A Mensagem Fotográfica do Jornalismo de Viagens: metodologia qualitativa para avaliação de Alternativas Textuais

A produção e disponibilização de recursos de acessibilidade, como textos alternativos (Alt), são aspectos necessários para tornar o jornalismo mais acessível. O objetivo deste artigo é comparar a composição de fotografias jornalísticas de viagem com seus respectivos Alt para verificar se a função e/ou conteúdo fotográficos podem ser transmitidos às pessoas com deficiência visual. Para isso, fez-se uma pesquisa exploratória em cadernos de viagem de sites de jornais brasileiros, na qual apenas o conteúdo da Folha de S. Paulo apresentou o recurso em todas as fotos. Fez-se um levantamento das características de composição de três fotos e, com base no Paradoxo Fotográfico de Barthes, comparouse a mensagem imagética com o Alt. Observa-se que os Alt usados não substituem adequadamente as fotos, comprometendo a compreensão total por parte das pessoas com deficiência visual.The photographic Message of Travel Journalism: qualitative methodology for Alternative Texts evaluationAbstractThe production and availability of accessibility resources, such as alternative texts (Alt), are necessary aspects to make journalism more accessible. This article compares the composition of travel news photographs with their respective Alt to verify whether the photographic function or content is accessible to visually impaired people. Exploratory research was carried out in travel sections of Brazilian news websites, in which only the Folha de S. Paulo presented the resource. Hence, the composition characteristics of three photographs have been assessed and based on the Barthes Photographic Paradox, there was an examination between the photos message and their Alt. As a result, the Alt used does not adequately replace the images. Such inadequacy compromises the understanding on the part of visually impaired people.Keywords: Travel Journalism; accessibility; alternative text; visual impairment.

Picturing destruction at home and abroad: a comparative visual analysis of icons and news values during disaster

This study uses news photographs and interviews with journalists to explore how Australia’s unprecedented 2019–2020 bushfire season was depicted for Australian and non-Australian audiences in order to extend transnational understanding of iconicity’s tenets and how news values vary across contexts. It does so first by examining the Sydney Morning Herald’s coverage over 3 months and then by contrasting this with international coverage that began in early 2020 once the issue spilled onto the world stage. Australia’s coverage focused intensely on human actors involved in the disaster while the vast numbers of affected animals were virtually absent. In contrast, international media visually depicted the disaster as an environmental and ecological issue with global consequences. The results suggest a need for a definition of iconicity that is inclusive to non-human actors and to inanimate forces that are personified. It also extends our cross-cultural understanding of the visual expression of news values.

Visualization of disability in news photographs: an analytical framework

This article proposes a framework for analyzing visual discourses of disability in press photographs: the Visual Discourses of Disability (ViDD) framework. The development of this framework is based on an analysis of 670 news photographs of disability published in a Malaysian English-language mainstream newspaper. Within the ViDD, the authors propose the notion of perspectivization of disability: how elements in a photo are configured to frame the perspective of disability. These configurations can be placed on a cline, from perspectivizing to personizing. In addition, the cumulative attitudinal meanings in a news image can be placed on another cline, from enabling to disabling. The ViDD framework combines both clines to understand and explain how news photographs construe disability. This framework can serve as a tool for making informed choices in selecting and publishing images of people with a disability, and of disability.

Competition and Consecration in the World Press Photo Awards

This chapter focuses on the World Press Photo, a non-profit organization which organizes the largest and arguably most prestigious press photo competition in the world, yearly awarding dozens of prizes, which work as crucial institutional mechanisms of production and circulation of cultural value. Awards are relevant within such scarcely institutionalized fields as photojournalism, since they can raise value problems for jurors, winners, and observers. It is the whole vision of the cultural field—its meanings, values, and indeed objects—that is at stake in prizing. In the digital age, competitions and awards do not just reveal how news photographs are evaluated, but also what a digital news photograph actually is, or at least what nowadays it is legitimately supposed to be. This chapter mainly draws on an archival analysis of the last twenty years of the WPP awards and in-depth interviews with jurors, experts, and winning photojournalists.

Photographic (In)authenticity

Debates around authenticity within photographic discourse are persistent. Some have revolved around documentary photography, while other discussions focus on the ethical validity of digitally edited news photographs and indeed the photographic medium itself. This article proposes that discussions around ‘authenticity’ should be focused instead towards contextualising photography more appropriately within the creative practice of ‘making strange’. It acknowledges existing debates around photography and authenticity, before locating the discussion within creative practice. It then moves to a discussion, using Robert Capa’s ‘Falling Soldier’ (Capa, 1936) as a starting point, before drawing on examples from the author’s own creative and professional practice. In the process, the article argues that visual researchers embrace the challenges of making the familiar strange within photographic creative practices.