Article

Protest in the Photo Essay

Following Tradition or Breaking New Ground?

Karin Becker

Article

Protest in the Photo Essay

Following Tradition or Breaking New Ground?

Karin Becker

https://doi.org/10.47659/m7.062.art

Vol. 4, no. 2
2019
25/08/2020

Protest

The photo essay, a form of visual journalism that arose during the era of the picture magazines, has reemerged as a regular feature of global news channels, including CNN, BBC World, and, notably, Al Jazeera English, recognized for its live reporting of political unrest. In 2017, a year marked by protest around the world, AJE published over 200 photo-series, including 37 on public protest. An analysis based in a four-year study of protest on screen, revealed that these photo essays share characteristics that in turn distinguish them from video broadcasts of public protests. The photo-reportage on screen, like its classic forerunner in print, employs a variety of visual perspectives and focuses on participants who are often quoted and identified by name. Scenes of public protest are complemented by visual and textual reporting from the private/domestic sphere. This visual strategy, in contrast to the immediacy of video coverage from the streets, supports knowledge of the protest issue and engagement with its participants.

Keywords: Al Jazeera English, global television news, news galleries, photo essay, photojournalism, public protest

Karin Becker is professor emerita of media studies at Stockholm University. She has held positions at Indiana University (Ph.D. 1976), University of Iowa, Konstfack/College of Art and Design (Stockholm) and Linköping University. She has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Munich (1983) and Stockholm University (1988). In 2012-2014 she led the Nordic Network of Digital Visuality (NNDV). Her research centers on visual media forms and practices, including documentary photography and photojournalism, vernacular photography, and artistic and performative practices in public space. She has led research projects on public art (Konst genom staden, VR 2006-2008) and on global media events as mediated through public space (Changing Places, VR 2010-2014). Her recent work includes analyzing protest images in global television news within the research project Screening protest (www.screeningprotest.com).

Karin Becker: karin.becker@ims.su.se, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden

Becker, K. 1985. »Forming a Profession: Ethical Implications of Photojournalistic Practice on German Picture Magazines, 1926-1933.« Studies in Visual Communication 11/2: 44–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2326-8492.1985.tb00023.x
Becker, Karin. 2018. »Icons of Protest in the Visual Cultures of News.« In Screening Protest: Visual narratives of dissent across time, space and genre, ed. A. Robertson. London & New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315173894-6
Caple, H. and John Knox. 2012. »Online News Galleries, Photojournalism and the Photo Essay.« Visual Communication, 11(2): 207–236. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357211434032
Robertson, A., Luiza Chiroiu and Diana Grecu. 2018. »Protest on global television: protest maps, violence and voice.« In Screening Protest: Visual narratives of dissent across time, space and genre, ed. A. Robertson. London & New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315173894-2
Robertson, A., ed. 2018. Screening Protest: Visual narratives of dissent across time, space and genre. London & New York: Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315173894
Solaroli, M. 2016. »The Rules of a Middle-brow art: Digital production and cultural consecration in the global field of professional photojournalism.« Poetics 59 (december): 50–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2016.09.001

Sources (projects and photo essays)

aljazeera.com. In Pictures. 2017. Includes photographer’s name, date, headline and lead-in text. Accessed 13 June 2019, aljazeera.com, adding filter “In Pictures” and scrolling back to 2017 and the date.
20170116. Shafi, Showkat. 16 Jan. In the name of Ram: Tattoos in India’s Dalit community. After being denied access to temples, some Dalits began tattooing the name of the Hindu god Ram on their face and body.
20170122a. Lunde, Kelly Lynn. 22 Jan. Washington DC: Women’s March for equal rights. “I came to show solidarity with women and all the other people who resist the bigotry and … intolerance.”
20170122b. (Compilation) 22 Jan. Women marches across the world draw huge crowd. Hundreds of thousands join women’s marches to protest new US president’s stance on gender, minorities and human rights.
20170202. Moldovan, Ioana. 2 Feb. Protests surge as Romania decriminalises corruption Hundreds of thousands decry measures that decriminalise graft offences as judicial watchdog announces court challenge.
20170203. Lunde, Kelly Lynn. 3 Feb. NYC Yemenis close bodegas to protest Trump travel ban Strike supported by more than 2,000 people aimed to highlight the role of immigrant labour in the city.
20170206a. Moldovan, Ioana. 6 Feb. Romania Protests: A family’s fight. A day in the life of a Romanian family who are taking to the streets each night for the future of their children.
20170206b. Dijkstra, Andrea, & Jeroen Van Loon. 6 Feb. Kenya’s Maasai and Samburu becoming women without FGM. “When my parents called the [cutter for my sister], I warned the district officer. Our generation can bring change.”
20170217. (Compilation). 17 Feb. US immigrants stay at home to demonstrate their value. Thousands participated in the protests across United States.
20170327. Zanoun, Ezz. 27 March. “Thousands attend Gaza funeral of slain Hamas official. Palestinians poured into the streets on Saturday for the funeral of Mazen Faqha”.
20170427. Khan, Faisal. 27 April. Female Kashmiri students lead anti-India protests. Students from various female colleges in Indian administered Kashmir take part in mass protests against Indian soldiers.
20170602. Porter, Lizzie (writer), & Leila Molana-Allen (photographer). 2 June. Walking a path of resistance in Palestine. Illegal Israeli settlements surround the Masar Ibrahim trail on all sides.
20170616. Zanoun, Ezz. 16 June. Mass protests on Gaza’s borders over electricity crisis. Palestinians in besieged Gaza Strip protest at borders with Israel as rights groups warn of growing humanitarian crisis.
20170701. Zanoun, Ezz. 1 July. Life in the darkness of Gaza’s power crisis. Palestinians in the besieged territory are receiving just a few hours of electricity a day.
20170721. (Compilation). 21 July. Al-Aqsa: Clashes in Jerusalem’s Old City. At least three Palestinians killed and over a hundred protesters injured in clashes over the al-Aqsa Mosque controversy.
20170815a. (Compilation). 15 Aug. India celebrates Independence Day. Indians mark the day they gained freedom from British colonial rule in 1947.
20170815b. Chao, Steve. 15 Aug. Seventy years of India–Pakistan partition in pictures. Seventy years on, partition and the violence that accompanied it continues to shape India and Pakistan.
20170828. Lunde, Kelly Lynn. 28 Aug. US anti-racists counter Hate. Thousands respond to right wing rallies planned in San Francisco and Berkeley, claiming victory as marches cancelled.
20170903 Glanowski, Sara Maria. 3 Sept. “Inside Afropunk: The most inclusive space in the US?”
20171101. Baxter, Will. 1 Nov. Kenya election: Without dialogue “we will all perish”. At least 50 people have been killed in political violence in Kenya since August’s annulled poll.

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Images of protesters in the photo essay, linked to their own words, lend support to the legitimacy of their demands and their status as citizens, in ways news broadcasts of these events rarely achieve.

Reading time: 22 min.

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Protest in the Photo Essay

Following Tradition or Breaking New Ground?

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Following Tradition or Breaking New Ground?

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