The world that is portrayed through the media is a very visual one, and photo journalism plays a key role its portrayal. The old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is evident in the success that has been enjoyed by the Journalistic Image.
With this is mind, it is important to look at just how useful the journalistic image is in terms of understanding Visual Sociology.
Questions have been raised regarding “the public’s perception of the relationship between an ostensibly journalistic image and reality” (Wheeler 2002: 9), which disputes the claim that the camera never lies. It becomes apparent whilst studying the journalistic image that photographers have, for as long as cameras have been in existence, been using other technology to alter the reality that was the focus of the image. For example, “The Harvest of Death” (1863) American Civil War photograph by Timothy H. O’Sullivan was actually “a composite made from three photographs” (Wheeler 2002: 15).
When it is considered that the journalistic image is not always an accurate representation of the truth, it important then to question how representative it is of Visual Sociology. Although journalistic images are not necessarily historically accurate in how they depict people and events, they can still be seen as a key part of Visual Sociology because they are encoded by the photographer in such a way that certain societies share a collective consciousness that allows them to decode a particular meaning behind the photograph, and the image is created with that in mind.
Wheeler, T. (2002) Phototruth or Photofiction. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
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