About to Die: How News Images Move the PublicDue to its ability to freeze a moment in time, the photo is a uniquely powerful device for ordering and understanding the world. But when an image depicts complex, ambiguous, or controversial events--terrorist attacks, wars, political assassinations--its ability to influence perception can prove deeply unsettling. Are we really seeing the world "as it is" or is the image a fabrication or projection? How do a photo's content and form shape a viewer's impressions? What do such images contribute to historical memory? About to Die focuses on one emotionally charged category of news photograph--depictions of individuals who are facing imminent death--as a prism for addressing such vital questions. Tracking events as wide-ranging as the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and 9/11, Barbie Zelizer demonstrates that modes of journalistic depiction and the power of the image are immense cultural forces that are still far from understood. Through a survey of a century of photojournalism, including close analysis of over sixty photos, About to Die provides a framework and vocabulary for understanding the news imagery that so profoundly shapes our view of the world. |
Contents
1 | |
2 Why Images of Impending Death Make Sense in the News | 28 |
3 Presumed Death | 76 |
4 Possible Death | 123 |
5 Certain Death | 173 |
6 Journalisms Mix of Presumption Possibility and Certainty | 218 |
Common terms and phrases
about-to-die images alongside American Angeles April assassination Associated Press beheading Berg’s bodies bombings Boston Globe broadcast camera caption captured Chicago Tribune contingency coverage cues Daniel Pearl dead December December 27 depicted disaster display dying editor emotions engagement executives famine February film fire footage frame front graphic Hindenburg horror Horst Faas human Hussein image’s images of impending images of possible images of presumed imagination impending death individuals instance interpretive Iraq January journalism journalists June Khmer Rouge killed later memory multiple newspapers Newsweek Nick Berg nonjournalists November November 22 October offered officials organizations Pearl Philadelphia Inquirer photo appeared photographer Photojournalism picture appended politicians possible death presumed death Pulitzer relay Report response September sequence shooting shot showed shown soldiers story subjunctive suggests Taliban television terror tion titled tsunami U.S. news media underscored unfolding unsettled events victims Vietnam viewers visual Washington Post World World Press Photo York