photo.graph.art.design

 Media representation stands as a fundamental concept in understanding how our perceptions of reality are shaped and disseminated by media images. It refers to the intricate process through which media images construct a particular version of reality through deliberate selection and anchorage. And audience through repeated watching of these media images take them as the reference and representation of reality. At its core, media representation is not a neutral act of mirroring reality but an active process of construction. Every image, narrative, or soundbite presented by the media undergoes a process of selection —deciding what to include and what to omit—and anchorage —the way in which meanings are fixed or guided through accompanying text, voiceovers, or contextual framing. This selective and anchoring process is rarely devoid of underlying perspectives. Instead, it is often influenced by specific angles, prejudices, agendas, or ideologies, whether overtly stated or subtly embed...

 Mass Media today is interplay between technological infrastructure and creative expressions. Mass media, defined as channels of communication designed to reach large audiences, has undergone profound transformation in recent decades. What began as predominantly print-based communication has expanded into a multifaceted ecosystem encompassing visual, audio, and interactive modes of engagement. This essay explores the dialectical relationship between media platforms and content, arguing that the two elements exist in dynamic tension—with platforms shaping content possibilities while content innovations drive platform evolution. As Marshall McLuhan famously observed, "the medium is the message," suggesting that the vehicle of communication fundamentally alters how we perceive and process information. This principle remains relevant as we navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape characterised by both institutional and user-generated content. The Architecture of Mass M...

 The article, The difficulty of documenting a tragedy, discusses the challenges photojournalists face when covering tragedies and disasters. The author, Thulasi Kakkat, notes that most journalists have no training in saving lives or rescuing people during emergencies. Yet they are compelled to rush to the scene of accidents and calamities to document the events unfolding. At the site of a disaster, a photojournalist is expected to remain objective and convey the reality of the situation through images, even though they may be confronted with disturbing and emotional scenes. The article cites the example of a photojournalist who covered a building collapse in Kerala, India, where several construction workers were trapped and injured. The journalist wanted to get an image of the workers caught under the debris, but felt conflicted about his responsibility to simply document versus intervene to help. Kevin Carter lived this conflict. His photograph of a dying child, The Vulture and t...

 Photographs of happenings that have news values, and reported immediately. Photography of unexpected occurrences / spot news, or breaking news.  Most news photographs also have documentary value.  Thus serious news photographers are also documentary photographers. Study the PDF below (for academic use only) News Photography PDF Why do we need news photography? The story becomes tangible with a picture: A picture can let the reader see what a person, or a place, or a building, or an event looks like. The picture shows the news. The page becomes attractive and inviting to read: Newspapers without pictures do not make the news easy to read. A page without a picture is just a slab of grey text. It looks boring and many people will not bother to read what is written on it. Provides evidence for the event reported: Since the readers can see it with their own eyes, the photograph takes them to the place of action, and familiarizes them with people and happenings. Two types of ...

 Photojournalism had its birth in conflicts and war. Study the PDF below (for academic use only) History of Photojournalism PDF The first photograph to be used in illustration of a newspaper story was a depiction of barricades in Paris during the June Days uprising, on 25 June 1848. The photo was published as an engraving in L'Illustration , 1–8 July 1848. During the Crimean War in 1855, the British Government hired the photographer Roger Fenton to document the war. People like him were called as Campaign Photographers. The First Photojournalism Series was by Roger Fenton during Crimean war, 1855. Roger Fenton can be described as the first war photographer. Roger Fenton didn’t show the cruelties of war but everything around it. It was not just because of the technical limitations of his equipment. The British Government didn’t hire Roger Fenton to simply document the war, but to portray it in a positive and romantic way. The first complete series in the history of photojournalism w...

 The Nobel Peace Prize 2021 goes to two fearless, tireless fighters. They kept fighting so that the mass manipulation and tyranny of the powerful and rich are exposed; and the masses are left with some chances of living in truth and peace.  As a teaching faculty in the department
 of Mass Media I have the privilege of attending talks, webinars, and interactions by eminent and not so eminent journalists and media practitioners. Yesterday, for example, we had a webinar on ‘Women in Media’ by Sandhya Menon, who passionately and with great detail spoke about her call as a journalist, and her beginnings as a news reporter. She completed her talk and it was time for interaction and questions. And this time too, with no exception to other times, the same question was asked
in apprehension and fear by the journalism students, ‘what are the major challenges we encounter as journalists today? And how do we face them? Answer to the first question is easy because there are depressingly pl...

  He saw an awful lot of things. What happens to a person committed to seeing realities, and helps others to see the same. Danish Siddiqui is a case study.   He began not knowing that he was beginning. He began with a borrowed camera, and black and white rolls bought with his pocket money; he just captured images around him, clicked pictures during his school trips. He was unaware of what was coming; but he definitely had an eye for seeing. He wanted to tell stories. He enrolled in a film school, made good use of the photography classes. Worked as a television journalist with a news television network. He saw his calling in photojournalism. Apart from the initial inputs in college, he was mostly self-taught. He took risks, kept experimenting; and finally he had arrived. He kept going places with the best of photographers in the field. World journalism got a brave, fearless son –Danish Siddiqui. Every child does not have the same undeterred path to destiny, ‘I was more fortunat...

 Narrative photography proposes that an image or a series of images can make unfold a story; or make many stories unfold.  It is visual storytelling through photographs. Narrative Photography The question is whether photographs are capable of telling a story? Photography captures single discrete moments; therefore there is no narrative (that which has beginning, middle, and end. Narrative is irreducibly durative). Photography is only a face. How can one look at it and think, feel, or intuit what is beyond it? The camera's rendering of reality hides more than it discloses. Everything that we see hides another thing, Rene Magritte .  Only that which narrates can make us understand; photography does not narrate, therefore photography cannot make us understand anything.  In photography, the photographer invites us to get meaning out of the picture; in truth the viewers are getting only their meaning to the extant of what they have seen, heard, and read. Photograph canno...

 Communication is the process of making our worlds more common. The biggest challenge of communication is to communicate meaning. Mass Media Communication is media organisations produce and transmit messages to large publics/audiences through a medium at the same time. Study the PDF below (for academic purposes only) Mass Media Effects PDF 'Mass Media Effects' is the influence of mass media on people’s thinking, lifestyle, views, beliefs, or skewing a person's knowledge and vision of a specific subject.  Every media content is a Constructed Reality for profit, propaganda, or for manufacturing consent. There are many Media effects. Some are subtle, and some are obvious. Propaganda Echo Chambers Representation Fake News Agenda-setting Priming Framing Hypodermic Needle Uses and Gratification Cultivation Theory Spiral of Silence Mass Media Effects