Decline of the Singular Image within the Current Media Paradigm
In 1968 Eddie Adams captured a singular image whose content and meaning would reverberate throughout the world. Indirectly it had an impact on the lives of millions and, it could be argued, hastened a wars conclusion and influenced future foreign and domestic policy internationally. While the photographer and the name of the image may mean little to most, the image itself has been forever etched in the minds of a generation. Saigon, as the photograph is titled, stood out in an era of singular images when print media prevailed over television and the photojournalist was perhaps the most influential individual in the media establishment of the day.
In today’s modern news and information paradigm, there is a general acceptance that the public has more access to information than ever before. 24 hour news broadcast channels like CNN, Fox and BBC all claim to offer live, current and in depth analysis of the most important and ever-changing events of our time. In fact, the prevalence of these new media enterprises has only led to a decline in information dissemination and a narrowing of the news media’s standards and self-assigned purview. This becomes strikingly apparent when looking specifically at the coverage of armed conflicts. If one contrasts characteristics such as mis en scene, systemic limitations, and censorship in the modern media paradigm with that of the earlier print and image based information era, it can be seen that the decline of photojournalism and the singular image has created a vacuum in news media and information dissemination. This vacuum has resulted in a general public, far less informed, and more inclined toward the shallow reading and superficial valuation of information.
What makes Eddie Adams’ photograph so interesting when viewed in the context of a comparison of the two media paradigms is that both still and video were equally represented at the time of the event, yet it is the photograph, the singular image, that stands out in the minds of the public. When General Loan executed the Vietcong prisoner, he did it under the gaze and thorough coverage of a large media group that included film, television, and print journalists. Though people may have seen the film footage, watched the coverage on television or read about it in the newspaper, it is the image that is seared in the memory of those who are aware of the event. Why is this? A closer examination of the photograph will expose a number of visual elements that can clearly be seen as contributing to the photographs lasting impact on the viewer. The primary subjects in the image are in an area of shadow cast in the foreground while the background, in bright sunlight is overexposed and washed out, bringing particular focus of attention to the subject area. Directional cues move the eye to the primary subject of the victim. These include the eyes of General Loan and the other soldier looking toward the victim, the arm of General Loan pointing directly at the head of the subject, and the perspective lines of the buildings and road leading to the victim. Contrasting facial expressions on the three individuals compels the reader to look back and forth, trying to make sense of elements and find greater meaning in the image than might be seen in a superficial viewing. It is immediately apparent why the victim’s face expresses such profound anguish, but one is left to ask why General Loan’s expression is so casual or indifferent and the other soldier’s expression appears to be one of excited aggression. Aspects of the above reading of Eddie Adams’ photograph begin to shed light on the influence of mis en scene on the impact of the photograph.
The construction of mis en scene can be seen as being influenced by three important contributors; the recorder (meaning the photographer, filmmaker, videographer, etc), the viewer and, in some cases, the subject. Whether a photographer or a videographer, the recorder uses a variety of visual (and audio, in the case of the videographer) cues in order to create impact and compel the viewer to participate in the process of creating meaning. Beyond some of the visual cues already described, pattern, repetition, depth of field, and emotive subjects to name a few, all re-enforce the importance of mis en scene in facilitating the recorder with a capacity to form meaning. But the image specifically causes the viewer to do something that film or video actually inhibits. This singular image causes the viewer to give a deeper reading: to consider, to contemplate and to analyse what lies before them in order to make sense of the meaning or message. In fact, the viewer, in their interpretation of the image, is actually contributing to its meaning. When one looks at the dichotomy of meaning, suggested by the photographer and interpreted by the viewer, it is interesting to consider that in many cases it’s the viewer who invests more time in the process.
Unlike the photograph, at 24 frames per second for film and 29.97 for NTSC broadcast, it is impossible for the viewer to even begin to process the information being displayed before them.
“Nonstop imagery (television, streaming video, movies) is our surround but when it comes to remembering, the photograph has the deeper bite. Memory freeze-frames; its basic unit is the single image. In an era of information overload, the photograph provides a quick way of apprehending something and a compact form for memorizing it.” (Sontag 23)
The inability of the viewer to process details, and the lack of time to contemplate, creates an emotional disconnect, a sense that, as the viewer, one is no longer a participant in the forming of meaning. However, the photograph and television coverage are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In the afterword of Witness in Our Time, photographer Ken Light describes his early exposure to the field of photojournalism during the Vietnam War as the impetus for picking up a camera professionally.
“Every night I saw the war up close on television, and the next day I could look more deeply at the images in the morning newspaper—like Eddie Adams’ photograph of a Vietcong terrorist being shot point-blank or Nick Ut’s photo of a Vietnamese girl napalmed by by friendly fire.” (191)
Finally, one must consider the participation of the subject in forming meaning. Whether a victim of war or a perpetrator, there is an awareness, even if on some obscure level, that as the subject they are part of what the late Guy Debord called ” The Spectacle” and, as such, the subject experiences a conflict. There is an understanding that the photograph will tell their story in a way they cannot, for as Debord states, the spectacle “is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images”. While in this context, the contribution to meaning is empowering, it can also be demoralising, as “the individual who in the service of the spectacle [...] is in fact the opposite of the individual” (Debord 12, 39). When Fazal Sheikh wrote of photographing victims in a refugee camp he said that he worked with the subject to “construct the image together” and later wrote the following in describing his experience with victims of rape at another camp(156).
“I have always been troubled by the notion that a person becomes the subject of a photograph simply because they have been raped. It is not the sum total of who they are. For their part, the women understood that the images and their stories would be shown in public, and they still insisted upon speaking out.” (158)
As viewers we often sense our relationship with the subject, we can read the meaning they provide as a form of communication, as though they wre speaking directly to us.
The process of acquisition, dissemination and representation of visual information is also impacted differently when contrasting the independent photojournalist and the singular image with the broadcast network and the continuing stream of video coverage. Each have certain innate characteristics that impact the above processes, however, these systematic limitations have a far greater impact on broadcast network coverage. Specifically, limitations such as finances, equipment (including support staff), and the very nature of the media form, have the greatest impact on broadcast coverage. On first glance one would assume that from a financial standpoint the large broadcast corporations would have a substantial advantage in areas of acquisition, dissemination and representation of information, but this isn’t necessarily the case. As a corporate entity, the broadcast companies primary responsibility is to maintain and improve shareholder value (Bakan 37). As such, if viewership and advertising can be maintained with a minimum of investment in frontline coverage and investigative reporting, said coverage will be constrained. This can result in centralisation fo broadcast coverage to regional centres, a reduction in staffing foreign correspondents and camera crews, and a greater tendency to accept and regurgitate material supplied from government. In contrast, the independent photojournalist, who typically works on a shoestring budget, also has fewer expenses, leading to greater independence. As a result of this freedom, they tend to enter areas less accessible and invest more time in the investigative process (Meiselas 102, 103). This is often not a viable option for the broadcast corporations. Equipment, or lack thereof, enables the independent photojournalist to access areas and subject matter that is not available to a large broadcast camera crew (which sometimes include video and audio personnel, on air personality, translator and security). this tradition of the independent photographer can be traced back to as early as the Crimean War and the work of photographers such as Felice Beato. The singular image continued to thrive during the Vietnam War with the work of people like Larry Burrows, Don McCullin and Eddie Adams (Hirsch 101, 334, 335). Today that work continues, unfortunately, finding a venue for their work has become more difficult and alternative publications, such as books and exhibitions, are being considered as alternatives.
the very nature of teh media form itself has a great impact on coverage and eventual content. Broadcast networks are for whatever reason focused primarily on immediacy. Event coverage, even within the paradigm of the 24 hour news channel, seem to only focus on a shallow reading of any given situation, reporting the equivalent of a headline (and maybe first paragraph) and then repeating it every hour on the hour. This can be concurrently attributed to the earlier mentioned financial constraints and an apparent public preference to this format, ant least on television. The result is an additional filter on the production of investigative journalism. On the other hand, the independent photojournalist is not as influenced by these factors, and while they may not always see their work picked up for publication (“Beyond Words”), the subject has been covered. In broadcast, the need for the sound bite and 60 second clip exclude the more thorough coverage altogether. Bureaucratically speaking, it is reasonable to assume that a large multilevel organisation will result in a selective filtration of, in this case, visual media, something and independent photojournalist would not as readily be subjected to (though the material might). Considerations such as finance, cultural or regional interests, political or ideological leanings, and self-interest all play a role in the bureaucratic nature of large corporate media organisations (Klein 174). While these bureaucratic characteristics are part of the corporate media form they are also the leading cause of censorship.
The issue of censorship is being influenced by both internal and external forces and both the independent photojournalist and the broadcast corporation are affected to varying degrees. For the purpose of this discussion, censorship is any considered decision to take action to limit the quantity or nature of information and its public accessibility. Internal censorship, which might also be called self-censorship, can occur when the independent photojournalist makes a decision about that to photograph. David Douglas Duncan has said that “I have one basic principle, I have never once photographed the face of a dead trooper”, suggesting a moral line that he would not cross. This is echoed somewhat more contemplatively by Don McCullin who said “There is always the danger of seeing things in a beautiful composition. You want to be aware that sometimes you are being offered images of beauty, which are in fact, images of ugliness and death” (“Beyond Words”). But are photojournalists immune to the socio-political predispositions that might also influence what photographs they take? If we look back at Ken Light’s earlier quite regarding Eddie Adams’ photograph, he refers to the victim as a “terrorist” rather than a less inflammatory term such as soldier or simply Vietcong, and photographer Philip Jones Griffiths suggested that “99 percent of all journalists in Vietnam approved of the war” (qtd. in Hirsch 334). It’s hard to imagine these predispositions not impacting, at least to some degree, the independent photographers decision-making process.
Due to their ability to project information so widely and to compile and filter that information, the corporate broadcast network has the most profound impact on the dissemination of information. While financial considerations may inhibit coverage in order to save money, what defines censorship here is the decision to manage coverage for the purpose of controlling information. Though external pressure on the corporate broadcast network exists, it is difficult to classify as external censorship because as an independent entity, it makes the ultimate decision regarding how to act under that pressure. The exception to this is where the international broadcast corporation is required to self-censor in order to maintain approval to operate or where there is outright censorship of transmission (FlorCruz). External censorship pales in comparison to the large news corporations own self-censorship and, while the agenda of these news broadcast networks may often be aligned with government, it is that private corporate agenda that directs the censorship through selection and omission. The corporate broadcaster will moderate and control coverage for two primary and interrelated reasons; political ideology and corporate profit for themselves and their parent companies. The interconnected web of corporation ownership means that a media corporation is typically only one part of a larger corporate entity that may include any number of other financially motivated operations. As such, the media component will impact the selection and omission process (Herman & Chomsky 2-14). The very fact that media corporations are for-profit organisations dictates that their political ideology will be conservative, as to undermine such an ideology would inevitably undermine the news corporation’s primary objective of generating profit. As mentioned earlier, the independent photojournalist’s work will not always survive the media filter, but what makes the corporate news domination so pernicious is that it has the power to restrict even the most primary acquisition of information.
The decline in photojournalism and the relative impact of the singular image has been superseded by the power and ubiquity of the television broadcast news corporations. A media form that encouraged the individual, both as photographer and reader, to form layers of meaning, to consider, and to contemplate, has been relegated to small specialty media. The new mainstream is the 24 hour news broadcast, expansive in its dissemination but narrow in its scope and meaning. It remains to be seen whether there is still a place for the independent photojournalist and the singular image in a society inured to the rapid bombardment of audiovisual overload. The time may come again, as people reach a certain saturation point, when they feel a need to sit, to consider, and to quietly give meaning to the singular image.
Works Cited
Beyond Words. Producers Greg Kelly, Eric Foss. CBC, 2005.
Bakan, Joel. The Corporation: the pathological pursuit of profit and power. Toronto: Penguin, 2004.
Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books, 1995.
FlorCruz, Jaime. China censors CNN SARS report. 15 May 2003. CNN International. 20 November 2005
Herman, Edward S. & Chomsky, Noam. Manufacturing Consent: The political economy of the mass media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
Hirsch, Robert. Seizing the Light: A history of photography. Boston: McGraw Hill Higher Education, 2000.
Klein, Naomi. No Logo: taking aim at the brand bullies. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2000.
Kight, Ken, ed. Witness in Our Time: Working lives of documentary photographers. Washington & London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000.
Meiselas, Susan. “Central America and Human Rights.” Light 102-103.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Facebook
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Vimeo