National Geographic’s Camera Eye Through Africa

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Africa

Through

National Geographic’s Camera

Eye

Telling stories through photography

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Abstract

ver decades National Geographic Magazine has turned into a vehicle of scientific, geographical and cultural information served in a commercial way through its camera eye. National Geographic’s photographs are not only central to the stories, but also give new dimensions to well-known subjects such as Africa, a continent that has long been stereotyped in Western media via visions of violence and diseases, feminine and poverty. In contrast, Africa appears on the pages of National Geographic Magazine in a different perspective. These glimpses of the continent introduce the Western viewer the world of the “other” as full of variety and color. However, the photography portrayal of Africa in the famous publication has also been criticized as the magazine used to prioritize images of wildlife and tribes rather than show a picture of the “real” Africa. National Geographic Magazine has been striving to balance its coverage throughout the past few decades but there has not been any recent research to prove that. Therefore, this thesis tempts to reveal how National Geographic Magazine portrayed the continent through photographs in 2014 as this year has been marked by historical crises such as the Ebola outbreak and the terrorist attacks in Nigeria and Kenya. To do that, this thesis focuses on theoretical angles such as form and style in photography, objectivity and visual framing. The method approach is based on a visual content analysis on 54 photographs which revealed that National Geographic Magazine portrayed Africa in 2014 as an exotic place, full of wildlife and contrasting culture. However, the magazine also showed the other side of the continent - the wealthy or educated Africans that play golf, go to clubs or shop in the supermarket. Last but not least, National Geographic Magazine idealized the image of Africa as the photography coverage of the continent was missing any images connected to the Ebola crisis or the terrorist attacks in Kenya and Nigeria.

Key words: photography, National Geographic Magazine, Africa, photography portrayal, journalism, form and style, narrativity, objectivity, framing.

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 What perspective does National Geographic Magazine use to portray Africa via photographs? For example, does National Geographic Magazine make use of the three main stereotypes found in previous research - the exotic “other”- Africa, as the naked black woman; the beautiful “other” – the idealized Africa; and the representation of the colonized Africa? ………..……….………..…..…64

2. What kind of formal and stylistic devices does National Geographic Magazine use to portray Africa via photographs?...71

 Other visual framing peculiarities used in the photography portrayal of Africa in National Geographic Magazine in 2014………78

Chapter 5: Conclusion...84

References...87

Appendices...95

Appendix 1………...….95

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List of Figures

Fig. 0 Cover photo………1

Fig. 1 Nuba Tribe. Photograph by George Rodger, 1949. Published in National Geographic Magazine……....8

Fig.2 Kenyan woman and her pet, 1909………..……….….9

Fig. 3 Form and style elements in photography……….……31

Fig.4 National Geographic Magazine’s first picture of a bare-breasted woman, 1896……….…………..…47

Fig. 5 Photograph of a Masai woman, 1954………..……..…..48

Fig.6 Link between the variables included it the coding scheme and the observed theory……….…..……..56

Fig. 7 Information of the character of the photographed subject as a percentage of the total number of all researched images………..………..65

Fig. 8 Information of the used stereotype as a percentage of the total number of all researched images….……66

Fig. 9 Photograph 6 (July). Example of an occupation that contrasts the typical Western one………67

Fig. 10 Photograph 17 (September). Example of a shot displaying people who still hunt for food………...…68

Fig. 11 Photograph 39 (January’15). Example of a stereotyped shot – the exotic other presented through nudity, tribalism and rituals………..………68

Fig. 12 Information of the photographs’ position on page as a percentage of the total number of all researched images………..………71

Fig.13 Photograph 25 (December). Example of a photograph positioned on both pages………..…71

Fig.14 Photograph 25 (December). Example of a photograph positioned on both pages……….…72

Fig. 15 Photograph 16 (September). Example of photograph positioned on the right page………..…73

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Fig. 17 Information how big the analyzed photographs are as a percentage of the total number of all

researched images………..……….….74 Fig. 18 Photograph 36 (December). Example of an extra large photograph presenting a strong emotion……..76 Fig. 19 Photograph 50 (January’15). Example of an extra large photograph presenting a lot of details. Such composition requires an extra large shot………..…..…..76 Fig. 20 Info of the Color Saturation of the photographs as a percentage of the total number of all researched images………..77 Fig. 21 Photograph 23 (November). Example of a photograph with high color saturation………78 Fig. 22 Information of the Camera Angle/ of the photographs as a percentage of the total number of all

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Introduction

n 1947 the famous British photojournalist George Rodger was travelling across Africa on an assignment for National Geographic. While he and his wife were passing though Kordofan in the region of the Sudan, they came across the Nuba people, whose ancestors inhabited the area for over millennia. For six weeks the photographer and his spouse lived among the tribesmen communicating only through gestures. Rodger became the first ever Westerner to photograph the tribe’s life and rituals. When the photographs were published in National

Geographic Magazine they caused a

sensation. The iconic image (Fig 1.) of a

“

victorious Nuba wrestler, ashen, ghostlike, naked and invincible astride the shoulders of another man” turned into a “definitive

portrait of Africa” for many years on (Selwyn-Holmes, 2012).

I

Fig. 1 Nuba Tribe. Photograph by George Rodger, 1949. Published in National Geographic Magazine. Source:

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Over a century, National Geographic Magazine has served as the main source of “geographical, historical, cultural and social, and developmental information” about Africa, particularly in the USA (Troche, 2011, p. 675). With the power of its camera eye the magazine has always portrayed the distant and foreign cultures as a unique world of treasures (Hawkins, 2010).

Throughout its existence, National Geographic Magazine has delivered a vast range of images of African landscapes and people, as well as animals and plants, conveyed through travel and exploration photograph narratives. As Stock adds, the magazine “has played a major role in bringing pictures of Africa to the world, and has been instrumental in shaping public perceptions about the continent” (Stock, 2012, p.33). From publishing glimpses of the

unknown through the Zulu tribe’s rituals and traditions in 1896 or displaying the exotic via photographs of breasted women in their native dress in the beginning of the twentieth century, to the image of the young Kenyan woman who holds her pet deer (Fig 2.), “[t]he crucial

components of National Geographic’s iconicity - its photographs of racial and cultural difference - promoted cosmopolitan sympathies in addition to national pride” (Hawkins, 2010, p. 59-60).

Although the significance of National Geographic Magazine in portraying Africa’s image in media is undeniable (Rothenberg, 2007) the number of studies that focus on researching how the magazine represents the continent is quite limited (Reynolds-Marniche, 2009). Despite the fact that the magazine has brought a great amount of Fig. 2 Kenyan woman and her pet, 1909. Source:

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photographs and articles dedicated to Africa in the past few years (Jerven, 2013), the contemporary content of the magazine remains relatively unexamined. In fact, most of the magazine’s observers such as Hawkins (2010), Rothenberg (2007), Lutz & Collins (1993) and Reynolds-Marniche (2009) focus on the decades between its establishment and the late 80s. Therefore, exploring National Geographic Magazine’s current content may bring some valuable insights how the magazine reports on the continent and if its coverage changed during the years.

The main research question that guides this thesis is how National Geographic

Magazine portrayed Africa through photography in 2014. By applying a visual content

analysis on the photographs published in the print issues in 2014, this thesis tempts to unravel how National Geographic Magazine covered and framed Africa via the usage of photographs. Special attention is paid to the peak time of the hysteria around Ebola and the period around the terrorist attacks in Nigeria and Kenya. The reason for this choice is to test how National Geographic Magazine’s camera eye sees Africa in times of terror and deceases as previous research proved that the magazine often “romanticize” the image of the continent (Achebe, 1977).

Since the historical boom of AIDS in the continent there has been no other decease as dramatic as the Ebola outbreak that focused the eyes of the whole world on Africa. Even though the panic around the virus attack might have been boasted and exaggerated by Western media, as CNN reporters called it an “epic, epidemic overreaction” (Ahmed & Mendoza, 2014), it was a great challenge to handle not only by the three mainly affected countries, but for the whole continent as well. The terrorist attacks in Nigeria and Kenya were also a tragedy that reminded the world of the terrible crimes in Rwanda. All these unfortunate happenings provoke the question whether National Geographic Magazine reported on Africa in 2014, whether it paid any attention to these devastations and, if so, in what way.

There are a number of reasons to research the photography portrayal of Africa in

National Geographic Magazine in 2014. First of all, we live in times when visuals are a key

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images have sometimes a greater impact on us than words do. The influence of photographs on the audience’s perceptions about a specific issue or event has been investigated by many researchers (Barbosa, 2010; Gibson, 2000; Zillmann, Gibson, & Sargent, 1999; Arpan et al., 2006). According to Zelizer, photography changed journalism (2005). She states that “journalism becomes more vivid, more visible and potentially understood with greater ease by a wider group of people than would be the case were photographs [were] not part of the news” (Zelizer, 2005, p. 169).

Second, Africa’s portrayal in the Western world has always been problematic. The convention of portraying Africa as “a crocodile-infested dark continent where jungle life has perpetually eluded civilization” dates back to the 18th century and colonial times (Ebo, 1992, p. 15). According to some experts, during the past year, with the rise of Ebola and the terrorist attacks in Nigeria and Kenya, the continent was covered by some Western media outlets “as a dirty, diseased place to be feared” (Seay & Yi Dionne, 2014, para. 2). What is more, the 2014 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Research on major trends in media coverage in thirty North American, African and international newspapers, found that the word “ebola” was mentioned in 30% of all publications, connected to Africa (Africa Growth Initiative, 2014). Segev (2014) also points out that Africa remains much more under-represented than the Middle East or Asia. In fact, during the last few years the coverage of Africa has significantly dropped (Ojo, 2014) due to the shrinking budget of media outlets and the decreasing interest of readers and viewers (Pew Centre, 2002). Michira summarizes the continent’s image in mainstream media as coverage of “tribal anarchy, civil war, political instability, flagrant corruption, incompetent leadership and managerial ineptitude, hunger, famine and starvation” (Michira, 2002, p. 2).

National Geographic Magazine, however, has long been hailed for contrasting the

established stereotypes of the continent (Schulten, 2000). What is more, the first

photograph of malnourished children that showed up on the pages of the magazine was not until 1975, while photographs of African people, being victimized or part of any violent act, is extremely rare, as researchers such as Hawkins (2010) claim. Instead of imposing images of starving children, dying from different diseases, the magazine has been creating a

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aesthetic”, serving “as scientific documentation, delivering facts in pictorial form”

(Rothenberg, 2007, p.13). These carefully selected images of the continent are the ones to “stand out and leave an impact on readers” (Rothenberg, 2007, p. 22). Critics believe that these photographs of exotic travel destinations that represent a world of rituals and tradition have always been more attractive to readers (Lutz & Collins, 1993). Therefore, according to Manganaro (1995), National Geographic’s decision to pick certain photographs over others is a result of the desire to combine entertainment and knowledge in order to appeal the audience. When omitting images of poverty and suffering, the magazine also justifies its motto to present the “positive image” of the world on one hand, and to answer the viewer’s expectation on the other (Lutz & Collins, 1993, p. 25). Still, all these

observations are a result of researches that focused on National Geographic Magazine’s content quite some time ago. In fact, not only the current content of the magazine remains unexamined, but there has not been any consistent analysis on the articles and the

photographs of the publication since the 80’s. What is more, none of the previous studies observed Africa solely neither focused on photographs alone excluding any text. Therefore, this thesis delves into the unexplored world of the photography portrayal of Africa in the magazine in 2014.

To answer the research question this thesis addresses several issues. Chapter 1 provides background information on the history of National Geographic Magazine.

Exploring the magazine’s roots does not only reveal interesting aspects of its existence, but it also helps to understand why National Geographic’s covers Africa in a specific way.

The following theoretical framework focuses on the peculiarities of photography. Firstly, I elaborate on what this phenomenon is and its history. Then I delve further into the problematic relation between photography and reality, and observe the power of

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grounds of the insights on photography’s place in journalism and its link to objectivity, the following sub chapter builds on the concepts of visual framing. Even though the study of visual framing is quite complex and relatively unexamined, when researching the

photography portrayal of Africa in National Geographic Magazine this concept is central. It reveals how photographs carry messages on one hand, and how the viewer makes sense of this image on the other (Rodriguez and Dimitrova, 2011). The notion of visual framing also assists the methodology approach of this research – a visual content analysis. The

theoretical framework ends with discussions on Africa’s representation in media via photographs and the image of the continent created by National Geographic’s camera eye since its establishment.

The purpose of chapter two is to outline the basics of photography, how it came to be and what influenced our perceptions of this phenomenon as we know it today. In order to research how National Geographic Magazine portrayed Africa in 2014 through

photography it is of key importance to understand the role of photography in society and in media, and how we perceive images – as straight evidence of the world or a mere reflection of reality. It is also impossible to analyze photographs without the knowledge of how photographers create an image and how they convey a message through it. As the use of photographs in journalism is enormous, it is of great significance to observe how main journalistic norms, such as objectivity, and journalistic principles, such as the concept of framing, shape photographs in media. Last but not least, the results that previous research on African photography portrayal in media and in National Geographic Magazine show, serve as a backbone for this current study.

The last subchapter of chapter two addresses the research question and the hypotheses while the next third chapter, the method section, consists of an elaborate description of the methodology used in this thesis. In order to research how National

Geographic Magazine portrayed Africa through photography in 2014, I use a visual content

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– Chapter 1 –

Background Information – the timeline of

National Geographic Magazine

It was the night of January 13, 1888, when 33 explorers and scientists gathered in the Assembly Hall of Washington, D.C., to lay the foundations for "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge"(Norton, 2012, p. 660). Nine months after the society was born, National Geographic Magazine debuted as a small scientific journal.

Through the following decades National Geographic Magazine transformed from a strictly text-oriented scientific journal into a feature-focused issue with iconic photography content. What is more, Alexander Bell, former president of the Society, wanted National

Geographic Magazine to appeal not only the elite, but also the average American (Lutz &

Collins, 1993). Therefore, he insisted on “pictures, and plenty of them” (Bendavid-Val, 2008, p. 14). This strategy led to the publication of 2355 autochromes1_{between 1914 and} 1938, more than any other journal, “bringing the realism of color photography into mass circulation” (Hirsch, 1997, p. 20). Back then National Geographic Magazine was one of the first magazines to bring color photos into the readers’ experience – the pastel illustrations of Nicaragua, the first authoritative four-color foldout map and the first natural color photograph.

1_{Autochrome is an early form of color photography that uses plates coated with dyed starch grains. This form of photography was}

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Over the years, when television was still not invented and travelling was a privilege known only by the wealthy people, the magazine turned into a major source of geographic and cultural information about the world. By 1926, National Geographic Magazine was a synonym of the word “discovery”, because of the numerous expeditions to the Caribbean and South America, to Western Europe and the Balkans, to Asia and Africa. Exploring “the world and all that is in it” became the holy mantra of the magazine while the famous yellow rectangle, the logo of National Geographic that represents a photo frame, became a window to distant worlds outside the well-known borders (Bryan, 1987, p. 43).

In contrast, during the two world wars National Geographic Magazine was heavily criticized of having a “particularly American view of the world, an upbeat, rosy glassed view” (Raasch, 2013, p. 11) that “ignores or minimizes the harsher realities” (Jensen, 2014, p. 9). Therefore through the following years the magazine decided to take on a more

journalistic and balanced path (Lutz & Collins, 1993). In the 1960s National Geographic

Magazine started striving for professionalization and portrayed the world as equally

beautiful and ugly (Rothenberg, 2007; Lutz and Collins, 1993).

Today National Geographic Magazine is translated in nearly 40 different languages and has a global circulation of 6.8 million per month (National Geographic, 2015). The magazine has expanded its scope of storytelling and spreads its messages via different platforms. It dedicates a great amount of articles about environmental issues such as global warming, deforestation and pollution as well as technology, innovation and energy, science and space. In such times, as now, when print journalism is “under siege” National

Geographic continues to produce “powerful, profound images” (Annenberg, 2013, para. 4)

and experiments “with digital experiences to find new ways of documenting the world and of allowing readers to interact with content” (National Geographic Society Press Room, 2013, para. 2).

Through viewing National Geographic Magazine’s historic development one can understand what influenced the establishment and the evolution of the magazine as we know it today. The historical factors and the editor’s decisions throughout the years shaped

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publication has been transforming since its creation to date answers the question why

National Geographic Magazine has turned into an iconic publication with photographs that

“connect, move and inspire people around the world” (Johns, 2013, para. 5). Last but not least, having in mind National Geographic Magazine‘s peculiarities, strategies, philosophy and historical development, the research of its photography portrayal of Africa in 2014 becomes complete as these factors play a major role when trying to comprehend and explain the final outcomes of the analysis applied in this thesis.

To create a full picture of the photography portrayal of Africa in National Geographic

Magazine in 2014 it is necessary not only to research what historical factors and

organization’s peculiarities determined it, but to delve into the different concepts, ideologies and theories about Africa, photography and journalism that will help to

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– Chapter 2–

Theoretical Framework

1. The A to Z of Photography

The power of pictorial images seems to be inextricably connected to our human nature since the Upper Paleolithic (Wright, 1999). Over the past one and a half centuries photography captured time and space as nothing before. It recorded different aspects of our lives and history, and allowed humanity to experience the unknown. The camera eye has been telling us stories of the distant and the different, turning into the most influential medium for expressing what is in front of the lens. Up to date the role of photography in today’s modern culture is central. Its status in society and the power of the visual

representation concerns not only scholars and researchers but also psychologists, philosophers and political experts. How photography shapes our understanding of the world and whether this reflection of reality is truthful creates a constant debate.

This chapter builds on these problematic aspects of photography and delves further into the world of photographs. To shed some light on this phenomenon this section dives into the history of this practice and its ultimate power. In this chapter I discuss

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chapter ends with elaborations on the roots and role of photography in journalism and how Africa has been portrayed via photography in Western media and National Geographic

Magazine through the years.

1.1. What is photography and how it came to be as we know it today

In order to research how National Geographic Magazine portrayed Africa through photographs in 2014 it is essential to firstly introduce what photography really is and how it was created. This helps us understand why photographs play such an important role in our society and builds on the debate how we perceive photographs. By diving into the historical details that influenced this process and what stands behind the term

“photography” it becomes easier to further elaborate on the more complex aspects and theories about photography, because every step of the evolutionary process of this technique influenced its present character and its meaning in society.

When trying to define what photography really is it is difficult to refer to it as either a scientific practice of creating images or the artistic way of capturing light. It is also hard to draw a line between photography as a hobby and a profession. According to

encyclopedia Britannica, photography is a “method of recording the image of an object through the action of light, or related radiation, on a light-sensitive material”

(“Photography”, 2015). The word photography comes from the Greek roots φωτός

(phōtos), which means light and γραφή (graphé) which refers to "representation by means of lines" (Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, n.d.).

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camera obscura. In the end of the 16th century, Giambattista della Porta, an Italian scientist and writer, explained in details the method of camera obscura (Gernsheim, 1955).

Throughout the following decades artists continued using the method in order to produce photographs, but the final result was a collaborative work of science and drawing skills. The ultimate goal of scientists was to create a fully mechanical way of reproducing images that eliminates the intervention of humans in reproducing what is out there. The experiment of Johann Heinrich Schulze, a professor of anatomy, proved that light can darken silver salts and in combination with the camera obscura this discovery became the basics of what was called “photography” in the early 19th_{century (Haverich, 2011).}

The truth is there is not only one single person involved in the development of photography. Rezende (2011, para. 1) outlines in detail that the French artist and photographer Louis Daguerre, who also wears the title “inventor of photography” and Hércules Florence, who is often referred to as the “forgotten father of photography” created the daguerreotype2_{. Later, William Fox Talbot, a British scientist, used “a photosensitive} paper with chemical agents to produce a developed image” (Rezende, 2011, para. 2) and created the calotype3_{. In 1839 Alphonse Giroux, a French art restorer, created the first} photographic camera for commercial purposes (Mannoni, 2014), while Gabriel Lippmann, a physicist and inventor, introduced the natural-color photographs in 1891. The arrival of the plastic films changed photography and films became the dominant form of photography until the emergence of digital photography (Harvey & Mahard, 2014). The introduction of the first consumer digital camera by Sony in 1981 and the first consumer digital single lens reflex camera by Kodak in 1991 marks the birth of the digital era in photography.

When reflecting on how photography came to be it is doubtless that this technique is one of the greatest and revolutionizing inventions of all times. It took decades to improve this technology and every single step of this process brought us closer to photography’s unique ability to capture with perfection what is in front of the camera. Since the beginning of the creation of photography, the constant urge of the camera eye to perceive realism is

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According to Britanica Encyclopedia is the collaborative discovery of Daguerre and Niépce who “found that if a copper plate coated with silver iodide was exposed to light in a camera, then fumed with mercury vapour and fixed (made permanent) by a solution of common salt, a permanent image would be formed”

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ceaseless. In fact, Warren (2006) explains the desire to fully represent reality was the driving force for scientists and artists to invent a technique that exceeds drawing The strive of researchers for perfection in recording what is in front of the lens resulted in the

evolution of photography seen as an evidence of the world. Every step of the upgrading process of this technology was holding “the promise of providing a record of vision”

(Wright, 1999, p. 2) that was a credible mirror of reality. However, with the development of science and philosophy, and the idea of “the subjective nature of our comprehension of all things” photography began to lose its evidentiary character (Newton, 2001, p. ix).

1.2. The problematic representation of reality – the relation between photography, fact & fiction

For more than a century photography has now been recording different aspects of the “social complexities and crises of modern life” (Ingledew, & Gullachsen, 2013, p.6). Photographs have been seen as possessing the unique capability of capturing reality. This ultimate power of images to convince the viewer based on the credibility of a shot

influences the belief that a photograph shows an exact copy of what is out there. Therefore, when covering a certain issue, a photograph tends to be more persuasive, authoritative and powerful. However, due to different reasons, such as the reason that a photograph can be manipulated, there is an ongoing debate whether photography can truly reflect reality.

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The construction of reality through text has always been considered complex (Hall, 1997). What is more, postmodern theories put to an end the belief that language posses the ability to objectively represent reality. Contrary, since its invention in 1839, photography has been observed as a documentary medium of all major events that took place in societies. Its ability to transmit reality has always been regarded as natural part of

photography’s characteristics. In fact, the long process of upgrading this technique was in the name of creating a mechanism that fully represents reality. Through the years this visual communication vehicle was regarded as a convincing form “of pictorial evidence” that “seems to render the medium totally transparent, blurring the distinction between our perception of the environment and its photographic representations” (Wright, 1999, p. 2).This also supports the belief that photographs are seen as a factual proof, a mirror of what is out there.

The unique characteristic of photography of being immediate brought the sense of authenticity as no other picture-making technique did. The use of the photograph as a representation of facts established a new perspective of realism known as ‘‘photographic realism’’. This movement created a new ideal for realism. Photographic realism is

understood as depicting “commonplace scenes or ordinary people, with a meticulously detailed realism” bringing the essence of reality as never before (“Photorealism”, 2015). Åker explains “[i]f realism was a cultural construction, photography seemed to break with that by presenting what was actually there in front of the camera” (2012, p. 328).

Technology finally made it possible to automatically create an image without the

intervention of people (Bazin, 2005). While art could barely promise to fully depict reality, photography achieved it (Potts, 2003).

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what was the reality of the people outside the Western world and the incredible success of documentary photography in the 20th_{century was a major factor in the growing popularity} of National Geographic Magazine’s photography that was documenting the world of distant cultures.

The creation of this revolutionizing technology brought the optimism that the camera eye is ubiquitous. When photography was first introduced it was seen as “the perfect documentary medium because the mechanical nature of the medium ensured unadulterated, exact replicas of the subject matter” (Mullen, 1998). Actually, photograph is a much more complex phenomenon. It depends on who is behind the lens, what the editor wants and how the designer achieves it. An image is the expression of the photographer who consciously makes decisions in the process of making a shot. Therefore, photography is “a form of reproduction” (Rothenberg, 2007, p. 13). As Rancière adds, there are two questions that concern photographs – what is their origin, which has a connection to their truth content, and what is the final purpose of this image (2004). Photos provide

interpretation of the world, a coded description. They are a vehicle through which we create frames how we see, interpret, and understand the world (Ross and Lester, 2011).

In line with this argument and despite photography’s power as a communication tool and the technological advances of cameras, the idea that photographs are straight evidence of the world remains debatable. Throughout the years, critics contested the idea that “the camera does not lie”, saying that this is a cliché, deeply rooted within the mind-set of the masses (Wright, 1999). In fact, people assume visual images are realistic only

because “we have been taught to see them as such” (Wright, 1999, p. 7). Our perception of photographs as depictions of reality is a result not only of our brain function and all cognitive processes, but also a consequence of different social influences. Photographs do not exactly mirror reality; they are cultural products created on the basis of and influenced by cultural factors such as identity, religious beliefs and traditions, as well as moral, artistic and intellectual values, and as technology development as well.

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necessary to assess to what extent images serve as facts that depict reality or subjectively interpret the surrounding world. As National Geographic Magazine’s philosophy is to bring photographs with scientific character that tend to provide a true reflection of the world, it is also important to understand the power of photography which lies in its promise to accurately show what is out there. As Mary Vogl notes, “among the visual media,

photography is one of the most powerful means of representation because of its immediacy and also its supposed objectivity, the illusion of reality, and factuality that it provides the viewer “ (2003, p. 3).

1.3. The power of photographs. What makes photography significant?

When trying to understand the role of photography in society and to what extent the photographic image can serve as a communication tool or as an evidence of reality,

elaborating on the power of photography is inevitable. Photography “has not simply acted as a passive reflector of change but has provided a system of visual representation that has both generated and promoted the social, political, economic, scientific and artistic

developments of the past 160 years” (Wright, 1999, p. 5). The powerful influence of photographs on the audience’s perceptions about a specific issue or event has been investigated by many researchers (Barbosa, 2010; Gibson, 2000; Zillmann, Gibson, & Sargent, 1999; Arpan et al., 2006).

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As Ritchen states “photography is nearly omnipresent, informing virtually every arena of human existence” (1990, p. 1). The ever-increasing influence of the visual images is a result of the photograph’s characteristics. According to scholars such as Sontag (1977), Graham-Brown (1988) and Williamson (1978), a photograph is significant because of its formal elements such as color, composition and vantage point, or as a result of more complex factors such as what is internal to the shot and the ability of photos to “assume or ignore, to evoke or discount the readers’ social experience and values” (Lutz and Collins, 1993, p. 88).

Last but not least, photograph’s power is seen in its ability to be a universal language consistent through time. In fact, Mendelson and Darling-Wolf explain that, “a photo story folds over space and time” (2008, p. 800).When trying to convey a message a picture exceeds text by its immediacy, its emotional nature and our ability to observe images quite equally (Hill, 2004). Ross and Lester add that “while emotions need to be written out in words and be explained, they can be written on the faces and bodies of humans in photographs” (2011, p.54).

Understanding the power of photography and where the strength of a shot lies helps us comprehend why photographs possess a central role in our society. What makes

photography significant is the power to capture time and space, to shape our culture and opinion, to emotionally influence us or even manipulate us. When conveying a message through an image or portraying an object, it is exactly this powerful impact that makes us react in a certain way or memorize a certain thing about a shot. The power of photography, however, does not solely depend on the fact that technology made it possible to finally reproduce what is in front of the camera. It is a combination between the photographer’s decision how to compose the shot and the viewer’s perceptions and interpretations.

1.4. How photographs are composed – the role of the photographer in telling stories through the camera. Why form and style matters.

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A photograph is not only the creation of a complex digitalized technology, but a final product influenced by the photographer and the viewer as well. Therefore, when analyzing the photography portrayal of Africa in National Geographic Magazine it is important to delve into the world of photographs’ construction as this reveals why and how a certain shot tells a specific story. But before focusing on the constructional details of a photo it is necessary to keep in mind that stories can be based on photographs, but can photographs really tell stories?

Since ancient times it is encrypted in our DNA to be Homo narrans - the storytelling specie. Narratives are part of every culture and are found in almost every aspect of the communication world that we create from an early age (Fivush, Habermas, Waters, & Zaman, 2011). Stories are everywhere, including news media, movies, books, photography and even everyday talks. They are perceived as an expression of the self (Conway, 2004). A narrative can present “a spoken or written account of connected events” (Online Oxford English Dictionary, 2015). Walter Fisher, who was the first to suggest that humans are storytellers, adds that narratives have multiple forms and are based on people’s character and culture, past and experience (1984, 1987). According to him, narratives do not only represent reality by being argumentative or persuasive, but have “relevance to real as well as fictive worlds, to stories of living and to stories of the imagination” (Fisher, 1984, p. 2).

Hammack and Pilecki (2012) define narrative as both being an individual and social cognitive process of meaning-making. According to them, the meaning of words and storylines influence our opinion and vision of the world from a social and political

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Researchers claim that it is possible to transmit a story via different media channels, but they argue exactly which one of them has the full potential. Narratological research concerns how an image conveys a story. One of the main objectives against the statement that photographs can act as narratives is that an image does not actually “tell” a story, but show it. The non-verbal nature of photographs has always questioned the ability of photographs to properly communicate a story. Even the definition of narrative evokes the use of verbal forms, which is quite restricting when it comes to visuals (Bordwell 1985). However, the presence of text can prevent the spectator from looking at the photographs themselves (Baetens & Bleyen, 2010). The problematic notion of time in photographs is another drawback. Time is central in narrativity, because “story events have to be located in time and the presentation of these events must itself have a temporal structure” (Speidel, 2013, para. 25). Still, a photograph lacks the meaning of time as we apply it in a narrative.

To defend the statement that photographs can express time, Speidel states that “our everyday knowledge is quite reliable in helping us grasp temporal order in pictorial

representations of stories” (Speidel, 2013, para. 30). Narratives and pictorial

representations, more specifically photographs “trigger the retrieval of mentally stored, more or less well-known stories, and the beholders fill in the narrative gaps in the pictorial material with the necessary connecting details” (Ranta, 2011, para. 39 ). They both provoke “mentally stored action and scene schemas” that are a result of previous experience, which activate and render a “specific, arrested moment” (Ranta, 2011, para. 40). Bordwell and Thompson add that “the spectator actively seeks to connect events by means of cause and effect. Given an incident, we tend to hypothesize what might have caused it, or what it might in turn cause” (Bordwell &Thompson 1990, p. 58). What is more, most of the

photographs we see give us limited information of what is the story behind the shot, therefore we tend to create our own narratives on the grounds of what we see. As a result, photographs do not need to carry a temporal explanation, because we already imply our understanding of time, while processing the meaning of a shot.

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Mieke Bal, also observes the phenomenon of “narrativity without a narrative” in photography (1991). Of course not all images carry a narrative potential, for example abstract photography. However, just like historical paintings intend to tell a story, photographs also adopt different criteria to act as narratives (Speidel, 2013). David Champbell states that the idea of narrative in photography is connected to the notion of context (Champbell, 2010). According to him, what makes a good story is the decision of what to include and what to exclude, and visual story-tellers stick to this process as context requires it. It also depends on sticking to context variables and its physical and

communicative dimensions that include details about the surrounding, names, symbols and signs. What is more, a narrative and a photograph highly depend on its construction, which is determined not only by elements such as time, action and the objects included in the frame, but is highly influenced by “participants and observers, actors and analyst”, because interpretations are also part of the storytelling process (Champbell, 2010).

According to Baetens and Bleyen (2010), any image can be observed through the narrative lens if “it succeeds in piquing the spectator’s curiosity with a chronologically and causally organized and motivated visual narrative and making him or her yearn for some ending” (2010, p. 171). When narrating a photograph the nature of the represented objects plays a key role. What happens in the foreground and in the background, what action takes place, the movements in the shot, which can be leftbound or rightbound or going upwards or downwards, what is entering or leaving the frame, all these form the photograph narrative. However, narrating a photograph should not be confused with explaining what we see and perceive in the shot, but focus on how a photograph reflects the mind of the story-teller, the photographer, who has only a small amount of time, until she/he clicks the shutter (Ekin, 2007).

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record of a scene or a subject” (1964, p. 79). The image can be viewed as a piece of art, where the photograph embodies the photographer’s personal concerns that “range from the exploration of formal aesthetic issues to the expression of the photographer's inner emotions” (Schwartz, 1898, p. 120). In contrast, when viewed as a simple record, a press photograph is seen as reproduction of reality, of what was there in front of the camera (Schwartz, 1898). These different ways of depicting photographs, as both an artistic expression and a piece of evidence is influenced by the way a shot is composed. It is also part of photograph’s power that lies into the process of its creation that will be expensively explained in the following paragraphs.

The characteristic of the image being "polysemic4_{" (Barthes, 1964) results in its} capability to generate multiple meanings and construct an infinite number of messages. Therefore, the meaning of a photograph is not fixed, it depends on the photographer’s and the viewer’s background. How a photographer captures and conveys what is out there directly reflects on his/ her socio-cultural perspective, social life-style, status and ideology. How a viewer decrypts the message of an image corresponds with the same factors.

Physically we all see photographs equally. The difference comes with our perceptions and interpretations. People from different cultures can view one and the same photograph and understand its message in a completely different way. What is normal for someone may be scandalous for the other (Lester, 1995). Schwartz summarizes that the process of viewing an image “is a dynamic interaction between the photographer, the spectator, and the image; meaning is actively constructed, not passively received” (Schwartz, 1898, p. 120).

As a whole, a press photograph is a complex object, a result from the mutual work of construction and composition, influenced by different occupational, artistic and moral norms, chosen from hundreds other shots, consumed by the public in a more or less conscious way (Barthes, 1977). And there, as part of this process, lies the power of form and style, a basic factor that determines the final look of a shot and the transition of its message.

Why form and style matter in photography

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Form and style are an important aspect when constructing a photograph and

delivering a specific meaning. As Broersma (2007) explains, while context changes and messages vary, form and style remain constant and universal through time and space. These principles do not solely make the reader feel “comfortable with a paper’s design” (Broersma, 2007, p. ix), but also serve as a convention of truth. When Broersma (2007) elaborates on the role of form and style in journalism he states that these notions play a key role “in making people believe events are real” (p. ix). What is more, Schudson (1982) also claims that form holds the promise of truthfulness and credibility. Additionally, form and style influence how a certain issue is framed and represented or simply determine “which stories are told and how they are told” (Broersma, 2007, p. ix).

If in written text form and style dictate what is highlighted or omitted (Broersma, 2007) in photography these conventions also determine in what way a story is told (see Fig. 3 Form and style elements in photography). Where a photograph is positioned on a page and how large the image is determines how important the information is and how the message will be conveyed. For example, a bigger picture with an object filling the frame acquires power and usually has a very strong impact on the viewer (Freeman, 2007). The impact of a page layout can be explained through the concept how a human eye scans a page. The Gutenberg Diagram and the Z-Pattern (Landa, 2013), for example, illustrate this process. The Gutenberg Diagram is a method suitable for cultures who read from right to left. The most important information is placed in the upper right and left corners. With the Z-Pattern the top left and right and the bottom left and right spots are the so called hot spots of the page. If a photograph is positioned there the viewer’s attention sticks

immediately on it. Therefore this photograph carries the most important message (Briot, 2009).

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attention to this special junction. Another attention-keeper is using shapes and lines to draw the eye to a certain point. Such trick includes a road, a river or a mountain, a building or a bridge into the frame, which lines and curves lead to the most important detail in the shot. Perspective is another key element. Moving the camera left, right, above, and below, besides straight, can enhance the visual impact. When the photographer is beneath the subject this position creates the feeling of superiority, while the opposite position makes the subject either diminutive or less important. The left and right positioning makes a photograph more honest and frank (Dachis, 2011).

Fig. 3 Form and style elements in photography

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basic steps that photographers follow when photographing a non-Westerner. The subject in the frame is normally doing something traditional, that is part of the object’s every-day living. This trick is used to create a stronger contrast when opposing the modern world. The use of ritual pictures is a result of the fact that such photographs contain more color and action, provoking more interest. In this notion, the researchers conclude that the constant search of National Geographic photographers to catch the unknown, is also part of the urge to create the feeling of “the different” compared to the definition of the “us” in order to grab the viewers’ attention. To make the “different” digestible for the viewer, the photographed person is often represented by a traditional dress. In order to balance the message of such photographs that portray the different, the “other” is caught with a smile on their face. This expression creates the feeling of intimacy in the viewer who recognizes himself/herself in the photographed object.

Lutz and Collins (1993) also present a few types of gazes that photographers consciously use to transmit messages through photographs. What differentiates a gaze from a look is the psychoanalytical aspect. The gaze, as Lacan states, is a result of the knowledge of being seen by others and by oneself. According to him, “the gaze comes from the other who constitutes the self in that looking, but the gaze the self encounters is “not a seen gaze, but a gaze imagined by me in the field of the Other” (Lacan, 1981, p.84). The first gaze is the photographer’s gaze, “the actual look through the view-finder”. This is the point of view of the camera’s eye that defines composition, vantage point (angle or point of view), focus, depth, framing, color balance within the shot. The photographer is the first to

encounter what was in front of the camera, therefore, according to the researchers he/she is in a close position to the viewer (Sontag, 1977). However, the photographer often drives the reader to view through the photographer’s point of interest. The second one is the institutional gaze that is accounted for editing, cropping and picture choice. The third gaze is the reader’s gaze. It concerns the role of the viewer in the process of perceiving a

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locals in the picture, a traveler or a researcher, the one who interacts with the locals within the frame. All these gazes create depth to the photograph’s meaning and photographers consciously use them. They serve to create a feeling of some kind of a relationship with the viewer, or even to put the observer in the place of the photographed object (Lutz and Collins, 1993). The influence of these gazes is of key importance when composing a shot, but with the power of color and its impact on the human brain, the impact on the viewer is ever greater.

What is the role of color in photography?

Numerous psychological studies proved that composition alone is not the sole factor that influences our perception of images, but color as well. What is more, colors define the structure of objects. According to Castelhano and Henderson (2008), observers tend to understand a colorful scene much faster than black and white picture.

According to researchers, similar colors create the feeling of harmony. Therefore they are much more easily digested by the viewer than contrasting colors, which are normally associated with chaos or boldness (Thing, 2014). Sanocki and Sulman’s findings on how colors impact our visual perception show that people tend to memorize images that contain lesser colors (Sanocki T, & Sulman N., 2011). However, they also proved that the contrast of surrounding color influences how well we remember the color pattern. This means that color differences between the context and the background increases our ability to focus our attention on context.

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it is not only color that matters, but how color and light is combined. “Darkness and

lightness of a color can alter the psychological message” as well (“Color Psychology - Color Psychology: How does color affect us?”, n.d., para. 2).

The analysis of the photography portrayal of Africa in National Geographic Magazine in 2014 demands the observation of how and why exactly a photograph turns as it is. The construction of an image and more particularly the transition of the photograph’s message is a complex process navigated by the photographer, who is in the role of the story-teller, and the viewer whose interpretations shape the meaning of the image. Therefore, when decoding photograph’s messages it is important to equally focus not only on what an image shows, but what influenced it as well.

The above elaborations on how photographs are composed strongly contest the notion of objectivity in photography (Lyons, 2011). In fact, the idea that the photographer consciously shapes the message of a photograph through the decision making process of what to include or to exclude, what to enhance and what to mute, raises some questions about objectivity in photography. What is more, Schwartz believes that treating

photographs as objective evidence “ignores the convention-bound processes of both image making and interpretation” (1898, p. 120). Before discussing the connection between photography and objectivity though, it is important to firstly outline how photographs became part of mass media and what is their role in journalism. The reason to do this is that the history of photography usage in mass media is highly influenced by the factors that shape journalism itself. It is the impact of journalistic routines, practices and norms, as well as the objectivity ideal that determine how photographs fit in the field of journalism.

1.5. Photography’s roots in mass media, its role in journalism and how photographs correspond to the ideal of objectivity

The status of photography in journalism as we know it today and how a certain issue is portrayed through photographs in mass media is а result of the historical

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helpful to follow how journalism transformed photography and to what extent journalistic norms affected the photographers’ routines and vice versa. . Media organizations, their policies and journalistic ethical codes may actually impact the photographer’s and the editor’s decisions. This can, in turn, result in a specific portrayal of a certain issue.

Today, one of the main fields where photography is being used is mass media – newspapers, magazines, television, websites and blogs. Even though some claim that photography is dead as a medium, we witness that in the generation of “information overload” photographs are the quickest and most efficient way of consuming information (Sontag, 2002, p.113). Like never before, photographs travel the whole Internet space and inflame reactions in social media such as the viral images of the lined up dead bodies of the Kenyan students, the shots of the Ebola victims or even the photograph of Cecil, the hunted down African lion. However, it hasn't always been that way. What is more, even though the visual predominance in the beginning of the 20th_{century placed photography in the}

honorable position of a reality construction tool with an ultimate power over words, it took quite some time for mass media to fully trust photography. There were decades of

discussion after the first patterns of visual reporting in 1880 in the intellectual journalistic circles whether visuals are appropriate for the newspapers’ pages, because they were seen as a spectacle and sensationalism (Hardt, 1996).

Eventually, photographs made their way to the newsrooms at the end of the 19th century and photojournalism developed in the following decades. During the 1920s and 1930s photography gained a lot of media’s recognition. It was not only due to the

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photographs gained “the status of content, fully integrated into the journalistic enterprise” (2002, p. 141). Photographs no longer served as an addition to text, that compliments the written content, but as an element that can tell a story alone.

Magazines were the ones to fully take advantage of the photography’s triumph in journalism, especially editions such as National Geographic Magazine, Life and Vanity Fair (Carlebach, 1992). What is more, as magazines pay more attention to design and layout, and accommodate longer stories with better quality photographs, they provide space for photography to fully unfold its capacity. According to Carlebach (1992) magazines experimented with different forms and styles, with artsy and documentary photography, and numerous non-newsy topics, which definitely transformed the standard understanding of photojournalism. Instead of the well known portraits, landscapes and stills, publishers emphasized on more action pictures and sequences. Most of the photographs were emotional, rather than informative, and close-ups cropped in extravagant shapes dominated.

Journalistic standards and norms influenced the process of photographs creation, but images also impacted mass media. The role of photographs in journalism is not only to inform readers and serve as evidence to events, but what images really do is to explain complex issues, or settle and unsettle stereotypes in order to make information more digestible (Mendelson and Darling-Wolf, 2009). Here photographs act as schemata, “a cognitive structure that represents organized knowledge about a given concept or type of stimulus” (Fiske & Taylor, 1984, p.139). Journalists often use schemata in order to convey messages easier. Graber (1987) supports the role of schematic processing, but highlights that without the use of photographs, the audience will have a difficult time when bringing up an image in their head.

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authority under question, but also the fact that he/she had to take into consideration some main journalistic norms such as objectivity that presented a great challenge.

How photographs correspond to the ideal of objectivity

Photographs gained acknowledgement in journalism mainly because of their level of authenticity. They were seen by publishers as evidence of what is out there, while the viewers observed photos as a “simple and objective mirror of reality” (Lutz and Collins, 1993, p. 8). While text can create fictional objects and words cannot prove if they are real or not with such ease, photography simply shows that this object exists. This relation to “the real” corresponded to the claim of objectivity, „a moral ideal, a set of reporting and editing practices, and an observable pattern of news writing” (Schudson, 2001, p. 149). Journalists commit themselves to this moral ideal while leaning on “formal codes of professional ethics” (Archetti, 2011, p. 17) that guide them to report facts and remain impersonal. The foundation of objectivity in journalism was closely connected to the emergence of professionalism (Lippmann, 1920). The mass commercialization of the newspaper in the late 1880s and the rise of the penny press created the need for

professionalization. What is more, the adherence to objectivity was also seen as a cure to the partisan point of view in reporting which resulted in a biased coverage and propaganda (Schudson, 2001). According to Schudson, the creation of this ideal represented a way to deal with the complex situation when the authoritative nature of facts was under

consideration and the voice of the subjective was getting more powerful.

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practices were a driving force in photography’s attempt to mirror reality. And vice versa, photographs responded to objectivity’s main appeal for providing nothing more but facts.

However, it did not last long until the usage of photographs started to be associated with the tabloid press and broke “with our traditional understanding of news photography as a servant of the ideal of objectivity” (Åker, 2012, p.325). Large sensational images occupied the front pages of newspapers provoking critics to claim that the public was getting used to looking at photographs instead of reading text – a phenomenon announced as the dumbing down of the readers (Carlebach, 1992).

Photography’s supposed objectivity has dominated until it was claimed that photographs are tools and interpretations instead of facts. As a result photography

provoked traditional journalism. The manipulation of a shot turned into a great challenge for “journalistic responsibility” and the so called “quality press”. As Åker states, all these large photographs, which spread on the front pages put to a test the role of the newspaper as “an authoritative voice, a mediator and interpreter of the outside world” (Åker, 2012, p. 325). As a result, the journalistic claim of objectivity was under threat, replaced by the tabloids’ way of using photography as an emotional manipulation and a sensational spectacle. What is more, visuals were described as photographer’s interpretations of the world, products, subjective in nature, designed to promote certain ideas or even act as propaganda (Tagg, 1993). Eventually, all these critics influenced the creation of the movement “New Objectivity” that suggested a photograph is an expression of the photographer’s consciousness who does not manipulate the shot but instead captures a phenomenon in the right time from the perfect angle in order to show hidden truths (Åker, 2012).

Due to these factors the credibility of photographs has been increasingly becoming questionable. With the evolution of technology and software the chance to manipulate a shot in order to either attract the audience or falsify facts is rising. The truth is we can no longer be absolutely sure if what we see is real or a plot of the imagination of a

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newsrooms did not agree with this ideal (Ekecrantz and Olsson, 1994). The critics against this norm claimed that objectivity is too demanding. It restricts journalism to only facts reporting and fails to provide readers with analysis and interpretation (Ward, 2006). Later on it was already clear that the fulfillment of absolute objectivity is impossible.

Even though photographs can be photoshoped or simply manipulated through different composition techniques most of the viewers still believe that a shot presents an exact copy of what was there in front of the camera. Nothing more, but a fact. The truth is, this is exactly where the ultimate power of а photograph lies. To convince the reader that it is objective evidence of the world. When it comes to portraying an issue in media, the viewer assumes that a certain way of covering an object is the closest one to what it really is. This is a result of all journalistic norms that promise to provide the truth, and the power of an image to persuade the audience in its credibility.

However, the photography portrayal of an object depends not only on the sole facts, but how these facts will be delivered. What is more, the concept of media framing provides an alternative understanding to the old objectivity and bias paradigm, and helps us

understand what is beneath the surface (Reese, S. D., Gandy, O. H., & Grant, A. E. , 2001). How a photograph is framed also corresponds to its ability to influence the viewer. Also, through the usage of different framing devices one can enhance the feeling of objectivity or subjectivity.

1.6. Visual Framing in photography

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enforce certain messages through the influence of its composition. What is more, “inclusion of a forceful image or the variance in head angle and gesture of the human subject can impact on critical or positive evaluations of the depicted individual or group” (2010, 71). Understanding how photographers apply visual framing to convey a message through a shot is a key part of a visual analysis as it assists comprehending the meaning of a

photograph. However, framing theory has been central when researching media texts and when it comes to visuals, framing analysis is relatively less exercised (Grady, 2008) as the study of visual framing is rather complex “due to the ambiguity in measuring variables and the overall subjective nature of visuals” (Fahmy, 2013, para. 1).

To delve further into the notion of visual framing it is important to first outline what framing refers to in media. Framing is a cognitive process that simplifies complex problems in order to make them understandable for the audience (Jang, 2013) and work as a sense making process. To do this framing structures match cultural codes and the existing

knowledge of the society (Strömbäck, Shehata and Dimitrova, 2008). They organize, inform and shape social discussion (Gamson, 1992). As Reese states, “frames are organizing

principles that are socially shared and persistent over time” (2001, p.11). Frames navigate our understanding of issues as they emphasize what is important or not. Whether a certain frame is dominant or downplayed depends highly on the society and its political culture. Different frames focus our attention on different issues. When observing this notion it is impossible not to focus on the elaborations of one of the father’s of this concept. Robert Entman states that the usage of certain frames ““select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text” while framing effects promotes a “particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation’” (1993, p. 52). When journalists choose to emphasize a certain aspect or suppress it they consciously seek to increase or limit the importance of that event, “making a piece of information more noticeable, meaningful, or memorable to audiences” (Entman, 1993, p. 53).

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the objects depicted within ‘into a coherence’, a ‘decisive moment” (Parry, 2010, p. 69). In this sense, framing applies to the composition of a photograph5_{. As Parry (2006) states,} when a photograph is taken, what is captured in the frame is what the photographer thinks is important. According to Burgin (1982), “the structure of representation – point-of-view and frame – is intimately implicated in the reproduction of ideology “(p. 146).

Photographers can choose how to frame an image in terms of shooting and selection, but they cannot choose how to frame it the larger context (Meiselas, 1987). When viewing at a photograph, the reader is seldom aware of the decision-making process of the

photographer such as camera angle, focus and distance. According to Burgin (1982), an image is decoded “instantaneously” and “naturally” (p. 147). Parry adds that for the audience a photograph “is not a compact reproduction of ‘reality’, but an example of a signifying system, whose conventions are so familiar that we do not realize we are adhering to them in looking” (2010, p. 69). That aspect of visual framing, as part of the photograph’s composition is of key importance how the message will be conveyed and perceived by the viewer.

Besides text, photographs can also operate as framing devices as they also use rhetorical tools such as symbols, metaphors and depictions (Rodriguez and Dimitrova, 2011). These devices make an idea stand out and leave an impression in the viewer (Entman, 1991). Visual frames act as windows to the world that is seen through the

perspective of the photographer (Parry, 2010). In fact, photographs are “powerful framing tools because they are less intrusive than words and as such require less cognitive load” (Rodriguez and Dimitrova, 2011, p. 50). According to Rogers and Thorson (2000),

photographs give the first impression to a story and are the ones to be best remembered, because of their high attraction value. As Wischmann says, images are “capable of not only obscuring issues but [also] of overwhelming facts” (p. 70). This idea also links to

photographs’ connection to objectivity and power. It is exactly where the strength of images lies – to be so powerful that can even suppress the need for facts and objectivity.

5

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Gamson and Stuart (1992) add that visuals offer “a number of different condensing symbols that suggest the core frame” of the issue (p. 60). Images can activate ideas or thoughts as they carry “excess meaning”, and they possess an “accepted shared meaning within a culture as they resonate with its members”, as a result the viewer may easily comprehend the visual frame (Rodriguez and Dimitrova, 2011, p. 50). The reason for this is, photographs are observed as closer to reality and are powerful enough to “stronger

emotional and immediate cues” (Rodriguez and Dimitrova, 2011, p. 50).

To conduct a visual framing analysis Rodriguez and Dimitrova (2011) suggest four levels of visual framing in order to identify frames within an image. The first level that defines “visuals as denotative systems”, observes images as “visual sensations or stimuli that activate the nerve cells in the eyes to convey information to the brain” (Lester, 2006, p. 50). Simply said, this level describes the visual materials and determines what is being represented in the photograph. This is a process when the first layer of meaning is

researched and special attention is paid to frames that assist interpretations. As Rodriguez and Dimitrova state “frames are deciphered by recognizing who or what is actually