrations to Northern Ireland’s “The Battle of the Bogside” to child soldiers in Africa. The tendency for popular journalism to display serious news items alongside entertainment-based titillatory stories is examined. In turn, the desire for, and perpetration of, images with a strong rhetorical impact are considered in the context of ‘the human interest’ story.

The chapter also interweaves press photographs with pop music. The songs act as metaphors to identity the characteristics of social comment linked to popular entertainment in general. It suggests that readers should be cautious of the naive use of newspaper photographs purporting to be evidence either of history or of sociological conditions. Nor should photographs be dismissed as irrelevant representations of society - they chronicle not only events but also the interest these events have for human beings: subjects, readers/viewers, and reporters. The chapter proposes that as the content of the news is constrained by tight principles of organization and well-defined expectations of what the public wants/is able to take, the news media have to be treated as an anthropological phenomenon in their own right.

The chapter concludes that news photographs are much more than mere ‘mirrors’ of society: they offer a description of states of affairs in the world and an evocation of context: certainly acting ‘rhetorically’ as signs of their times. As such, they offer a uniquely valuable source for the study of human history and cultural anthropology, provided that they are approached with an informed understanding of the art, craft, and constraints of their production.