Dennis Dunleavy

Funny: Washington Post Tiny Belly Ad and Anthony Weiner's Not so Tiny Tweets

Click image to  enlarge (really)

The Washington Post website ran a photo gallery about Rep. Anthony Weiner's alledged three-year spree of having sexually explicit communications with women in various online settings. The interesting thing about Weiner's tweeter picture (left) is the advertisement (right). It's just a coincidence of course, but both are selling body image. It appears that Representative Weiner doesn't seem to worry about the "tiny belly."

It is difficult for a website to control the juxtaposition between news content and advertising. Although they appear in close proximity, the placement of the images is almost certainly coincidental.

Not Funny: Newsweek Attacks Romney's Faith

The media doesn't give the public enough credit. It's got a chip on its shoulder when it comes to politics and religion: the public gets treated like idiots.

It's easy to poke fun of politicians and religion -- some news outlets excel at it. In the end, though, cheap shot journalism -- one that is not fair-minded, balanced, or honest -- represents the crumbling of a vital relationship between freedom of expression and democratic civics.

Surveys tell us that distrust of mainstream media remains at the bottom of respectability.

Now, instread of taking the high ground, and treating the public seriously, much of the media stands around wringing its hands. It's business as usual. But making fun of someone's faith is hitting below the belt. In the end, taking on a person's belief system distracts from electing a president with integrity and vision. In the Newsweek article that accompanies the image, the writer even asks if Mormonism is a Christian faith. There is an assumption here based on the image as well as in the reportage that Romney's faith makes him unfit to govern.

The media, like a school yard bully, plays a critical role in giving this nation a president "it" thinks it deserves. Bombast and senstationalism appear tools of the trade.

Trying to understand a complex issue is never easy, but there is no excuse for not giving a candidate a chance to defend themselves. . Not a lot of people understand Mormonism, maye they understand the faith less than they do Islam. Religion is often the target of satire because it is based on differing belief systems. Connecting Romney's faith to his ability to govern undermines the public's ability to assess his competency as a future president.

As many public relations specialists will say, negative press is better than no press at all. But there is something inexpliably wrong here. The digitally altered image of Mitt Romney dancing around is a spin on the current Broadway play "The Book of Mormon." The mash up is supposed to be satrical, and suppose it is. But there is something else at work here. How is possible to make an informed decision about a candidate when the media has already visually defamed them? Yes, it's funny, but selecting a U.S. president is not. The Newsweek cover featuring Romney, the dancing Mormon, deflects from a larger and more critical debate about religion and politics in this country. For decades the media has treated the two forces as separate, but politics and religion are hard wired into our system of discourse and governance.

The first repsonse to a critique such as this one is that wouldn't be the first time politicians have been accosted verbally or visually through media satire. During Obama's campaign he was attacked by the right-wing press as being a Muslim. The smear campaign was aimed planting a seed of doubt -- The attacked attempted to make a connection between the candidate and extremists. Now, Romney's faith is under attack because Mormonism is a mystery for many Americans. When we don't understand something, we make fun of it. That's the way it works. Guilt by association, or in this case faith. 

 

Play by play: The social function of news images

Photo Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Pictures have weight -- sometimes they crush. The social function of news images reside not only
in their capacity to inform, but also in their ability to entertain. In our increasingly visual culture, pictures must draw and hold the viewer's attention.  Perhaps it is for this reason that editors believe pictures must be packaged and repackaged for us.

The social function of news images is grounded in the rhetoric of persuasion. Just as a lawyer may seek to sway a jury to his or her side of an argument, a picture, through its variety of visual cues, establishes a context of understanding that shapes perception and constructs a sense of reality.

The analysis:

"Mr. Clemens" -- the subject -- the sign -- in soft-focus foregrounding leads the eye upward to a carefully framed center of Mr. Clemens. 

Pictures, as David Fleming (1996)  eloquently contends, cannot be in and of themselves seen as arguments, but inevitably they seem to be able to cause a few.

The pictures freezes, frames and fixes in our memory a moment in time that can conjure up other memories. With the stoppage of time the persuasive determinacy of the picture emerges. Pictures may be a species of rhetoric, as Susan Sontag (2003) claims, for the very real sense that they appear before us as rational and orderly entities of time.

In this case, Clemens' testimony before Congress on steroid use may bring to mind other high-profile hearings such as in Iran-Contra with Oliver North or Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas'  appointment to the Supreme Court.  The low camera angle is iconic in that it produces  a recognizable perception in which the subject is made to appear larger-than-life.

The camera angle is not trivial or a trick since it modifies our sense of a normal eye-line match. In other words, speaking in terms of grammar, the camera angle acts like an adverb -- it modifies the subject.  Further, the sign, in this case, "Mr. Clemens,"  is indexical and points toward formality, courtesy and solemnity. The gesture is wholly symbolic. Clemens' look away from those questioning him, his raised hand suggesting defense.  In addition, the essential framing of Clemens with his pseudo-archangelic lawyers. The gestures of  Clemens' lawyers speak  louder than words. Here we have the million-dollar pitcher in the proverbial "hot seat" and is million-dollar lawyers act as his intellectual bodyguards.

As mentioned earlier, news images function to both inform and entertain, but the real objective of making pictures is to make us think. Any object in the world, and pictures are objects, that can make us think about bigger ideas and issues can't be all that bad.  We shouldn't have to settle for someone else's interpretation of the world if what is represented only serves to reinforce a status quo. The ultimate objective of a news image should not only be to serve us a preconceived packaged reality, but to wrestle with convention and conscience.

The evidence:

Recently, this point was brought home on the Magnum photo site when Christopher Anderson's bare-bulb approach to photographing presidential candidate Mitt Romney came under fire from some viewers.  Anderson's approach was the "anti-photo op." Tired of making the same stale and banal images that most of the press pack gets of the candidates, Anderson blasted Romney through what appears to be a rain-splattered lens.


Click to go to Magnum's Picture of the Week

In his defense Anderson commented:

These events are rather ridiculous. they are staged and repetitive....It was a conscious decision to flash with this technique. It is as if throwing too much light on it might somehow expose these campaign photo ops for what the really are. The designers of these events want us to make a pretty picture. but a pretty picture to me felt like something that would be false to this event. I almost thought of the flash as being like an xray that would reveal what I really see at an event like this.

Anderson brings up one of the biggest challenges faces photojournalism today -- mediocrity. If news images do not seek to edify they run risk of becoming nothing more than someone else's spin. What we are tasked with here is to understand the relationship between the art of making news pictures and the larger implications of how these pictures function in society.

Picturing the emotional candidate

An inordinate amount of attention is being paid to Hillary Clinton's emotions these days as people search for ways to separate her and her Democratic contender, Barack Obama.

Headlines recounting Clinton's emotions such as,  "For Crying Out Load: Hillary Turns on the Tears Again", "Hillary's Crying Campaign: The Tears of a Clown" and "Hillary Clinton's Crocodile Tears," signify how gender bias impinges on this year's presidential campaign, at least on the Democratic side. Pictures showing Clinton wiping her eyes or attempting to control her emotions in front of the cameras continues to set off a media frenzy, with bloggers leading the way. 

Where is the substantive news value in repeatedly running pictures of the candidate rubbing her eyes or blowing her nose?  Are we to assume that an individual would not make a good president if they cannot control their emotions publicly?

It is difficult to say conclusively that coverage focusing on Clinton's emotional displays is having a negative impact on her chances to become the next president, but in a world that remains dominated mostly by men, it doesn't seem to be helping her all that much.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Anthropologist Catherine Lutz notes that emotions are culturally constructed as signs of danger, irrationality, and weakness – characteristics commonly associated with women. Please note the term "culturally constructed" because this is where many of our interpretations come from.

When a picture captures the viewer’s attention, it puts into play cultural beliefs and values associated with gendered emotional displays. Some right wing media have jumped on Clinton for her emotional moments claiming that she is using tears to garner sympathy and votes.   New York magazine, for example, began an article about Clinton with the lead, "Yep, it's official. Hillary Clinton is running to be Crybaby-in-Chief," and The New York Post, not known to be overly kind to liberals, began their reportage with "It was another two-hanky day on the campaign trail yesterday, as Hillary Rodham Clinton teared up at an event targeting female voters on the eve of the Super Tuesday." elections."

Robinson (2002) suggests, “Most work on gender and emotion has stressed how a gendered rhetoric of emotional control reinforces women’s subordination within societies that privilege rationality, self-control, and the stable boundaries between interiority and exteriority that emotions appear to breach.” 

This may help explain how some media have turned on Clinton's outward expressions of emotion as a sign of weakness.  But, research describes emotion not only in terms of the physiological changes of an inner-self, but also as social, cultural and linguistic operator (see Catherine Lutz's research).

The two images shown here exemplify the antithesis of the “boys don’t cry” stoicism of the American male experience -- a domain which Clinton threatens to disrupt if she were to become president. The photographs suggest a turn away from American middle-class "emotional culture" promulgated by the belief that men, not women, are obligated to control emotions for the greater good of the country.

Cultural morays and beliefs are inextricably bound to emotion.  As Catherine Lutz argues, “Western discourse on emotions constitutes them as paradoxical entities that are both a sign of weakness and a powerful force.”  To show emotions makes the person experiencing feelings weaker or deficient in character.

Hillary Clinton is not only running for president  this year, she is challenging a male dominated paradigm which preconditions public performance and cultural outlook. Tears, in this case, threaten the stability of this paradigm because we believe that emotion is irrational and unstable. Could it be that the recesses of Hillary Clinton's inner life, through the pictures we see of her, undermine her opportunity to become our commander and chief.  Perhaps, in the end, America is not mature enough to handle an emotional presidency, since individuals who wear their hearts on their sleeves are often considered unfit to serve.   

Oh! Baby: Obama does the baby lift -- long live the photo cliché

Photo Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Hail to the cliché.

Just when pictures of Barack Obama on the campaign trail were all looking about the same -- like they could have been taken in Iowa or New Hampshire -- up pops Jonathan Ernst's picture of the candidate holding a baby. Candidates holding and kissing babies is a widely accepted trope in visual arsenal of political campaigns. Babies make good props for the media. Babies aren't controversial and they show the candidate in as a compassionate human being. That said, this picture may tell us something more about Obama then anything he says from up on the soap box. First and foremost, even though candidates and babies are cultural commodities, this picture shows some genuine emotion. It's not the usual display of stoicism we've become accustomed to.

Photo Credit: CBS/via AP

Political campaigns increasingly rely as much on depicting a candidate's personality as much as they do on getting substantiative messages across to voters. It's all part of the package.

Making candidates appear affable and emotional in public is a major part of a campaign's strategy. Of course, it is difficult to always manage how a politician will appear in the media and the reactions they engender, but one thing remains constant -- the universality of the visual cliché.

Caught: Can apologies excuse bad judgment?

It's more than ironic that the flap over Golfweek's controversial race-bating cover would fall around the same time our nation takes a moment to remember civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Despite the suspension of a Golf Channel announcer who made a racist comment on air, as well as the sacking of the Golfweek editor who approved the illustration above, nothing seems to escape the fact that our predominantly white-controlled media remains, at times, clueless when it comes to reproducing offensive stereotypes. Playing fast and loose with stereotypes, and in this case a visual metaphor, only serves to remind us how much work we need to do in order to come to terms with our legacy of cruelty and inhumanity toward blacks and peoples of color in this country. 

From a Piercean semiotic perspective, it is possible to see  the relationship between icon, index, and symbol in action as they construct meaning. The icon, a swinging noose, points toward a powerful symbol -- one that resonates memory and emotion. The visual language operates through symbolic action -- pictures trigger emotion, and emotions trigger beliefs. This explains some of the failings of Golfweek's editorial process. The editors knew they were working with a powerful symbol by selecting a noose to illustrate the TV commentator's lynching remarks, but they failed to make the deeper connections between the symbol, the emotions this symbol conjures up for people, and the belief systems behind the emotions.

I wonder what Dr. King would have to say about the controversy?

Clearly some strides toward reconcile and reform have been made since Dr. King's day, but the sad truth is that we still have a lot work to do in understanding just how powerful words and images are in shaping public perception and constructing our social reality.

iJournalism: stop the presses, reporters with cell phone cameras

Photo Credit: David Corn/Mother Jones

They're convenient, cool, and irresistible - iPhones on the campaign trail. Mother Jones magazine Washington Bureau Chief, David Corn recently posted an essay of pictures he made with an iPhone while covering the New Hampshire primary. Hardly a photojournalistic coup, Corn's access to the candidates, his infatuation with the new technology, and his status as a bureau chief at the magazine give him an inside track on publishing pictures that probably wouldn't make it beyond the picture desk at our local newspaper.

Corn isn't a photojournalist, but having an iPhone might makes him one -- well, almost. It seems to me that the pictures shot from ringside at many of the campaign stops in New Hampshire count more as novelty and curiosity  then they do as serious visual reportage. Nevertheless, Corn's approach is most likely something that will remain with us in an age where anyone with a camera phone can snap away a kilter and publish the results instantly. This certainly doesn't suggest that photojournalism is doomed or ever dead, it simply indicates that the field is rapidly changing. Even if the pictures aren't perfect, they still count as a visual record of events. The more people like Corn remain enthusiastic enough to play around with the iPhone at major events, the more extensive the visual reportage becomes. And that isn't all that bad.

Handshakes, hugs and hoopla -- What pictures don't tell us

Photo Credit: Jim Young/Reuters

In a political cycle of relentless photo-ops, countless handshakes, hugs and flag-waving hoopla, it is refreshing to see beyond the candidates to the more human side of life. Young's picture, showing two tired children holding campaign signs in Winterset, Iowa on December 22, offers some comic relief at a time when everything we see and hear out of Iowa or New Hampshire these days seems to little more than create more apathy toward the political process. Thousands of images are transmitted to news organizations each day, but what do they really say about a candidate?

One assumption is that the pictures say very little about the candidate's ability to lead a nation. Instead, what most of the images represent are more about the what the campaigns and media thinks the audience wants to see.  At times, there is a glimpse of a human side of a candidate, but for the overwhelming majority of pictures just tastes like a spoonful of cold canned peas. The candidates attempt to project and protect his or her political image, something often proscribed by media handlers. The media, for their part, dutifully carry the message and image, out in the public domain. But increasingly, the message lands flat or is met with incredulity and suspicion.

Pictures frame, freeze and fix a moment in time -- a moment, which has traditionally been grated a lot of credit as a faithful representation of reality and truth.  In a political climate where there seems to be more similarities than differences between those seeking power in this country, pictures become a form of mind-numbing anesthesia.

The same thing could be said for other events.  How many images have we seen now of President Bush visiting the hospital beds of soldiers injured in Iraq.  Is there anything significant in Bush's patting the head of a bed-ridden Army Sgt. John Wayne Cornell of Lansing, Mich., and posing for a photo-op?


Photo Credit: White House

One way of looking at the image is that president would like us to see how much he really cares about the soldiers fighting in the Middle East.  Another way of looking at the picture is as propaganda: Go to Iraq, get hurt, get a pat on the head from the Commander-In-Chief.

It's hard not to be a little disrespectful or cynical at times when photo-ops masquerade as reality. In fact, this critique should not be viewed as another Bush-bashing ploy. It doesn't matter who's in office -- the response, and the pictures that represent the response, are almost always predictable.

Images, Symbols and Power

Photo Credits: Jim Cole/AP, Jose Luis Magana/AP

What can we learn from looking at pictures? The signification of these two recent images of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is striking. On the left, we see a close-up of Clinton caught in a "real" and unflattering moment, while on the right, we get what one might expect from most media managed events -- the santized moment, flags, the powerful gesture.

Human beings are symbol-making animals. We use symbols to make sense of the world and photographs increasingly contribute to meaning and consciousness. When we think of objects, ideas, and constructs, our brain transforms these things into symbols so that we can share our experiences with others. Symbols connect us through language. When we use the words such as reality, love, peace, justice, terror, poverty, pride, or patriotism, images come to mind – images associated through convention with the words we choose to describe our every day experiences. Kenneth Burke reminds us that when we think of reality, what we are relying on has been built up for us through our “symbol systems.” Burke observes, “What is our ‘reality’ for today (beyond the paper-thin line of our own particular lives) but all this clutter of symbols about the past combined with whatever things we know mainly through maps, magazines, newspapers, and the like about the present?”

When we view an image in the media we are given to substituting the meaning of the image with something connotative and symbolic. A presidential candidate stands before a giant American flag, which in turn produces a symbolic relationship. The candidate is by proximity of the flag immediately associated with notions of patriotism, loyalty, duty, public service and sacrifice. The flag is reduces to a backdrop – a symbol that condenses and naturalizes how the viewer should look upon the candidate. Symbolicity is emphasized through the shape, size and colors of the flag. Burke may argue that the language (words) used to describe this scene act as a sort of screen or filter on meaning.

Many years ago, in a cathedral in Texas, there was a wall covered with pictures and petitions from the faithful. The first Gulf War was underway and people used the wall as a commonplace for pictures of loved ones, alive and deceased – a symbolic collective prayer. Images hold within their frames many symbols.

Looking again at the variety of images made during Hillary Clinton's campaign stops, it is hard not to imagine the intensity and determination of the candidates as they are beseiged under the glare of the media. At the same time, we are inudated by "the clutter" of symbols and struggle to understand and draw meaning from one picture to the next.

In the juggernaut of public opinion: Candidates to the Media -- 'Keep your Distance'

Photo Credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham at a campaign stop
in Iowa. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post writes about
how candidates are keeping their distance from the media.

Media critic, Howard Kurtz, has an insightful piece from inside the machine today. Kurtz suggests that media following Hillary Clinton's campaign are kept at arm's length from the candidate. The Clinton campaign apparently fears being sidetracked from off the "daily sound byte" message or from doing a Howard Dean. What is clear, is that the political process as well as the media's role in it continues to disintegrate.  The cultural condition of spinning and spoon feeding pictures and words to Americans is alive and well on the campaign trail. Clinton has apparently mastered the great media brush-off.

Kurtz notes:

"Such is life spent trailing the Clinton juggernaut, where reporters can generally get close enough to watch but no further, as if separated from the candidate by an invisible sheet of glass."

Photo-Op: Bush and the Irony of a Can of Beans

Photo Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters

This picture reminds me of one of those famous credit card commercials:

The scene: A food bank in Anywhere, USA
Roll Camera: The President, with a sour expression, stands before the camera.
Voice Over: The melodious baritone voice of the announcer comes in.

• Oxxford hand-tailored suit: $2,000 - $14,000
• Haircut: $30 - $60
• Bush's Best Beans: $1.59
• Cost of the War in Iraq:  $200 million a day

The Irony of a Presidential Photo-Op: Priceless

Is the president really mugging for the camera with a can of beans? Could the visual metaphor be any more perfect at this time of year? 

As Americans prepare to gobble up more than 1.6 billion pounds of turkey, 1 billion pounds of pumpkin, and more than 800,000 tons of beans this Thanksgiving, the photo-op signifies what appears to be another surreal moment for the Bush presidency.

While, Bush symbolically pardoned the White House turkey this week while more than 35 million Americans, including 12.6 million children, will experience hunger. Further, more than 38 million Americans will be eligible to receive Food Stamps. In 2006, The U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that requests for emergency food assistance increase by 7 percent across the country.

There is a significant different between how images denote and connote meaning. As cultural theorist Stuart Hall suggests, pictures are encoded with symbolic meaning. But it is ultimately up to the viewer to "unpack" or decode what the symbols mean. Much of this decoding is determined by context, convention, as well as the disposition of the viewer. Ultimately, the ability to make sense of a picture becomes contingent upon how that picture resonates in every day life for the viewer.  For me, the expression "full of beans" comes to mind. Originally,  "full of beans" originally meant to be full of energy and high spirits, but over time the phrase has come to represent something more akin to someone who is being less than genuine or honest -- basically someone who is "full of it."

Ultimately, any analysis of this sort probably won't amount a "hill of beans."

Nevertheless, pictures should provoke thoughts, and in turn, hopefully, thoughts will lead to action.

 

Conspicuous spectacles

Photo credit: AP/Joel Page, Cheryl Senter

It's very interesting to follow the course of the presidential campaign through the pictures photojournalists submit for publication. The images above show Hillary Rodham-Clinton, D-NY, in various states of fighting off the symptoms of a cold. The question to ask is why are these images important in reporting the news. Does a candidate wiping her nose constitute news or might it be considered by some viewers as offensive or even tasteless? More importantly are the photographs made of other candidates equally as revealing -- or are we to assume that this sort of reportage is just another journalistic cheap shot?

We know that pictures help to construct our reality and shape our perception of individuals.Therefore, the notion of a conspicuous spectacle relates well to torrent of visual messages we receive daily about the candidates and their lives on the campaign trail.

Are we to assume that images of candidate Clinton, blowing her nose or holding back a cough, help to frame the individual as more human and vulnerable? Could we interpret these pictures on a deeper level -- one suggesting that she may not even be fit to be president? 

These images are "fish in the barrel" pictures in that the photographer is very much limited by access to capturing truly intimate moments. In a way, these are attempts by the photographer to either "make something out of nothing" or to put forth an honest effort showing the candidate at their most vulnerable.

All images are persuasive determinants  in constructing what may  eventually become normalized or accepted as reality. Can we, in this instance, consider for a moment, the determinacy of such campaign pictures -- images that do not always cast a candidate in the best of lights?  Do such images, pander toward sensationalism-- where the candidate-celeb is brought before the public specter of scrutiny as somehow weaker than her male opponents?

We cannot fault the photojournalists for honestly representing what is put before their lenses in a public forum. These images, like all the others of the candidates, have a collective impact -- a gestalt. In the torrential flood of stump speech pictures, it will be curious to track and compare just how the types of images made of the candidates differ in terms of what they explicitly and implicitly suggest about a candidate's ability to lead a democracy.   

 

Votojournalism: Visual Spin from Stumpurbia

Techpresident.com, a blog tracking the online activities of presidential wannabees, offers a glimpse into how the social web is increasingly influencing the political process in this country.

One fascinating aspect to this site is a space dedicated to pictures using the Flickr photo-sharing site. If a picture is tagged with a candidates name, Techpresident links to it. In other words, if you are a campaign rally, all the images you upload to Flickr could have the potential to influence public perception of a candidate. It's a new twist on spin from stumpurbia.

Credit: Photo by Alex Witkowicz on Flickr

What makes this site significant is how it is using the phrase "Votojournalism" to refer to citizen photojournalism. As the site explains:

'We call it "votojournalism" because it is a prime example of voter generated content, photojournalism by the people."

According to the corporate web consultancy firm iDionome,  votojournalism is “The excellent portmanteau of Voter and Photojournalism, for voter-generated content where users post pictures of the candidates on the campaign trail, online.”

Techpresident's pitch offers an alternative to the professional spin applied to typical media coverage of a candidate's life during a campaign. As the pitch reads:

"You'll find lots of candid shots here, including those of people attending campaign events, along with the presidentials in sometimes unguarded moments."

The reach of the media spotlight on candidates is now expanding exponentially with the possibilities of the Internet and the social web. Anyone with a camera phone is potentially a "votojournalist", looking to catch that one decisive "tell-all" moment that may influence a candidate's chances to become president.

Although this activity may be beneficial for democracy -- now have more "eyes" than ever before scrutinizing the political process -- we also must be  careful not to fall for the redactive nature of photography. The concern here is that the torrent of images we have to deal with on a daily basis tends to reduce complex events into bytes and bits. In turn, an unvetted and relentless stream of images appears intimidating and overwhelming for many people to process. Or, in other words, our visual memory banks is in danger of running over. Votojournalism, then, is creating another visual memory stream for people to contend with in the complex history of the political process. Our visual memory of events is altered by a relentless stream of image -- images that simplify and reduce the complexities of our times to an informational/representational system that appears increasingly biased and unvetted.

At the same time, the burden of responsibility falls to the consumer to not be sucked into the potential for abuse by propagandists, spin doctors, and unscrupulous people with a flair for Photoshop. As Washington Post writer Jose Antonio Vargas reports, “For months now, there's been a disconnect between the campaign that's being waged offline and the one fought online. And the digital divide is only one part of that gulf. Political support and political fundraising don't match up on the Web either.”

This unvetted stream of "votojournalism" is not only exciting to see develop but it inevitably creates enormous challenges for its competition, the mainstream media.

In fact, we can assume the coming reality will be that a "votojournalist"  or anyone on the campaign staff or close to a candidate will actually have much better access than many of their professional counterparts in the mainstream media. The level of access afforded a votojournalist, with the camera and the Internet, may actually have the advantage of scooping accredited news sources . 

While many professional photojournalists find themselves penned into some highly controlled media staging area, others, particularly supporters with a ticket to $1,000-a-plate fund raiser will have free reign and access to make pictures and upload as nauseum.

The photo-op is now moving away from the high theatrics of stage management and is becoming a primary "free-for-all" conduit for pictures and video --  inevitably ending up on sites like Flickr, MySpace, or Facebook.

It follows, then, that these same images will make there way into the mainstream press under some auspicious byline called "submitted photo."

Sarkozy's spare tire: French President gets digital makeover in Paris Match

There's a great deal of concern in the media these days about the power to deceive readers through the manipulation of news images. Sherry Ricchiarrdi writes in a recent American Journalism Review article, "Thanks to Photoshop, it’s awfully easy to manipulate photographs, as a number of recent scandals make painfully clear. Misuse of the technology poses a serious threat to photojournalism’s credibility."

We tend to think of the problem as one that has mostly occurred in the U.S., but that just doesn't make sense. Media has gone global, and with it so too do all the problems of a digital age. 

Recently, France has been dealing with a media scandal involving the retouching of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's picture showing him on vacation in the United States. The scandal has set off a debate about the president's close ties to the publisher of one of the country's most influential newspapers, Paris Match.

What would make a newspaper manipulate a picture like this? Can it be that the editors decided that the people of France weren't quite ready to see their new president hauling around a few extra pounds? Or, did the editors decide that it was easier to remove a little excess flab than it would be to deal with falling out of favor with the most powerful people in the country? Did the editors get a call from their owner telling them not to make Sarkozy look bad -- that there was an image to uphold and that it was important to show the president looking healthy and active?

The truth may actually be much more complicated than simply removing elements from a picture.

Like its U.S. counterparts, French media is taking a hit these days in terms of public confidence over its responsibility to reporting what they see and hear -- not what they think people want to see and hear.

Thomas Seymat, a former student from France, explains that the newspaper has been defending itself against charges of photo digital manipulation by claiming that they had done no wrong. Editors claim that the picture made the president look heavier than he actually is because of the camera angle, cast shadows, and poor printing technique.

Thomas notes:

"The thing that makes the story more scandalous is that it is not the first time that something like this has happened with this newspaper. Last year, Paris Match put in front page a photo of Cecilia Sarkozy (Not yet France's first lady) with her lover, in the street of NYC. The editor in chief of Paris Match was fired shortly after, the unofficial reason being that the owner of the newspaper is a very intimate friend of Nicolas Sarkozy. Arnaud Lagardere, a major share-holder of Paris Match, even publicly called him [Sarkozy] "my brother").... which only illustrates once again that collusion between politicians and the press is threatening its freedom and reliability."

The Paris Match controversy demonstrates once again the power of images in the construction and shaping of public perception. However, when the truth is finally discovered what we are left with is a feeling that pictures aren't the only things being manipulated here. Over all, there is a heightened public awareness of the media's power over us. The silver lining to all of this, is that with all of the scandals over digital manipulation in the press these days, people are become better consumers of information. We are learning not to trust everything we see, which may seem unfortunate on the surface. However, in the long run, understanding the relationship between what we see and what we know benefits everyone.

In a recent survey respondents were asked if "it's okay for the media to digitally alter pictures of celebrities to make them look healthier, younger, or thinner. More than 85 percent disagree or strongly disagree that it is wrong.

Even if this all seems to be a matter of common sense,  the nagging reality is that the number of incidents related to digital photo manipulation doesn't seem to be on the decline. Therefore, in order to survive in a digital age, we must become more sophisticated visual communicators -- more digitally literate. We must learn to call upon the media to never violate the social contract it builds with its public, as a force outside the reach of self-interests and party politics.

 

Decisive ambiquity: How pictures slice life into nasty little fragments of reality

Photo Credit: AP/Jim Cole

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York reacts to seeing and old friend during a campaign stop at the National Education Association New Hampshire, in Concord, N.H., Friday, March 30, 2007.

As the race for the White House heats up, the role images play in shaping a candidate's public perception becomes increasingly critical. So much of modern-day campaigning seems determined by the candidate's "image" is presented to the public. In the heavily media mediated carnival of American politics today, there is always a chance that one candidate will come off looking like a jackass in the horse race.  For some candidates, one bad picture can destroy all hope of victory.

Ever since Howard Dean's seemingly uninhibited emotional display in the last election, one would think that candidates would be hyper-sensitive about how they appeared in public, especially with the media following every move.

Social interaction theorist Erving Goffman, in his book "The Presentation of Self in Everday Life, describes the interaction between people as a kind of "performance" -- an "activity of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way any of the other participants." Goffman's analysis of social behavior is an appropriate way of thinking about how politicians act in public.

The question this raises, especially in studying the image of Hillary Clinton's startled expression, is whether or not politicians regard the media as participants in the performance. In other words, do politicians come to a point where they ignore the presence of the media covering them. Clearly, there appears to be little room for spontaneity in terms of how expressive candidates can be in front of the cameras.

Despite the pretense of "truth" that comes with  fixing and framing a moment in time, there is always a feeling of internal conflict in terms of slicing life into fragments, especially when the moment misrepresents an individual's complex personality.  Some critics of the media might view the picture of Ms. Clinton as a biased "cheap shot", while others might defend it as the "truth."

In a recent thread concerning the objectivity of news photographs, Rishi's comments have a great deal of substance.

Rishi observes:

We have come to regard photographs as 'true' or 'truthful' representations of acts based on our faith in media reportage(questionable). At the turn of the 20th century & even much later, a photograph along with a news piece in a newspaper provided a window into the happening of that act, which in turn strengthened our belief in the authenticity of the photograph. But we have come a long way now and photographs may not necessarily depict truth, but rather attempt to provide a grip around social, cultural & political scenarios based on the levels of our visual literacy."

 

Why images of the president fail us today

 

President Lyndon B. Johnson listens to tape sent by Captain
Charles Robb from Vietnam, 07/31/1968.
LBJ Library photo by Jack Kightlinger.

 

President Bush gestures from behind the podium as he makes remarks on the economy during an address at Federal Hall in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

 

The images featured here are strikingly different representations of our nation's commander-in-chief at war. In the former, we see a president caught in an intensely private and intimate moment.

We enter President Johnson's world as a human being reacting honestly to a real situation. We are allowed, even if we disagree with his decisions about the war in Viet Nam to get a glimpse of how heavily all this weighed upon him in some sense. We, in essence, get to empathize with him. There he is, bent over, listening intently to the words of a soldier. The image is moving and touches us with concern.

How often can we say that we have seen similar moments from our current president? How often do pictures of President Bush allow us to empathize with him as a human being?  To my knowledge, never. The president is portrayed as the hero, the closer, the bare knuckles guy who has a ranch in Texas. Is this really who Bush is?

It is not that President Bush lacks emotions or feelings, it is just that his public persona is kept, well public. Rarely, are we entitled to view any sign of the president acting human and expressing emotion.

In a recent image of President Bush, made by AP staffer Gerald Herbert, I suggest that restrictions on media access as well as real opportunities to show the president's true persona, rather than his public one, has made the photojournalist's job largely one of complacency and compliance.

Under Bush's years in the Oval Office, photo-ops seem to have blended into another. There is really nothing particularly interesting or significant about most of the images made of the president in the past years, other than to say that the photographer was on the scene. Today, the presidency is all about maintaining an image status quo, "Cover Your Butt" mentality the media has been forced into accepting from an image-sensitive administration.

In this case, Herbert's image, is an attempt to make something out of nothing. The image is also exactly what Eugene Richards was critical of when he spoke about how contemporary photojournalism has been shifting toward producing metaphorical imagery, instead of just visually reporting the event.

In other words, photojournalists are spending more time covering what the stage managers want us to see, and they are doing it splendidly.

Getting personal, unfortunately, is not in the  public relations style manual, so it is very unlikely that we will see anything but what the president and his handlers want us to see. Of course, none of this is new.

All presidential photo-ops constitute preconceived events that Daniel Boorstein describes as pseudo-events. 

What is the metaphor of the gesture behind the podium? Can a talking head be replaced by a gesturing hand? Apparently, that seems to be one of Herbert's interpretations on the situation.  In the circus like ambience of a carefully staged-managed world metaphors abound.

In fact, most presidential public appearances are designed and choerographed for maximum visual impact.  In a hyper-media visual saturated world, what people long for is a sense that those in power care about them. Most of the pictures we view on a daily basis of the world's most powerful individual does very little to reassure us of their humanity.

Instead, the representations of our current leader mostly project hubris and supremacy. Seldom are we gifted the opportunity to see the president as vulnernable, indecisive, humble, or even human. But hey, don't blame photojournalists for constructing this altered-reality -- they're just doing their jobs.