J 301F Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Photojournalism, Inculturation, Indexicality

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14 Dec 2016
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11/3/16
Who’s Minding the Gate?
Pool Feeds, Video Subsidies, and Political Images
Pool video: a video that was shared by multiple news organizations.
Increasingly popular among news organizations, which save money by taking turns sending photographers
to events, and by event coordinators who are able to contend with fewer photojournalists at a particular
event.
Pool feeds and technological assistance provided by state entities for video coverage constitute
iforatio susidies  hih authorities attept to otrol essages  helpig jouralists.
Material subsidy: news workers are given the use of lights and audio equipment provided by the state.
Regulating pools and feeds grants political actors a source of power in their effort to influence the news
agenda.
The subjective nature of photojournalism coupled with the influence of political operatives in the pool
system constitutes a cultural production system that favors those who control physical access to events.
The assumption of images as objective representations, operating within the constructive process by
which such images are negotiated, presents an illusion of transparency.
Conceptual Framework
Democracy requires the free flow of information.
Photographic images are a special form of information in that they are not ideas but material artifacts.
Photographs appear as ojetie fats eause e are so ilied to relate seeig ith koig.
What we see in the media are highly constructed images, whose style, point of view, format, and angle
are negotiated between journalists and their sources.
The power to grant physical/material access to events constitutes an advantage in negotiating the
meaning of those events.
The subjective decision making involved with collecting, editing, and disseminating news video is not part
of news presentation.
Because we so strongly equate seeing with knowing, it is essential that we attend to what is shown, and
more importantly what is not.
Subjectivity versus Indexicality
The degree to which state agents work to influence video production contradicts the use of those images
by news organizations as objective.
Video cultivates an inaccurate impression that we are getting the full picture.
Most of the real happenings in politics are shielded from photographers.
The emphasis of feed video on the formalities of legislative bodies in highly orchestrated ritual constitutes
a political message of its own, a message protected by political actors and unacknowledged by journalists.
Subsidies and Cooptation
What can be shown is often decided in concert with political agents.
The essentiality of visuals for television coverage intensifies the reliance of photojournalists on the
officials who regulate pools and feeds.
There’s a spirit of ooperatio ut the to sets of ators, photojouralists ad politiias, ko the
rules and follow them.
By providing news organizations with a less-expensive, efficient way to obtain news video, the pool
system also benefits those who provide and regulate it.
Pro: news organizations save money and time. Politicians no longer face rows of flashed and bobbing
lenses and can deliver their messages efficiently.
Cons: close working relationships may degrade the role of journalists as detached observers. Visual
information subsidies cause journalists to cede control.
Transcription vs. Contextualization
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