International Masterʼs Program in Journalism Master thesis 2020
Student: Laura Jaël Marie Geigenberger Due date: May 27, 2020 Supervisor: Nina Springer (Ph.D.)
“Seeing is believing ... ?”
An exploration of photojournalism in war reporting and its conceptualization within the scope
of War and Peace Journalism
Abstract: Journalism is a profession which bears many social and political responsibilities. Particularly war correspondence is a challenging task for professional journalists and thus constitutes a decisive part in the academic field of Journalism Studies. In order to evaluate the role of journalitic conduct in times of war, it is commonly dichotomized into two opposing concepts known as War and Peace Journalism. The concepts are most often studied in connection with text- based journalism which is why scholars have been stressing the need to create a similar conceptualization for photojournalism – a profession with a great relevance in war correspondence. First research approaches resulted in models such as War and Peace Photography which, however, only considered the visual contents of photojournalistic documents.
However, particularly the legacy of images can be dynamic – hence, subject to change over long periods of time – and consequently alter the reception and categorization of a news photograph as either a War and Peace document. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to explore the notion that many different aspects need to be taken into account before a fair and productive categorization of such documents can be offered. In addition to the method of visual analysis, it thus entails an empirical study in a triangulation setting in which photojournalistic material on the Vietnam War, the picturesʼ captions as well as their additional documentary material regarding the broader historical and political (e.g. published interviews, governmental documents, articles) will be analyzed in three consecutive steps: (1) The photos are assessed in terms of their War or Peace classification based on their visual impression; (2) the captures are analyzed content-analytically and put in relation with the visual observations; (3) the additional documentary material is explored to understand the picturesʼ social, political, and historical genesis. For the purpose of the latter, a new category system has been defined and assigned to the sample images. Findings indicate that a visual categorization of an image are not necessarily supported by its captions as well as the respective surrounding historical, political and social circumstances. Additionally considered context might contrast the most basic definitions of War and Peace Journalism. For example, the assessed cases of War Photojournalism were not used for “propaganda” purposes – an often-ascribed feature of War Journalism. From this, it can be concluded that visuals are only one of many factors which can impact the meaning and reception of an image and, as a consequence, its categorization. Sufficient conceptualizations of photojournalistic documents should thus consider not only what is obvious but also the experiences, actions, professional values and intentions of photojournalists within the images’ prehistory and aftermath, reasons for their publication, their reception by an audience, and external influences on their respective medium.
Keywords: Photojournalism, War Journalism, Peace Journalism, News images, War correspondence, Conceptualization, Journalism Studies
1. Introduction...1
2. Journalism – a “social glue”...4
2.1 Ethics and responsibilities in professional journalism...4
2.2 Photojournalism...5
2.3 Ethics and responsibilities in photojournalism...6
2.4 Wartime reporting...8
2.5 Academic conceptualizations of conflict coverage: War and Peace Journalism...9
3. Taking the concepts to news photography...11
3.1 War Photography...11
3.2 Visual criteria for War Photojournalism...12
3.3 Peace Photography...16
3.4 Visual criteria for Peace Photojournalism...17
4. Reflections on journalistic practice...19
4.1 Photojournalists are more than ‘simply’ photographers...20
4.2 Gatekeeping and “hyperreality” theory...22
4.2.1 Visual gatekeeping ...23
4.2.2 “Hyperreality” in photojournalism...24
4.3 Contexts and captions...25
5. Peace (Photo)Journalism is controversial...27
5.1 Proposition and opposition of Peace Journalism...27
5.2 Imaging peace...28
6. Recap and research questions...30
7. Methods...32
7.1 Sampling...32
7.2 Operationalization and data collection...34
7.3 Critical reflections on the data collection procedure ...38
8. Results...39
8.1 Visual analysis and conceptualization of the images according to Fahmy & Neumann...39
8.2 Beyond the visuals I: The captions...40
8.3 Beyond the visuals II: Consideration and interpretation of the background material...41
9. Conclusion...48
References...51
Appendix...60
1. Introduction
Academic models are usually a simplification or approximation of an aspect of reality in all its intricacy rather than an accurate depiction of it.1 In order to study the practices and features of journalism and photography – professions, which have long been the subject of academic research – scholars have established models and academic concepts. However, what needs to be considered is that journalism is originally a practical activity; therefore, it depends on its surrounding and situational circumstances. This raises the question about which aspects need to be considered so that theory and practice can be converged closely as possible in order to maximize the contribution which theoretical conceptualizations can bring to practitioners such as photojournalists.
Particularly photojournalists working as war correspondents face many challenges and have to live up to great responsibilities. Their reporting practices have also been explored by the academy and are most commonly interpreted within the scope of two opposing concepts known as “War” and
“Peace Journalism”. The models refer predominately to text-based journalism but have also been expanded to visual journalism. The dichotomies of War and Peace (Photo)Journalism are still widely debated within the academy – as are the criteria needed to formulate precise definitions. In order to integrate news photography into the War and Peace Journalism concepts, the consideration of their visual content seems to be an obvious starting point. Such strategies have already been suggested; and yet they have also been criticized by many scholars, who argue that visuals are only one of many considerable aspects of news photography in the definition of concepts for visual media. Alternative proposals are based on the idea that research approaches should connect visible contents of news photographs to their non-visible ʽbackground stories’, which include many more aspects than the visuals might suggest.2 Influences such as, among others, ethical and professional orientations of photojournalists, and their circumstances of time and place, can crucially influence photojournalistic production processes and should be included in the conceptualization of photojournalistic material – particularly in the difficult and ethically challenging task of war correspondence. So far, however, explorations of the application of the War and Peace Journalism models to news photography both with and without considerations of the photos’ background data have been limited.
Hence, this thesis aims to build on the models of War and Peace Journalism and their expansion to
1 T. Foucard, “Complexity and intricacy of mathematical and interpretative approaches”, in eds. C. Brossard & B.
Reber, Digital Cognitive Technologies: Epistemology and Knowledge Society (London/Hoboken: ISTE/wiley, 2010), pp. 359-360.
2 Examples are, among others S. Mitra, “Re-thinking visuals: Understanding discursive reformulation of visuals to inform peace journalism”, conflict & communication online vol. 13 (2), 2014; and the several works by F. Möller on Peace Studies and Peace Photography (see references below).
photojournalism to determine the significance of the visual and non-visual aspects of news images such as their caption, and their social, historical and political contexts. For this purpose, three related research questions have been formulated for this thesis and will be applied to the case study of the Vietnam War, a conflict unique in terms of both its coverage by the media – and specifically by photojournalists – as well as the amount of visual and contextual material that resulted from it.
The research questions have thus been formulated as follows:
RQ1: How are the criteria of War and Peace Journalism represented in the visual material (on the Vietnam War)?
RQ2: What role do the captions play in both the interpretative process and the classification of visual War/Peace Photographs by the respective researchers?
RQ3: How are the War/Peace concepts for photojournalism influenced by the consideration of the historical, social and political contexts of the images?
This thesis will initially explore theoretical, generalized approaches to the (photo)journalistic profession before outlining the results of an exploratory study on the specific case of the Vietnam War, which was conducted to answer the research questions listed above. First, the theoretical framework will be concerned with the ethical values and responsibilities of professional (photo)journalists both in general and in wartime reporting, as they constitute the groundwork of the (photo)journalistic occupation. Ethical values and rules of professional conduct of photojournalists are assumed to play a crucial role in their practice and could thus be an influential factor within academic conceptualizations of their products. The first chapter will be succeeded by presentations of the War and Peace Journalism models and their expansion to news photography based on visual contents. To substantiate the categories of research applied in the later study, reflections on media production processes with special regard to news images will be made a subject of discussion by presenting research concerned with “gatekeeping”, “hyperreality” theory, the notion of the
“journalistic gut feeling”, and the role of contexts and captions in news imagery. All those factors might have an influence on photojournalistic conduct as well as on interpretation processes by and the impact of photojournalistic material on an audience. Therefore, the theoretical section will be concluded by exploring the proposition and opposition of the innovative Peace Journalism. Lastly, it will be transitioned to the study by exploring the idea that photojournalistic documents create legacies for themselves. A legacy is dynamic – thus subject to change over long periods of time – and, as a consequence, could alter the reception and therefore transforming the categorization of a
news photograph as either a War and Peace document.
For the study, news photographs will initially be categorized as War and Peace Photographs based on an existing research approaches considering only their visual content. Based on the observations from the theoretical section, their visual contents will then be correlated with the messages in the captions of the images as well as with their situational context, including the experiences, actions, professional values and intentions of their creators, governmental influences on the press, and the historical background and aftermath of their publications. For this purpose, a sample of six photographs from the Vietnam War (~1955-1975) was chosen with consideration to certain criteria.
For one, all photos were taken by photojournalists working for the American news agency Associated Press (AP), one of the biggest American news agencies at the time.3 In addition, two images each were chosen from the years 1961, 1968/1969 and 1973 as they entailed key events in the course of the war, all of which are also represented in the images. The first three images were chosen due to their often-cited status as visual ʽicons’ of the Vietnam War while their counterparts depict direct results from the ʽiconic’ events. Thus, the pairs were formed with regard to their similar historical and situational connection as well as their visual heterogeneity. It consists of the following twosomes:
I. 1963: “The Ultimate Protest” by Browne4 and “President Ngo Dinh Diem with Buddhist monks” by Faas,5
II. 1968/1969: “Saigon Execution” by Adams6 and “Demonstration Anti Vietnam Moratorium 1969” by AP
III. 1972: “The Terror of War” by Ut7 and “Le Duc Tho Shakes Hands with Henry Kissinger” by AP Photo.8
The background data concerning the images will mainly be derived from 92 additional sources of both primary and secondary status. The former includes, among others, published interviews with
3 “Iconic AP Vietnam War Photos To Go On View at Huntsville Museum of Art”, AP, 2019,
https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2019/iconic-ap-vietnam-war-photos-to-go-on-view-at-huntsville-museum-of-art, accessed May 9, 2020.
4 M. Browne, “Vietnam Monk Protest”, AP Images, 1963, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I- VNM-aphs019555-VIETNAM-MONK-PROTEST/a344206cdb5a490e9fceb1e1c2ebbefc/1/1, accessed May 4, 2020.
5 H. Faas, “President Ngo Dinh Diem with Buddhist monks”, AP Images, 1963,
http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS311049-President-Ngo-Dinh- D-/2c64708d60774313864b0c4ff12c290a/1/0, accessed May 7, 2020.
6 E. Adams, “Vietnam War Saigon Execution”, AP Images, 1968,
http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Vietnam- VIE-/156535629de5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/25/1, accessed May 5, 2020.
7 N. Ut, “Vietnam Napalm 1972”, AP Images, 1972, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM- APHS021000-Vietnam-Napalm-1972/e674e44489a54fbca89b41a7d821b89e/168/0, accessed May 2, 2020.
8 AP Photo, “Le Duc Tho Shakes Hands with Henry Kissinger”, AP Images, 1972,
http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-FRA-APHS308568-Le-Duc-Tho-Shakes- Ha-/0d21855472904440acc699dd6a31b524/8/0, accessed May 8, 2020.
the photojournalists, editors and eyewitnesses; speeches and letters, memoirs in the shape of eulogies and books, as well as declassified governmental documents, all of which are directly connected to the chosen images. Secondary sources were only taken into account if they could be considered reliable pieces of collective memory like, for example, reports of the renown and time- relevant publications. As this exploratory study combines different qualitative methods – visual analysis, documentary research and content analysis –, it can be considered as taking a triangulating research approach. To make the research processes as transparent and as comprehensible as possible, the chosen methodology and the sampling will be explained in more detail before the results will be presented and discussed.
2. Journalism – a “social glue”
Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch establish journalism as “one of the most important social, cultural, and political institutions” of which the study is a “worthwhile endeavor for scholars”.9 Journalism is essential for the development and the sharing of information and is therefore understood as a profession which is able to construct and shape how the world comes to know about and interprets real events. Journalism is furthermore “essential to successful self-governance” because it enables exchanges and deliberations between and among the public and their representatives, thereby making “political action [...] possible”.10 Discussing and tying the outputs of this “social glue”, as Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch call it, to social and political contexts can further the understanding of how citizens identify themselves withing a local, national and increasingly global sphere.11
2.1 Ethics and responsibilities in professional journalism
Professional journalism bears many responsibilities for its practitioners. First and foremost, it is seen as an informant and key actor in maintaining political stability in democratic countries.
Wolfgang, Vos & Kelling argue that a democracy cannot function and be maintained without the
“information environment journalists help create” in the shape of reliable, accurate news, information, and interpretation.12 An informed citizenry contributes to the functioning of a democratic country by making reasonable and rational choices; most importantly in elections but also in other political and social contexts.13
9 K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, “Introduction: On Why and How We Should Do Journalism Studies”, in eds.
K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, The Handbook of Journalism Studies (New York/London: Routledge, 2009), p. 3.
10 Ibid.; R.E. Park, “News as a form of knowledge: A chapter in the sociology of knowledge”, American Journal of Sociology vol. 45 (5), 1940, p. 678.
11 Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, loc. cit.
12 J.D. Wolfgang, T.P. Vos & K. Kelling, “Journalismʼs Relationship to Democracy: Roles, Attitudes, and Practices”, Journalism Studies vol. 20 (14), 2019, p. 1977.
13 B. McNair, “Journalism and Democracy”, in eds. K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, The Handbook of Journalism Studies (New York/London: Routledge, 2009), p. 238.
According to McNair, the media – produced by professional journalists – in democratic states should always fulfill three main political functions on behalf of the citizenry. One is the
“Watchdog” or “Fourth Estate” role, in which journalists act as critics of “the powerful in […]
influential spheres”, such as a government or a business. Secondly, McNair understands journalist to be “mediators” between the political elite and the public. As a representative – or, as McNair also terms it, an “advocate” or “champion” – of the latter, they should ensure that the publicʼs voice is present within a democratic sphere at all times.14 Moreover, the task of “enlightening a citizenry”
can contribute meaningfully to society and politics. It requires the professionals to produce independent, high-quality contents, which provide “accurate and thoughtful information and analysis about current events” both nationally and internationally.15
Since the reporting of journalists might influence how the public perceives and responds to an issue, the choices they make in their work – rhetorical, stylistic and personal – matter. Professionals are thus expected to commit to moral standards and ethically normed interactions. Rules of what constitutes ethical journalism are comprised in so-called “Codes of Ethics” and have been published as such by professional journalism associations and/or individual news media institutions across the globe. While the codes might vary in formulations depending on their different social, cultural and political contexts, Hafez has detected a broad intercultural consensus on specific standards like, most importantly, truthfulness, accuracy and objectivity. He finds that “factual, correct, and unbiased coverage [are] a consensual value of journalism” which forms the “core and essence of the journalistic profession” and simultaneously defines its boundaries.16 Since this general framework is at the core of the journalistic profession, it is also an acknowledged part of the basic research in Journalism Studies. Determining the adherence of journalists to said values and principles – such as their independence from external ʽinfluencers’, for example – could thus be seen as an important consideration in any study about professional journalism and the potential impact of its output.
2.2 Photojournalism
Since its invention in 1839, photography soon became a fixed part of journalistic practice for it was a valuable addition to social investigation and the documentary style of news production.17 According to Ohrn, the characteristics for photography as a documentary tool incorporate “all
14 Ibid., pp. 239-240.
15 P. Anderson & G. Ward (eds.), The future of journalism in the advanced democracies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 65.
16 K. Hafez, “Journalism Ethics Revisited: A Comparison of Ethics Codes in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Muslim Asia”, Political Communication vol. 19 (2), 2002, pp. 225, 228-229.
17 L. Wells, Photography: A Critical Introduction (Florence: Taylor and Francis, 5th ed., 2015), p. 79.
aspects of the making and use of photographs”.18 A photographerʼs goal while creating a
“documentary style” picture thus surpasses a solely creative purpose; rather, the photographer aims
“to bring the attention of an audience to the subject of [the] work and, in many cases, to pave the way for social change”.19 In that sense, photographers intending to create historic records could be perceived as watchdogs, just like word-based journalists. In addition, the documentary nature of photography not only compares to but also combines different “aspects of journalism, art, education, sociology and history”, according to Ohrn.20 What makes photography a unique contributor to the news media is that it integrates the art form of visual imagery into and expands the documentary purpose of professional journalism, thereby creating the profession of photojournalism.21
2.3 Ethics and responsibilities in photojournalism
It is an accepted thought that photojournalists – presenters of news and information primarily through visual imagery22 – have developed a professional culture of their own, which is different from but still related to text-based journalism.23 As a profession, photojournalists also oblige values and rules of ethical conduct created by professional associations, the majority of which was adopted from journalism codes when photojournalism became a vocational sector within the journalistic profession in the nineteenth century.24 For instance, it has been argued that photographic documents have been such a longstanding constituent of journalism thanks to their “truthful depictions of an objective reality”.25 Kobré has explored the connection between both fields and found that a set of visual criteria exists, which aligns photography with journalistic practices. Photojournalists, he writes, aim to capture moments of action – unstaged and in one precise moment. They furthermore pay attention to stylistic techniques such as camera angles to reveal the drama of a news story and add perspective and intimacy to images.26 By trying to provide snapshots of reality which bring
18 K.B. Ohrn, Dorothea Lange and the Documentary Tradition (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), p. 36.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 W. Lowrey, “Word people vs. picture people: Normative differences and strategies for control over work among newsroom subgroups”, Mass Communication & Society vol. 5, 2002, p. 428.
22 B. Brennen, “Photojournalism: Historical dimensions to contemporary debates”, in ed. A. Stuart, The Routledge companion to news and journalism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), p. 73.
23 T.M. Mortensen & P.J. Gabe, “Does Photojournalism Matter? News Image Content and Presentation in the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record Before and After Layoffs of the Photojournalism Staff”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly vol. 95 (4), 2018, pp. 991, 994.
24 Lowrey, op. cit., p. 411.
25 Brennen, loc. cit.
26 K. Kobré, Photojournalism: The professionals’ approach (Oxford: Focal Press, 5th ed., 2004); cited in Mortensen
& Gabe, “Does Photojournalism Matter? News Image Content and Presentation in the Middletown (NY) Times Herald- Record Before and After Layoffs of the Photojournalism Staff”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly vol. 95 (4), 2018, p. 994.
aspects of conflict, proximity, human element, novelty, and timeliness as core values to a spectator, photojournalists practice a photographic version of journalism.27 In fact, the Greek origin of the term “photography” literally translates to “writing with light”.28
The notion of “depicting reality” implies that photojournalism – like journalism – is based on the journalistic value of objectivity. In the nineteenth century, photography was said to be “a pencil of nature” which offers the triumphs of reality and accuracy over illusion and art.29 In other words, photographs were thought to provide actual evidence of events and occurrences, be extraordinarily realistic, and offer an authentic representation of reality. However, according to Brennen, it soon became apparent that “different people took different pictures, even when they were photographing the same thing”.30 Sontag explains this phenomenon in her book On Photography as follows:
The camera is the ideal arm of consciousness […]. Any photograph seems to have a more innocent, […] accurate, relation to visible reality than do other mimetic objects. [However,]
although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.31
This means that photographers do indeed capture a visible reality the second they close the shutter on their camera. However, a photograph is also a product of what its producer saw and assigned meaning to by choosing to capture and frame it a certain way. Thus, a picture can be seen as an interpretation of the photographerʼs personal and contextualized reality.
Brennen has also noted a shift in the interests and interpretations of news photojournalism between the past and current centuries. Until the mid-twentieth century, photojournalism was believed to be the accurate portrayal of an objective reality. Contemporary photojournalists, on the other hand, put less emphasis on the physical process and focus on a more interpretive role by “providing representations, persuasions, and understandings of larger issues in society”.32 Brennen quotes the photojournalist Vernaschi, who has suggested that contemporary photojournalism has been shifting from an explicit to an emotional documentary style which “goes beyond illustrating ideas and concepts” to help readers “feel the intensity of what they read” in journalistic reports. The power of connecting emotionally with an audience – by entertaining, educating, persuading, and presenting them with a certain world view – bears great responsibilities for photojournalists. According to Brennen, media ethicists are therefore suggesting “that great care should be taken with all images
27 Mortensen & Gabe, loc. cit.
28 Brennen, op. cit., p. 71.
29 S. Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 5; K. Adatto, Picture Perfect. Life in the Age of the Photo Op (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 42.
30 Brennen, op. cit., p. 72.
31 Sontag, op. cit., p. 175.
32 Brennen, op. cit., p. 77.
that are published in order to insure that the representations do no harm”.33 This principle generally applies for all photojournalists as well as their text-based colleges, of course, which is why their codes coincide with each other especially with regard to the values of independence, objectivity and truthfulness. One additional feature in photojournalism codes, which reinforces the stance of truthfulness even more, is the interdiction to manipulate the visuals or change the content and context of photographs in any way.34 The adherence to rules of ethical and professional practices is particularly important for (photo)journalistic correspondents, who cover wars and report in times of crisis, as the following sub-chapter will outline.
2.4 Wartime reporting
In the coverage of wars and conflicts, journalists have proven to be substantial in both documenting and shaping conflict history, not least by influencing and mobilizing public opinion. Nohrstedt writes that “wars are not only fought by military means. […] A media war is [simultaneously]
fought over public opinion and the willingness to fight of populations and troops”.35 Wars cannot be fought without public support. Therefore, documenting journalists are likely to be used as a tool to campaign for the peopleʼs approval and support of a governmentʼs actions in wars – they “are drawn into the conflict”, either voluntarily, under orders, or unaware. The media can thus be
“perceived as a crucial war zone themselves”, or even a “fourth branch of service or a fifth column”.36 Moreover, participating forces in conflicts particularly seek to influence and control reporting in international media, according to Nohrstedt. He has found this to be especially the case with visual materials – first and foremost photographs.37
McMaster suggests that, to understand the different dimensions of war, one must study conflicts by taking a multidisciplinary approach. Among all fields reviewed, he writes, wartime “photography may be the most influential” due to its language-neutrality and accessibility to people “who may support or oppose the use of violence to accomplish war aims.” Certain photos might even “become iconic and shape how wars are perceived and remembered”.38 In other words, photography not only creates a visual record of wartime but it also shapes how a conflict is perceived and remembered. It could thus been seen as a powerful disseminator of wartime news, which transmits pictures from the battlefield directly into people’s living rooms, thereby making events in a war directly accessible to
33 Ibid., p. 78.
34 “Code of Ethics”, National Press Photographers Association, n.d., https://nppa.org/code-ethics, accessed May 20, 2020.
35 S.A. Nohrstedt, “New War Journalism – Trends and Challenges”, Nordicom Review vol. 30 (1), 2009, p. 95.
36 Ibid., p. 96; E. Segev & R. Miesch, “A Systematic Procedure for Detecting News Biases: The Case of Israel in European News Sites”, International Journal of Communication vol. 5, 2011, p. 1948.
37 Nohrstedt, loc. cit.
38 H.R. McMaster, “Photography at War”, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy vol. 56 (2), 2014, pp. 187-188.
a civilian audience. More than any other documentary style media, McMaster says, photography has the capacity “to evoke the human and psychological experience of war […], mentally and emotionally engage viewers’ interests and to provoke questions, [which] gives the genre its unique value”.39
Griffin phrases it even more directly, assigning images originating in wars the power to “sway public perceptions and attitudes, potentially reinforcing or eroding public support for war policy”.40 Like McMaster, he deems the study of wartime news photography to be particularly important, not only with regard to its potential impact on an audience but also to its significance as vital tool for determining influence of political and social authorities on the media. Photojournalism, he writes, reveals “the nature of government/press relationships, […] media agendas, the filtering and fixing of images as historical evidence, and the social establishment of photographs as cultural icons, narrative prompts and markers of collective memory”.41
2.5 Academic conceptualizations of conflict coverage: War and Peace Journalism
Throughout the past decades, the interconnection between conflicts, peace, and (photo)journalism has been frequently examined within the academic field of media studies. Tumber goes as far as calling the study of war and peace reporting a “fascination to […] scholars”, which is triggered by “the dramatic nature of war and conflict, its importance to states and its publics, and the amount of time and money devoted to it by media and news organizations”.42 While extensive research in this field has led to “many important theoretical and conceptualized debates within the academy”, scholars have payed particular interest to two competing concepts which have become known as “War Journalism” and “Peace Journalism”. They were first explicitly formulated in 1997 by Peace and Conflict Studies pioneer Galtung and have since played a central, yet controversial role in the field of (photo)journalism studies – they both have been applied to news photography, used to examine the visual framing of conflicts, praised and criticized by various scholars depending to their opposing opinions on the matter, and much more.
The first contours of (word-based) Peace Journalism appear in Galtung & Rugeʼs article 1965 “The Structure of Foreign News”, where the term, however, is neither explicitly coined nor conceptualized.43 Only much later, in 1997, Galtung put forward a new approach in order to re-
39 Ibid., pp. 188-190.
40 M. Griffin, “Media images of war”, War & Conflict vol. 3 (1), 2010, p. 8.
41 Ibid.
42 H. Tumber, “Covering War and Peace”, in eds. K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, The Handbook of Journalism Studies (New York/London: Routledge, 2009), p. 386.
43 J. Galtung & M.H. Ruge, “The Structure of Foreign News”, Journal of Peace Research vol. 2 (1), 1965.
evaluate the “traditional” – and probably most commonly applied – style of conflict reporting, which he refers to as “War Journalism”. According to him, War Journalistic practices constitute a violation of the basic tenets of the media as a reliable, unbiased, and detached informant of the public for it promots violence, spreads propaganda, works elite and victory-orientated, and fails to provide crucial context information.44 Galtung thus perceives an engagement in such practices as going on the “low road” of journalism:
The low road, dominant in the media, sees a conflict as a battle, as a sports arena or gladiator circus. The parties, usually reduced to two, are combatants in a struggle to impose their goals. The reporting model is that of a military command: who advances, who capitulates [...]; losses are counted in terms of numbers killed or wounded and material damage. [The] perspective draws upon sports reporting where “winning is not everything, it is the only thing.” […] War journalism has sports journalism, and court journalism, as models.45
His definition implies that War Journalism feeds off violence, dehumanization and suffering. Hence, it is dependent on sensationalism and needs to promote the escalations of conflicts in order to be effective. In Galtungʼs own, drastic words: the currently existing “lousy media” constitute “major contributing factors to violence”.46
Galtungʼs proposed alternative is a new approach to war reporting – he terms it “Peace Journalism”
– which uses conflicts to create opportunities for society and critically evaluate non-violent responses to a war. This should be done by exploring the formation of conflicts as well as by humanizing all parties and individuals, and by promoting and suggesting measures to enhance a peace process.47 Particularly nonviolence, transparency, creativity, and balanced coverage should be at the forefront of what Galtung praises as the “high road” of journalistic practices:
The high road […], peace journalism, would focus on conflict transformation. Conflicts would be seen as a challenge to the world […]. As people, groups, countries and groups of countries seem to stand in each otherʼs way […] there is a clear danger of violence. But in conflict there is also a clear opportunity for human progress, using the conflict to find new ways, transforming [it]
creatively so that the opportunities take the upper hand – without violence.48
While conflicts are prone to taking on a violent path, they also bear new opportunities which can be achieved through peaceful resolutions, according to Galtung. His distinction between the inferior War Journalism and the superior Peace Journalism model is clear-cut: Peace Journalismʼs focus “is
44 J. Galtung, On the Role of the Media for World-Wide Security and Peace (Paris: Université Nouvelle Transnationale, 1985), pp. 10-11.
45 J. Galtung, “High Road, Low Road – Charting the course for Peace Journalism”, Track Two: Constructive Approaches to Community and Political Conflict vol. 7 (4), 1998,
https://journals.co.za/docserver/fulltext/track2/7/4/track2_v7_n4_a4.pdf?
expires=1578169210&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=4C264A9FAFD8A262578D38184B991BFB, accessed March 30, 2020, pp. 1-2.
46 J. Galtung, “The Task of Peace Journalism”, Ethical Perspectives vol. 7 (2-3), 2000, p. 162.
47 Galtung, “High Road, Low Road”, op. cit., p. 3.; J. Lynch, “(2) Peace Journalism For Journalists”, Transcend Media Service: Solutions-Oriented Peace Journalism, 2008, https://www.transcend.org/tms/about-peace-journalism/2- peace-journalism-for-journalists/, accessed March 18, 2020.
48 Galtung, “High Road, Low Road”, op. cit., p. 2.
on the conflict and its peaceful transformation” whereas it is “on the meta-conflict that comes after the root conflict, created by violence and war, and the question of who wins” in War Journalism.49 Put in metaphorical terms: war reporting is a two-way-street, of which only the high road leads into the ʽrightʼ direction.
The Peace Journalism concept was driven forward by both scholars as well as journalists, among them McGoldrick & Lynch, who co-authored the first guidelines for (text-based) Peace Journalistic practices. According to them, Peace Journalism practitioners rely on “insights of conflict analysis and transformation to update the concepts of balance, fairness and accuracy in reporting” by acknowledging and addressing the indefinite variables of a conflict – as opposed to the ʽclassicʼ one-versus-one scenario.50 Furthermore, Peace Journalists should convey “awareness of non- violence and creativity” in both editing and reporting to produce a peace, truth, people and solution- orientated coverage.51 Thus, McGoldrick & Lynch conclude, Peace Journalism is the ʽbetter counterpart’ of the propaganda, elite and violence-oriented War Journalism as it gives all involved parties a voice, highlights positive aspects and works solution-oriented. Since the developers of the concept did not distinguish between different journalistic fields, their proposed practices could presumably be applied to all kinds of journalism – including photojournalism.
3. Taking the concepts to news photography
Ottosen demands that the afore mentioned approaches to Peace Journalism should also be applied to visual elements such as news photographs. Current news imagery, he claims, depends mainly on War Journalism characteristics: they contribute to the “propaganda-orientation” of texts by underlining “ethnocentric and militaristic” approaches and consequently play “an important role in creating enemy images”.52 This also fits the general consensus that a ʽWar Journalism theme’ exists, which is a ʽclassic’ feature of mainstream wartime reporting, not only in textual form but also in terms of visual news material. In return, demands for Peace Journalistic approaches also involve both word and image based practices, as it will be established in the next sections of this thesis.
3.1 War Photography
It was the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) which paved the way for what would later be conceptualized as War Photography. Though cameras had already been present in previous
49 Ibid., p. 1.
50 The variables consist of “χ parties, у goals, ƶ issues […] open space, open time; causes and outcomes anywhere.”
A. McGoldrick & J. Lynch, “Peace Journalism – What is it? How to do it?”, TRANSCEND manual, 2000, https://www.transcend.org/tri/downloads/McGoldrick_Lynch_Peace-Journalism.pdf, accessed March 30, 2020, p. 29.
51 J. Lynch & A. McGoldrick, Peace Journalism (London: Hawthorn Press, 2005), p. 5.
52 R. Ottosen, “Emphasising Images in Peace Journalism: Theory and Practice in the Case of Norwayʼs Biggest Newspaper”, conflict & communication online vol. 6 (1), 2007, pp. 2-3.
conflicts, advanced camera technology in particular made it possible that wars could be visualized to an unprecedented, revolutionizing extent. In the course of the Spanish Civil War, photographers were able to produce dramatic, on-location photographs which openly depicted violence – “gritty and graphic photographs of soldiers […] in action, bombed homes and villages, maimed children, corpses and grieving survivors” – and to publish them in European magazines.53 In addition to the novelty of graphic imagery being distributed by mainstream papers, Griffin notes that it raised “the visual expectations of the image-viewing public ever after. Such photographs became both a mark of the new capacity of modern media to deliver images of ongoing world events, even from difficult and dangerous locations, and prototypes for a new genre of photojournalism: war photography”.54 Since photojournalism had not yet been extensively academized and conceptualized at that point, it can be presumed that the photographers of the Spanish Civil War chose their motives intuitively.
Their intention might thus have solely been to apply photographic technology as a way to create a visual record and – based on the presumption of photography’s natural verisimilitude and objectivity – supply an audience with a direct and authentic sense of real events. As Griffin puts it:
“bring apparently authentic views of distant events to [the peopleʼs] breakfast tables and living rooms”.55
What began as intuition and is still perceived as the ʽtraditional wayʼ of photojournalistic war correspondence has been turned and expanded into the criteria for what the academy has established as the War Photography concept.56 Both supporters and critics of this practice acknowledge that this model lives in/is a snapshot of a specific moment of a war, seeking to produce “dramatically charged images” of compelling war scenes with “above all ʽdramatic visual impactʼ”.57 War Photographs are generally valued by news organizations for their capacity to grab and hold viewer attention, according to Griffin. He refers to Thussuʼs observation that good news would be not compelling enough. Rather, the media “thrives on violence, death and destruction – be that from natural causes (earthquake, floods, hurricanes) or human causes (wars, riots, murders). [They] score more highly than peacetime events”.58
3.2 Visual criteria for War Photojournalism
Two scholars, who have established a set of visual criteria according to which a picture can be
53 Griffin, op. cit., p. 10.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid., pp. 9-10.
56 Galtung, “High Road, Low Road”, op. cit., p. 1.
57 Griffin, op. cit., p. 9.
58 D.K. Thussu, “Live TV and Bloodless Deaths: War, Infotainment and 24/7 News”, in eds. D.K. Thussu & D.
Freedman, War and the Media (London: Sage, 2003), pp.123-124.
categorized as a War/Peace Photograph, are Fahmy & Neumann. In an exploratory study of the photographic coverage of the Gaza Conflict in newspapers, they attempt to enhance Galtungʼs perception of what constitutes War/Peace Journalism both in terms of the conceptsʼ definitions as well as their application to photojournalism. Rather than connecting Galtungʼs approach to a visual analysis, however, their criteria actually presents a simplification of the War and Peace Journalism dichotomy as they focus solely on a pictureʼs visuals. Fahmy & Neumann justify their approach by stating that, while “previous scholarship primarily tested the […] theory with regard to written news content”, it should to be acknowledged that “visuals are different from texts”.59 This implies that news photographs are generally disconnected from textual influences and can thus be conceptualized based only on the visual impression they transmit.
To prove their proposition, Fahmy & Neumann identify certain War and Peace Journalism criteria, which are applicable to the study of photographs, like, for instance, the contrast between images depicting suffering people versus pictures of peace negotiations. The incurring divide would offer
“a powerful demonstration of how the visual dimension of reporting news events could potentially create a war journalism frame (with a particular emphasis on victims and belligerents) and a peace journalism frame (with a particular emphasis on negotiators, peace treaties, and demonstrators)”.60 Moreover, they use the degree of physical and emotionalsuffering, as well as the roles and ages of subjects as additional aspects as coding items to “help determine whether a visual can be categorized as a war [or] peace journalism frame”.61 Fahmy & Neumann define the categories as follows:
Physical harm/Suffering: A War Journalism frame inhibits any visible form of physical suffering, be it injury or death, which can be categorized in three main strands. “Not severe” photographs display no clear physical damage; thus, whether a “non-severe” picture actually fits the War category needs to be determined based on other factors. “Severe” cases show people with injuries such as skin abrasions, wounds and/or loss of extremities. Lastly, suffering in photos is “most- severe” if they depict dead people or bodies being carried in body bags.62
Emotions: Furthermore, the extent to which depicted persons in a photograph appear to be particularly emotional is assessed. However, Fahmy & Neumann acknowledge the difficulty to mediate, capture and interpret emotional nuances in pictures correctly in visual content analyses.
59 S. Fahmy & R. Neumann, “Shooting War Or Peace Photographs? An Examination of Newswires’ Coverage of the Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009)”, American Behavioral Scientist vol. 56 (2), 2011, pp. 3, 6.
60 Ibid., p. 6.
61 Ibid., pp. 6-7.
62 Ibid., p. 13.
Rather than developing a scale or ranking emotions, they thus dichotomize what is visible in photographs into “negative” and “positive” emotions. In War Photography, emotions tend to be predominately negative, which can be expressed through, among others, signs of anger, frustration, sadness, mourning, fear, and pain.63
Roles: Another distinction is made between two different “war roles” which individuals or groups can perform in War Photographs. The first role includes “victimized” subjects, such as suffering civilians or refugees. This role also comprises a visible “theme of destruction”; for instance, destroyed landscapes and towns, or devastated fields. Secondly, “belligerents” are persons engaged in war actions as well as actors who appear to be hostile to one another. In general, belligerents – including both individuals and groups – are defined as “not very likely to be seen as contributing to peace by a larger public.” It is mainly the “violent nature of the actions performed by [them]” which helps in the discovery of belligerents in photos. Thus, one needs to be careful in assigning a certain role based solely on the picture because, depending on the moment it has captured, “a specific individual could be categorized as a belligerent in one context whereas in other contexts be categorized differently.”64
Age: The possible age groups of photographed subjects can play a distinctive role in drawing emotions and associations from an audience. Though a crisis affects people regardless of their age, it might not necessarily be evident in a picture. It has been suggested that photos of children in critical situations evoke stronger emotions in spectators than those of adults, due to a child’s innocence, dependence and vulnerability. Hence, photos of suffering children might be used specifically to attract attention. The scholars therefore argue that “photographs of children and adolescents have become an essential frame of war narratives in the news”.65 To utilize these findings in the study, another dichotomy distinguishes between “children” and “adolescents/adults”
in critical situations. The age category, however, can only be applied to cases where people are shown. If both age groups are present in one picture, the focus is put on the “dominating group”; or, in other words, the group at the center of action, which attracts the most attention.66
To illustrate with an own example, Image A)67 contains typical traits of what would be considered a War Journalism frame, according to Fahmy & Neumannʼs categorization. It was taken by Faas, a Pulitzer Price winning photojournalist, who worked for the news agency AP and dedicated himself
63 Ibid., p. 13.
64 Ibid., pp. 11-12.
65 Ibid., p. 7.
66 Ibid., pp. 12-13.
67 H. Faas, “Vietnam Saigon U.S. Embassy Bombing”, AP Images, 1965,
http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS207327-Vietnam-Saigon-U- S-/b822bdef28bd451dbfcf0a82d98bc557/341/0, accessed March 19, 2020.
to following troops and civilians during the violent conflicts of the Vietnam War.68 The image depicts a scene of said conflict in Saigon, Vietnam, shortly after a bomb had exploded outside the US Embassy on March 30, 1965. According to the description provided by AP, the people in the picture are “injured Vietnamese [receiving] aid as they lie on the street [while] smoke rises from wreckage in background […]”.69 The picture captures a truly gruesome “scene of destruction” as well as clearly visible physical suffering. Presumably dead and badly, if not fatally injured people are scattered on the ground, suffering from wounds and burn marks from the explosion. Therefore, the degree of physical suffering in the photograph can be rated as “most severe” according to the categories established by Fahmy & Neumann. The determination of the emotional suffering in this particular case is more difficult as the photograph was taken as a so-called “full-shot”, in which more emphasis is put on action and movement rather than on the subjects’ emotional states. Indeed, the faces of the depicted persons are mainly hidden or not clearly visible in this case. However, the man in the front appears to clasp his hands behind his head, with his elbows pointing forward. This type of body gesture is understood as a signal of disbelief and denial and is most likely to be displayed when something shocking happens – thereby provoking “negative” emotions.70 The man in the middle of the shot also appears to be in a state of shock and fear as he is standing on the street with his eyes wide open, a blank expression on his face. “Belligerents” are not visible here; the picture only shows the “victims” of the attack – Vietnamese civilians – as well as what appear to be security guards and rescuers in uniforms and helmets. In addition to the casualties of the attack, the embassyʼs surroundings are clearly devastated: debris covers the ground, the building at the corner of the street has seemingly lost its front wall as a result of the detonation, and fire and smoke can be seen in the back. Both the people and the location were thus “victimized” in an act of violence as part of warfare. While it is difficult to determine the age range of the people present in the picture, it appears like adults are the dominating group. The slight skewness of the camera angle as well as the cut-off person in the front suggest that Faas, like the civilians on the street, was surprised by the event, pulled out his camera and took the shot, without giving consideration to its aesthetics or the possible influence it could have on an audience. According to the coding items established by Fahmy & Neumann, this specific image would be identified as War Photograph.
68 “Photographer Horst Faas”, AP Images, n.d., http://www.apimages.com/Collection/Landing/Photographer-Horst- Faas-/03e5ff94483648859f53486e967ec079, accessed March 19, 2020.
69 H. Faas, “Vietnam Saigon U.S. Embassy Bombing”, AP Images, 1965,
http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS207327-Vietnam-Saigon-U- S-/b822bdef28bd451dbfcf0a82d98bc557/341/0, accessed March 19, 2020.
70 H. Parvez, “Body language: Scratching hair and touching the head”, PsychMechanics, 2015, https://www.psychmechanics.com/body-language-scratching-hair/, accessed March 19, 2020.
3.3 Peace Photography
In hindsight of the notion that “politics, global and otherwise, is to some extend shaped by visual images, […] nowadays more than ever”, Möller requests more reflective, self-critical approaches to photographic representations of peace:
We should think not only about representations of war and the question of how images represent and contribute to [organized] violence but also about representations of peace and the question of how images may represent and contribute to peace. If images can be complicit with violence, then they can also be complicit with peace.71
So far, however, he claims that this particular photographic discourse has been ignored by the
“institutionalized academic discipline” of peace research, which “seems to be interested neither in peace nor visual images”. Rather, despite their stated interest in the analysis of war and peace, peace researchers would prioritize “analyses of the former over the latter” – and thereby even nurture their own personal “fascination with violence”.72
Allan has taken these observations as a reason to “reconsider war photography anew [by] seeking to disrupt the ideological purchase of its accustomed norms, values and priorities”.73 To Allan, customs of the current practice of wartime photography are to enable a morally questionable “form of spectatorship”, which “makes possible the means to apprehend […] other people’s pain” from a distance. No one would profit from such coverage, however, since it would only be an “often- rendered assertion that the grisly representation of violence [in news photos] necessarily threatens public support for military intervention”. In addition, Allan sees “no necessary correlation between images of human suffering and compassion, let alone concerted action”.74 He thereby dismisses the commonly voiced opinion that pictures categorized as War Photographs could have an emotional impact on an audience and possibly influence people’s sentiment towards a certain conflict. His suggestions for Peace Photography practices thus call for a “profound re-imagining of photographic form, practice and epistemology” so “the lived realities of human suffering in all of their complexity” could be documented in a constructive way by simultaneously “engendering opportunities to [visualize] alternatives”.75 Hence, rather than portraying war as two-sided matter, of which violence is the side-effect to be expected, photographs should aim to humanize and explore the opportunities, hopes and chances arising from a conflict.
While the matter of what constitutes Peace Photography would be too complex to be confined to
71 F. Möller, Peace Photography (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), p. 40.
72 Ibid., pp. 39-41.
73 S. Allan, “Documenting War, Visualizing Peace: Towards Peace Photography”, in eds. I.S. Shaw, J. Lynch &
R.A. Hackett, Expanding Peace Journalism (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2011), p. 149.
74 Ibid., pp. 148, 162.
75 Ibid., p. 162.
fixed categories, Allan suggests the “creation of a new visual grammar resistant to the pull of binaries [such as ʽgood’/ʽevil’, ʽus’/ʽthem’]” as an initial step to approach definitions for the new concept.76 In their previously mentioned study, Fahmy & Neumann have proposed their own counterframe to War Photography, which, they think, could help to distinguish between War and Peace Photography.
3.4 Visual criteria for Peace Photojournalism
Fahmy & Neumann have established their own Peace Photography criteria, which foresees the trade of graphic images containing, for instance, stigmatizations, human suffering and casualties caused by warfare for photos taken during peace negotiations to emphasize acts of resolution, reconciliation and reconstruction. This is done by contrasting their War Photography coding items – physical and emotional suffering, the role a subject plays in a photo and the age group of the depicted – with Peace Photographic counterparts. By acknowledging them, they say, Peace Photographers are able to possibly create “more positive, hopeful [images] in the viewer’s mind”, which cannot be said about the products of War Photographers.77 Fahmy & Neumann’s Peace Photography criteria are:
Physical harm/Suffering: As mentioned in the chapter “War Journalism Criteria”, the degree to which suffering both in the form of physical and emotional harm is depicted in a photograph can be ranked. War Photographic pictures are thought of to display predominately cases of “severe” and
“most severe” suffering. The degree of harm in Peace Photography, in contrast, is commonly expected to be “not severe”, which applies to pictures in which no clear physical damage is apparent. One example of this would be an image of people, who demonstrate against the war in a non-violent way.78
Emotions: To classify the emotionality of depicted persons in Peace Photography, the dichotomy of
“negative” and “positive” emotions is once again used. Peace in itself is generally associated with positive feelings; such as hope, confidence, redemption, delight, or happiness. Since Peace Photography should constitute a “positive counterpart” of War Photography by contributing to more hopeful, peace-promoting conditions, it needs to display signs of people’s positivity rather than negativity.79
Roles: The afore mentioned “war roles” are contrasted by two peaceful counterframes. One is the role of the “negotiator”, which can consist of different constellations: Most likely the highest
76 Ibid., pp. 160, 162-163.
77 Fahmy & Neumann, op. cit., pp. 6-8.
78 Ibid. p. 13.
79 Ibid.
symbolic value can be ascribed to images of antagonists engaging/negotiating in peace talks together. Political and organizational leaders, who act as external mediators – thus are “non- belligerents” – can also be identified as negotiators. This further applies to pictures which capture foreign leaders in contact with one or different conflict parties due to the obvious disposition to attempt negotiations with outside help. The second role is that of a “demonstrator”. While demonstrations can be done both violently as well as peacefully, the term is only applied in instances in which “people in worldwide locations peacefully protested against the war without doing any physical harm to bystanders or security forces”.80 This includes, among others, demonstrations in which people march holding signs and banners, whereas it would not apply to stone-throwers.
Age: Photographs of children in war-torn regions can also be used to create “a more positive, hopeful image in the viewer’s mind” if they are displayed in a peace-related context, such as, for example, a picture of children studying in classrooms. While children in their role as victims are a common subject in War Photographs, their occurrence in Peace Photographs mainly displays them in states of happiness and progress, potentially spurred on by humanitarian work and, ideally, a proceeding peace process. Though the same is true for images portraying only adults in similar ways, children in images provoke strong emotional responses – either negative or positive, depending on the content.81
Image B)82 serves as another independent illustration of how this criteria could function in the detection of a Peace Photograph. The picture was taken by the AP photographer Lipchitz during the peace negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam at the time of the Vietnam War. It captures the end of a meeting between Kissinger, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to US President Nixon, (r.), and the Representative of North Vietnam’s delegation, Thọ (l.) on June 12, 1973, in France. Watching from behind is Thọ’s aide. The captions convey the picture’s context and basic information. One sentence might be particularly important: “They have yet to finalize their draft accord to tighten the Vietnam peace agreement”.83 This formulation implies that a peace agreement to end the Vietnam War had already been in place at that time, and that state leaders of the opposing parties were actively working on its improvements to satisfy their nations.84 The
80 Ibid., p. 12.
81 Ibid., pp. 8, 10, 12-13.
82 M. Lipchitz, “Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho 1973”, AP Images, 1973,
http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-International-News- Fran-/332d428e921c458c9bf097e8e508d9f4/11/0, accessed April 9, 2020.
83 Ibid.
84 A peace treaty had already been signed in January of 1973. Yet, US and Vietnamese delegates had to conduct further meetings to establish a more “stable peace” since the fighting had continued, rendering the accords increasingly ineffectual. The meeting on June 12 was concerned with the implementation of a cease-fire in Vietnam. The effort
photograph conveys an impression of general consent, mutual respect, and friendliness between the subjects. Because it was taken during peace negotiations in France – thus far away from the actual battlefields in Southeast Asia – no destruction and/or physical suffering is visible. If categorized in regard to the visible suffering it displays, it would hence be a “non-severe” image, according to Fahmy & Neumann’s criteria. The body language exhibited by all persons in the picture is unambiguously “positive”: Kissinger and Thọ smile openly at each other, both showing their teeth and making wrinkles on the outer part of their eyes. The two persons in the background of the image also have smiles on their faces. Such facial expressions are generally known to send a positive message and create a “feel-good factor” by letting a person appear warm and approachable, and by affecting the receptiveness persons feel towards each other.85 In addition, the photograph has captured the politicians in the moment of an apparently firm handshake: Thọ’s hand is almost entirely covered by that of Kissinger, whose thumb is pressing down on Thọ’s knuckles. At the same time, they make eye contact with each other – a bodily way to express interest and respect.86 Kissinger also seems to lean slightly towards Thọ, potentially signaling his interest and willingness to listen.87 Thus, the emotions displayed by the subjects in the picture – including interest, openness, respect, and friendliness – fit Fahmy & Neumann’s definition of “positive” emotions. Furthermore, Kissinger and Thọ clearly fulfill the role of “negotiators”; they are antagonists, who engage in a peace talk together. Fahmy & Neumann’s consideration of age groups cannot be applied in this case as no children are present and the age of the protagonists does not add to/detract from the general impression of the picture. Nevertheless, all the above considered attributes visible in the photograph suggest that it could be classified as Peace Photograph, according to Fahmy & Neumann.
4. Reflections on journalistic practice
Most scholars – among them Galtung, Lynch and McGoldrick – have acknowledged that studies of the interpretation and conceptualization of visual content play a role in the War/Peace Photography models. Mitra, however, has criticized such a categorization of photography for being too
“restricted to explicit content” while studies of production processes and situational contexts are ignored. Visual analyses thus only focus on the ʽfinal product’ of the production process leading up to the published photograph. However, if samples are defined as having the same ‘meaning’ rather
failed, however, as Thọ was not satisfied with formulations in and last-minute changes to the treaty. Nevertheless, both leaders stressed their goal to normalize the relations between their people and remained respectful towards each other and agreed to meet again the next day for further discussions.
J.M. Carland & A.M. Howard (eds.), Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume XLII, Vietnam: The Kissinger-Le Duc Tho Negotiations (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2017), pp. VI-VII, 1710-1719.
85 V. Bindra, Everything About Corporate Etiquette (New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2015), chap. 4, Kindle Edition.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid.
