Conflict & Communication Online (Oct 2016)
Display-through-foregrounding by photojournalists as self-reflexivity in photojournalism: Two case studies of Accidental Peace Photojournalism
Abstract
This article explores media self-reflexivity as understood within Peace Journalism (PJ) in the case of photojournalists and photojournalism. Carrying forward the discussion started by Allan (2011) for research into ‘peace photography’ to be extended to ‘tacit, unspoken rules’ underlying photojournalistic images, the article shows, through two examples of mainstream news images, how photojournalists can and may break from diktats of ‘news values’ to advertently or inadvertently critique the myths of the very practice they function within. Such self-reflexive, synecdochic images which display media’s own role in covering conflict are examples from which PJ can take lessons for a new visual grammar where visual peace journalism is understood to not only ‘expose the untruths’ behind propaganda but also expose the truths behind how such propaganda is reified by the media.
