Shifting toward a humanized perspective? Visual framing analysis of the coverage of refugees on CNN and Spiegel online before and after the iconic photo publication of Alan Kurdi (original) (raw)
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The refugee crisis as shown in photojournalism
Since time immemorial people tend to regard those who differ in some way as hostile elements who came to rape and pillage. The ‘we vs. them’ opposition has always been present in all societies and imagery has been used for propaganda purposes ever since the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii. The human brain is fine-tuned to understand the world in images. Hence, soon after its discovery photography has been used not only to tell stories but to manipulate the masses. Unlike text, which is not so intuitive to understand and requires some skills to be interpreted, photography is relatively easy to understand. One only needs to see the image and that would immediately lead to some assumptions being made. All that combined with the proper interpretation can easily tip the scales in favour of anything the manipulator wants others to believe. Within this short paper I intend to examine a problem that has become ever more important in recent years – the refugee crisis as seen through the lens of photojournalism, namely how the scales were tipped one way or the other with the help of images. One of the ‘game-changing images’ was the UKIP anti-migrant poster used by Nigel Farage to rally voters for the ‘vote out’ campaign during the referendum for the EU in the UK. The other two are images of two Syrian children – the image of the drowned Alan Kurdi and of the air bombing survival Omran Daqneesh . In this paper I do not intend to comment on political decisions but to discuss how two photographs can become a symbol and be used to serve as a weapon of propaganda.
Refugees as Icons: Culture and Iconic Representation
Sociology Compass, 2018
The September 2015 photograph of Alan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy, lying facedown and dead on a Turkish beach, quickly became an iconic representation of Europe's “refugee crisis.” Even though images of distant suffering of refugees have become ubiquitous, only a few become iconic. It is this cultural process of iconization that often bedevils sociologists interested in visuality. How does an image gain the necessary currency to sway public opinion or even policy making? Why do some photographs elicit profound compassion that transcends the borders of its particular context? In this review, we explore how various authors have addressed these questions, focusing on the iconic images of Alan Kurdi. The “iconic turn” in cultural sociology and in the social sciences more broadly speaking offers theoretical and methodological insights for the analysis of images such as those depicting refugees and asylum seekers. For this reason, we situate the current work in the field of refugee photography within the framework of cultural sociology, even if many of the scholars discussed are from other disciplines.
Communication and the Public, 2016
Easy internet access and ubiquitous smart phones have augmented the number of images produced and accelerated the speed by which they are circulated (and likely also forgotten). By contrast to the great quantity of pictures disseminated in today’s connective media, a few photographs gain momentum and are declared to be “icons”. They stand out from the image abundance, grasp the attention of a broad, transnational public, and stir emotional reactions and heated debates. Usually, these iconic images are related to major news events and represent an ongoing conflict or crisis in society in a simple, univocal manner. They quickly turn into standard frames of reference in news and popular culture, seem to require no particular explanation, and are often proclaimed to “speak for themselves”. This article proposes the term “instant news icon” to define and gain a fuller understanding of the role performed by iconic images in today’s connective media, distinguished by convergence between pl...
Faces in the Crowd A Visual Content analysis of Dutch Photographic Journalism in the Refugee Crisis
In the current European refugee crisis, the significance of visual imagery in mass media has come to the fore a number of times. This is most evidently exemplified by the circulation of the photo of Aylan Kurdi from 2 September 2015 onwards. The photo was used as a newspaper headline photo in many different countries and has shaped positive attitudes on the refugee crisis both in public opinion and among political leaders. The performative power of this image reminds us to take the role that images and visual media play in our daily lives seriously. Images, and especially iconic ones such as the Death of Aylan Kurdi, can reflect particular attitudes and beliefs within a society but they also shape them, by providing us with key points of reference when interacting in the public and private sphere.
In this paper, we analyse how news images of the 2015 Syrian refugee 'crisis' visualise refugees and how, in so doing, they mobilise various forms of moral responsibility in 'our' mediated public life – various practical dispositions of action towards the misfortunes of migrants and refugees at Europe's border. On the basis of empirical material from European news (June-December 2015), we construct a typology of visibilities of the 'crisis', each of which situates refugees within a different regime of visibility and claim to action: i) visibility as biological life, associated with monitorial action; ii) visibility as empathy associated with charitable action; iii) visibility as threat, associated with state security; iv) visibility as hospitality, associated with political activism; and v) visibility as self-reflexivity, associated with a post-humanitarian engagement with people like 'us'. In conclusion, we argue that, important as these five categories of visibility are in introducing public dispositions to action towards the vulnerable, they nonetheless ultimately fail to humanise migrants and refugees. This failure to portray them as human beings with lives that are worth sharing should compel us, we urge, to radically rethink how we understand the media's responsibility towards vulnerable others.
Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: a visual typology of European news
Media, Culture & Society, 2017
In this paper, we analyse how news images of the 2015 Syrian refugee ‘crisis’ visualise refugees and how, in so doing, they mobilise various forms of moral responsibility in ‘our’ mediated public life – various practical dispositions of action towards the misfortunes of migrants and refugees at Europe’s border. On the basis of empirical material from European news (June-December 2015), we construct a typology of visibilities of the ‘crisis’, each of which situates refugees within a different regime of visibility and claim to action: i) visibility as biological life, associated with monitorial action; ii) visibility as empathy associated with charitable action; iii) visibility as threat, associated with state security; iv) visibility as hospitality, associated with political activism; and v) visibility as self-reflexivity, associated with a post-humanitarian engagement with people like ‘us’. In conclusion, we argue that, important as these five categories of visibility are in introdu...
Framing the migration: A study of news photographs showing people fleeing war and persecution
The International Communication Gazette, 2019
Human migration due to political upheaval is rapidly accelerating, yet scholarly attention to refugees' visual news representations has lagged. Using a visual analysis informed by the transnational writings of Yuval-Davis related to the politics of belonging and the peace/conflict frame literature, 811 images primarily depicting migration from Turkey into Europe in 2015 and submitted to the Pictures of the Year International competition were examined. Analysis determined that, despite billions of dollars in aid and millions of migrants who have benefited from food assistance and other development opportunities , the photographers overwhelmingly highlighted the migrants' transitory nature, vulnerability and differences while minimizing any attempt to depict the shared connections or integrations that were occurring. As media are orienting devices, this has profound implications for how migrants are regarded on both the individual as well as the collective levels.
Easy internet access and ubiquitous smart phones have augmented the number of images produced and accelerated the speed by which they are circulated (and likely also forgotten). By contrast to the great quantity of pictures disseminated in today's connective media, a few photographs gain momentum and are declared to be " icons ". They stand out from the image abundance, grasp the attention of a broad, transnational public, and stir emotional reactions and heated debates. Usually, these iconic images are related to major news events and represent an ongoing conflict or crisis in society in a simple, univocal manner. They quickly turn into standard frames of reference in news and popular culture, seem to require no particular explanation, and are often proclaimed to " speak for themselves ". This article proposes the term " instant news icon " to define and gain a fuller understanding of the role performed by iconic images in today's connective media, distinguished by convergence between platforms and blurred boundaries between media production and media consumption. First, the article builds a framework based on the concept instant news icon and then applies quantitative and qualitative analyses to study the processes of distribution and meaning-making involved in the emergence of one instant news icon, news photographs from 2015 of a young refugee girl playing with a police officer on a Danish motorway.
Beyond Polaroid: Visual Rhetoric in Shaping Refugee's Identity
IJELLH, 2021
Photographs tend to have an ability to influence the collective consciousness of humanity. Sonja K. Foss, a rhetorical educator, opines that language is general while images are concrete and specific. Many a time, photographs have become spokespersons of the suffering and needy lot. Throughout its history, photography has created opinions, constructed realities of people and brought human tragedies to the forefront. The refugee crisis is in no way an exception. In fact, the conscience of the whole world in regard to the refugees was awakened by an appalling photograph of a three-year-old Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi, lying face-down into the sand. Such photographs, often symbolic and termed as visual rhetoric, slowly turned into stereotypes defining the refugee crisis. This paper discusses on how these visual narratives have shaped the identity of refugees and created various regimes of seeing.