Towards the end of the end of our Global Fellowship in Urban Practice class in the spring, we read Valerie Alia’s essay “A picture is worth a thousand….: ethics and images” from her book Media Ethics and Social Change. In sociology, social change is often described as the alteration of mechanisms within the social structure. Since my concentration in Gallatin focuses on how social change occurs in response to urban policies, I often think about where the potential for social change is stifled. While doing research this summer, I often came across photographs taken in the then-German Empire’s colonies. Just as the German Nazi Party orchestrated photographs in their concentration camps to convey a positive message, the German Empire did the same with their colonies. They tried to show that Germany was bringing order and increased productivity to unruly tribes. One way I have seen this portrayed in photographs is the documentation of Africans working on railways. Sometimes, social change does not have potential and is stifled. Sometimes there was simply no intent to make room for it.
In her chapter, Alia quotes Susan Sontag who once said, “‘The predatory side of photography is at the heart of the alliance… between photography and tourism.” I would argue that “tourism” could be replaced with propaganda. When there is little or lax media ethics, that is what photographs and videos become.
Honduran toddler Yanela Sanchez cries as she and her mother, Sandra Sanchez, are taken into custody by US border officials in McAllen, Texas, USA, on 12 June. Photograph taken by John Moore.
In April, the World Press Photo Foundation recognized some of the year’s “best” visual journalistic contributions through their World Press Photo Contest. The winner, Crying Girl, shows a young Honduran girl crying as she and her mother are being taken into custody by U.S. border control. Thanks to Alia’s chapter, I was able to make sense of my great discomfort with this photo winning the contest. The brief history of the camera in the beginning of Alia’s chapter highlights how tools of expression and resistance for people can be weaponized by the state for surveillance purposes. Furthermore, while photos can capture moments for historical reasons, it can contribute to the desensitization of issues if the audience is overwhelmed with the content. Somewhere within that second point was where my uneasiness with the photo came from; it exposed the trauma of a young girl and yet months later, this nation (as a collective) still holds oppressive practices towards immigration which breeds many more crying girls.
Last semester, I took a course in the Social & Cultural Analysis Department where we read a book a week about revolutions and uprisings. My favorite book hands down was Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 by Dr. Heather Ann Thompson. A large section of the book focused on the timeline of the uprising, including photographs taken at the time where men were actively being maimed by the New York State Patrolmen. Although the photographs were taken nearly fifty years ago, I felt as though I was somehow invading both the privacy and atrocity of the event. For that, the photographs made me feel as though I was somehow responsible for or contributing to the blood that was shed. That’s one interesting thing about photographs—they have the power to place you in a situation and invoke emotions out of you, sometimes making you feel responsible for things that were out of your control.
Recently, I have watched parts of Nazi Concentration Camps which is directed by George Stevens. As the Allies reached Germany, then-General Eisenhower ordered Stevens to take pictures and film the concentration camps. What was captured was later used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials. In this particular film, a photographer from Twentieth-Century Fox Films was hired to be document what the Allied troops saw when liberating German concentration camps. While watching, I couldn’t help but notice the emphasis on the humanitarian work done by the Allied troops who liberated the survivors. Ultimately the photographs and video footage did create social change although it was invasive.
The idea that bringing forward information (photographs) to the general public will improve conditions does not always work. Or rather, it does not bring immediate change. For example, yes, the Birmingham Children’s Crusade of 1963 helped galvanize attention to the daily brutality of the police against Black people attempted to exercise their civil rights, but countless people were harmed in the process. (If you could stop a tragedy happening right in front of you, shouldn’t we prefer to do that?) What do photos offer to conversations if they are not contextualized, providing reasoning for the urgency for folks to speak up about injustice?
This is a really rich topic to explore in social justice and human rights organizing, especially at a time when cell phone video and Facebook Live are being used by amateur image-makers to document injustice and atrocity as it is happening. I often share the discomfort you describe in seeing images of violence in wide distribution, or learning, as you did, that they are winning awards for their aesthetic value. I’m thinking of the Pulitzer prize-winning image of the young girl burned by napalm during the American occupation of Vietnam (https://allthatsinteresting.com/napalm-girl). The image had a complicated political context, as well as an even more complicated set of political consequences, but less is said about the ethics and voyeurism involved in photographing a naked young girl whose family was just killed. Can it be said that the photograph was “worth it” if it motivated the U.S. to withdraw from Vietnam? Are the photographs of concentration camp victims “worth it” if that leads to criminal conviction? How much can we rely on photographs as evidence if, as you point out, they can be staged for propaganda purposes so easily? I don’t have answers to these questions, but I think they are increasingly necessary to consider in an image saturated world. I’m glad you are asking them as you observe the decolonizing movements in Berlin.
I remember the first time I saw the napalm girl and it horrified me. If pictures like that can function as motivation for countries to withdraw from war, that says a lot about humanity.
Yesterday I was scrolling through Twitter and unfortunately saw pictures and videos of children in Mississippi who came home to empty houses because ICE took their parents. There’s a fine line between being respectful of these children’s privacy and making sure that atrocities like that are not swept under the rug. But where is the line? I don’t have an answer to that especially given the fact that politicians who can make the most change do not seem to be moved by anything.