On the Intersection of Politics and Visual Culture

“ if you really want to do a good work as a journalist or of visual journalist, or you know, someone that really want to tell the story of others you really need to spend time with this others. You cannot just arrived. Pretends to take a picture of yourself. So there is no life without spending time with these people without having to eat something together. So I think that’s all process of knowing each other will

also allow you that about the story because you would be able to be in all closer. The feeling of

this person or this person with trust you more and then you will have more like stories to tell or

you will have more access.”

This is how Sara Creta, an Italian visual journalist, sees good journalism and the way media professionals need to be telling stories of people around the world through their work. 

In this third episode of the Visualizing Conflict podcast we will hear from journalists and professors of journalism about their  experiences in documenting conflicts, and their perspective of good journalism in this context.

All interviews included in this podcast were conducted during the Visualising Conflict conference at the University of Copenhagen under the title Photojournalism and The Politics of Participation organized by IMS, the International Media Support. 

Journalists’ play a large role in shaping the world’s perception of events happening around the world.

Sara Creta sees that journalists tend to focus on people’s suffering from afar, without paying much attention to their feelings or their personal stories.  

I think you know this way of visualizing conflict. We are putting a lot of attention on them. On this like put rating the suffer and visualizing all this, you know pictures of violence or picture of to the creation of sufferance and for me, this is real. Doesn’t get to the attention of our viewers anymore. So I try to show empathy or I tried to show the simple fact that people for example survive the Mediterranean crossing that’s for me to live. So I try to celebrate this. So I’m looking for the they’re feeling of you know, happy or their feelings of thinking that in the future they can succeed or I try to you know, really took to show that there is this kind of resilience.

Nicholas Mirzoeff, a Visual Culture Theorist and professor in the Department of Media, at New York University, believes that visibility of underrepresented and misrepresented groups in media is important, and we need to develop new methods to tell their stories, and to create space for their self-expression and representation. 

the whole issue around visibility in appearance just to say there is an account between me and you but it's always an equal account. How do I learn to listen to you? How do I wait for you to speak to me first? How do I become aware of your needs rather than….. one of the affordances that a citizen journalism and citizenry game from the dissemination of information we can't deny it there is a possibility to supply different understanding it is available to us 

Therefore, how we understand each others’ experiences depends, to an extent on such visibility. Representation through media is important for it can help us gain a more nuanced and deeper understanding of our world and each other.

“It's about the way that we appear each other socially politically culturally and some of it comes with sound some of it comes with vision  all that process by the brain”

“For example… about friend running down the street and being african american and white privilege.]

So it really is a fundamental issue of How do we live our lives in relation to others? It's not simply about the sense of sight. 

Sara Creta also emphasizes the importance of journalists paying attention to the humanitarian side of a conflict when deciding to take photos or videos.

Let’s say I’m in the Mediterranean Sea, I’m going to search a rescue ship there is a search-and-rescue operation going on and suddenly people start to fall in the water. I’m not

looking for that footage. So I understand the from the point of view of what is happening. That’s maybe like the most shocking moment when you love the person drowning and his hands out. But at that moment I would think about showing life jackets. So I decided to you know to leave my camera and throw a life jacket and then when this guy would be coming out of the water or it would be, you know, surviving of this drawing experience. Then I will spend time with this person and try to understand..

Sara adds that we need to dig more into the details when telling people’s stories as it is the best way for journalists,  especially those covering war zones, to guarantee the accuracy of their stories. 

I think for this like in intimate way of telling the story and to go a bit behind this, you know telling the other that's the system that far that we cannot even recognize this face or we cannot even know the names like of these people. Sometimes you would see the caption saying a group of woman is waiting in line. But sorry, I mean if you are. If you're on the ground, if you're risking everything to tell the story of this people to others trying to tell the story that you want to say. And this duty of care is about also your subject because tomorrow this person can phone you and say that video I don't like it.

Covering stories from around the world depends on the messengers that put their lives in danger to live the situation with others and provide us as audience with the as accurate a depiction of reality as possible. This is a huge responsibility for those journalists. But it is also very important that this coverage matches the situation, relaying it with honesty and transparency.

You were listening to the third episode of Visualizing conflict podcast brought to you by SOWT . All interviews included in this podcast were conducted during visualising conflict conference at University of Copenhagen under the title Photojournalism and the politics of participation organized by IMS (international media support) with funds from Danish Arab Partnership Programme and SIDA, and the research group Images of Conflict, Conflicting Images at University of Copenhagen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication.

This episode was produced by Rabbie Hamamsah, Sabreen Taha, Mayss al-Alami and Tayseer Qabbani from SOWT podcasts.