Amateur Images and Global News

Mervi Pantti, Kari Andén-Papadopoulos

Description

Modern technology has enabled anyone with a digital camera or cell phone to capture images of newsworthy events as they develop, and news organizations around the world increasingly depend on these amateur images for their coverage of unfolding events. However, with globalization facilitating wider circulation, critics have expressed strong concern over exactitude and objectivity. The first book on this topic, Amateur Images and Global News considers at length the ethical and professional issues that arise with the use of amateur images in the mainstream news media—as well as their role in producing knowledge and framing meanings of disasters in global and national contexts.

Introduction  – Kari Andén-Papadopoulos and Mervi Pantti

 

PART I: HISTORIES 

 

Chapter 1: Looking Back: Ethics and Aesthetics of Non-Professional Photography – Karin Becker

 

Chapter 2: Amateur Photography in Wartime: Early Histories – Stuart Allan

 

Chapter 3: The Eyewitness in the Age of Digital Transformation – Mette Mortensen

 

PART II: PRACTICES

 

Chapter 4: Amateur Images and Journalistic Authority – Helle Sjøvaag

 

Chapter 5: Transparency and Trustworthiness: Strategies for Incorporating Amateur Photography into News Discourse – Mervi Pantti and Kari Andén-Papadopoulos

 

Chapter 6: Pans and Zooms: The Quality of Amateur Video Covering a Breaking News Story – Ray Niekamp

 

Chapter 7: ‘You Will Die Next’: Killer Images and the Circulation of Moral Hierarchy – Johanna Sumiala

 

Chapter 8: From Columbine to Kauhajoki: Amateur Videos as Acts of Terror – Marguerite Moritz

 

PART III: CIRCULATIONS

 

Chapter 9: Visual Blowback: Soldier Photography and the War in Iraq – Liam Kennedy

 

Chapter 10: In Amateurs We Trust: Readers Assessing Non-Professional News Photographs – Liina Puustinen and Janne Seppänen

 

Chapter 11: ‘More Real and Less Packaged’: Audience Discourses on Amateur News Content and Their Effects on Journalism Practice – Andy Williams, Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Claire Wardle

Sujets

• Media Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Película fotográfica
• Communication studies
• General officer
• General
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 27 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841506005
• Langue: English

Extrait

Amateur Images and Global News
For Alma, Emma and Stella, our best works
Amateur Images and Global News
Edited by Kari And n-Papadopoulos and Mervi Pantti
First published in the UK in 2011 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2011 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2011 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover designer: Holly Rose Copy-editor: Macmillan Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-420-9
Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK.
Contents

Introduction
Kari And n-Papadopoulos and Mervi Pantti
PART I: Histories
Chapter 1: Looking Back: Ethics and Aesthetics of Non-Professional Photography
Karin Becker
Chapter 2: Amateur Photography in Wartime: Early Histories
Stuart Allan
Chapter 3: The Eyewitness in the Age of Digital Transformation
Mette Mortensen
PART II: Practices
Chapter 4: Amateur Images and Journalistic Authority
Helle Sj vaag
Chapter 5: Transparency and Trustworthiness: Strategies for Incorporating Amateur Photography into News Discourse
Mervi Pantti and Kari And n-Papadopoulos
Chapter 6: Pans and Zooms: The Quality of Amateur Video Covering a Breaking News Story
Ray Niekamp
Chapter 7: You Will Die Next : Killer Images and the Circulation of Moral Hierarchy
Johanna Sumiala Amateur Images and Global News
Chapter 8: From Columbine to Kauhajoki: Amateur Videos as Acts of Terror
Marguerite Moritz
PART III: Circulations
Chapter 9: Visual Blowback: Soldier Photography and the War in Iraq
Liam Kennedy
Chapter 10: In Amateurs We Trust: Readers Assessing Non-Professional News Photographs
Liina Puustinen and Janne Sepp nen
Chapter 11: More Real and Less Packaged : Audience Discourses on Amateur News Content and Their Effects on Journalism Practice
Andy Williams, Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Claire Wardle
Contributors
Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank all colleagues who contributed to this book. Our thanks also go to the Swedish Research Council and to the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation for their financial support.
Introduction

Kari And n-Papadopoulos and Mervi Pantti
I n recent years, amateur photography and video have become a powerful - and problematic - new source for professional news organizations. The rapid rise of digital communication technologies, and with it the widespread take-up of camcorders and camera-equipped telephones, has encouraged ordinary citizens to participate in the making of news. As this book sets out to demonstrate, amateur images have come to have cultural significance and shape public perceptions of world events mainly because of their dissemination and publication in the mainstream news media. While the news industry has used amateur film and photography in the past, some of the most memorable examples being the film of the Kennedy assassination and the videotape of the Rodney King beating, there has been an explosion of imagery from non-professionals over the past years. In addition to these images having become more common, they are today circulated with an unprecedented speed in a complex, global media environment. The starting point of this book is that the rapid rise of amateur photography as a new resource for journalism s representation of reality raises important questions that call for careful analysis and critique. Such images warrant close attention in their own right (e.g. their production, their evidential status and their aesthetics), but also with regard to their significance for journalism and its capacity to relay events of central importance to public life.
In this book, the terms non-professional images and private images are often used as synonyms for amateur images, but they all refer to images, both still and moving, that originate from outside the professional media. The fundamental characteristic of amateur imagery is that it is not governed by the same standards of ethics, or aesthetics, as professional photojournalism. When these outsider images are pulled into the coverage of mainstream news, their often personal point of view, their aesthetic quality or their untamed (graphic) content, may clash with the standards and values of professional journalism. In the context of journalism, however, the very phenomenon of the amateur image is not a simple one; rather it entails many forms, including breaking news images, photographs from the family album that are used to illustrate, for example, crime stories, and audience members pictures of their holidays, pets or weather that are often published in news organizations online photo albums. Accordingly, amateur images are perceived and used in the mainstream organizations, on the one hand, as sources of information, and, on the other hand, as entertainment and as a means of bonding with the audience (Pantti and Bakker 2009). In this book, we focus on amateur images as news sources since it is in this function that they evoke crucial ethical issues, for example what is deemed acceptable to show? How to confirm the reliability of imagery originating from external and oftentimes anonymous sources? And how to deal with the blurring of the boundaries between an objective observer of events and a participant with an interested perspective?
The significance of the study of amateur news images hinges on the rising importance of photography as an all-pervading social practice and mode of public communication in the digital era. Theorists of visual culture have stressed the centrality of visual images to how we represent, make meaning and communicate in today s world. Over the course of the last two centuries, western culture has come to be dominated by visual and sound-based media (i.e. cinema, television, the computer) that play the central role in daily life once occupied by oral or textual media. As W. J. T. Mitchell (1994: 15) points out, the era of video and cybernetic technology, the age of electronic reproduction, has developed new forms of visual simulation and illusionism with unprecedented powers . In the early twenty-first century, we live in cultures that are increasingly permeated by digital images and imaging technologies that allow for the global circulation of ideas and information in visual forms. We are thus at a moment in history in which images are at the forefront of efforts to negotiate, interrogate, memorialize and create the individual and collective experiences of social realities.
In the context of journalism, the power of visual images to inflame emotions, to iconize global events and to shape our knowledge and memory of international conflict and crisis has been considered by numerous media scholars (e.g. And n-Papadopoulos 2008; Hariman and Lucaites 2007; Perlmutter 1998; Roeder 1993; Taylor 1991, 1998; Zelizer 1998, 2002, 2004). It has been proposed that visualness is one of the most dominant news values of our times, that is the availability of compelling images determines whether an event is selected as news or not. As John Corner (1995: 59) states, [T]he offer of seeing , is absolutely central to the project of television journalism, to its impact, memorability, and public power as well as to its commodity value . Photographic realism has helped journalism prove its own on-site presence, so crucial in marking the credibility and authenticity of journalistic reports. Because of their perceived status as transparent records of the real, still and moving images have served the key function of guaranteeing the objectivity and truth-value of news reporting (Zelizer 1998, 2007; Taylor 1991, 1998). The rise of 24/7 news and the increasing centrality of live coverage - as a means of projecting the sense that the news organization is in fact there - has made the value of compelling visuals evermore central to professional journalism. Traditional newspapers have also become more dependent on visuals, not only because they are increasingly design-driven in order to attract viewers but also because of having online platforms for displaying (an unlimited number of) images (Bridge and Sj vaag 2009).
The Proliferation of Audience Content

In the emerging participatory media culture (Jenkins 2006), members of the public are more likely to be regarded as active participants, rather than as passive consumers. The term web 2.0 describes a new generation of web-based services that emphasize social networking, collaboration and participation, evidently heralding a new digital era in which control seems to be shifting from established institutions to ad hoc groupings of users. Public trust in the old media appears to be eroding, with new media alternatives gaining in popularity. It would seem, therefore, that this is a crucial moment in the history of journalism. The need to develop strategies for addressing the challenges ushered in by an increasingly global, networked media environment is a pressing priority for mainstream news organizations, and the development of participatory forms of content production is becoming key to legitimacy, revenue and competitive force (e.g. Domingo et al. 2008; Paulussen et al. 2007). Established media across the world are experimenting with the involvement of citizens in the production of news. This is linked with both the practical need for low-cost news and the normative-theoretical ideal of citizens as collaborators with professional journalists -rather than providers of raw material - in the processes of newsgathering, selection and publication.
In contrast to citizen journalism where the news-making process is removed from the hands of journalists and controlled by