Getting the Picture

The current decline of print journalism, the rise of the Internet and the advent of digital photography provides the perfect point in time from which to reflect on the ubiquity of the news picture. Powerful and controversial, news pictures promise to make the world at once immediate and knowable. Yet while many great writers and thinkers have evaluated photographs of atrocity and crisis, few have sought to set these in a broader context by defining the news picture itself in all its forms. For the first time, this volume defines what counts as a news picture, how pictures are selected and distributed, where they are seen and how we critique and value them. Presenting the best thinking on this fascinating topic, this book considers the news picture through history, from its early form in the eighteenth-century broadside, through the press heyday in daily and weekly newspapers, to the rise of broadcast news and the current day. It examines the news picture in all its forms, depicting sport, fashion, society, celebrity, war, catastrophe and exoticism; and many mediums, including photography, painting, wood engraving, film, video and YouTube-based smart phone journalism. Packed with the best research and full colour-illustrations throughout, this book will appeal to students and readers interested in our rich visual culture.