Sixty Years of Showing the World to America

Abstract

News photographs of international events serve Americans as a visual medium for understanding other cultures and countries. However, a content analysis of 60 years of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs reveals that the major visual themes of the prize-winning photographs depicting international news events are predominantly about war and coups. On the other hand, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs taken in the US reveal more diverse themes and subjects, although they, too, tend to concentrate on bad news, like crime and terrorism, social problems, racism and poverty. Based on the content analysis and personal interviews with the judges, it is believed that the Prize's most important determinants of international news photography appear to be violence and conflict with a consideration of the photographers' demonstration of courage producing the pictures.

Sesenta años del premio de fotoperiodismo Word Press Photo of the Year: una visión con perspectiva de géneroSesenta años del premio de fotoperiodismo Word Press Photo of the Year: una visión con perspectiva de género

“…Por ejemplo, las imágenes ganadoras del Premio Pulitzer entre 1942 y 2002 han sido estudiadas por Kim y Smith (2005), Buel, (1999) y Greenwood, K. & Smith, C. Z. (2007) quienes analizaron las representaciones dominantes en ellas.…”

Same events, two stories

“…Fahmy (2010) found that the International Herald Tribune's photographic coverage of 9/11 emphasized photos of victims, and its coverage of the Afghan War focused on the technical aspects of the conflict such as arsenal and weaponry. In their analysis of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs from 1942 to 2002, Kim and Smith (2005) found that photos for international news events were focused on war and coups, while photos taken in the United States covered a wider variety of themes.…”

“…Compared with the voluminous framing analysis of news texts, framing analysis of news photos has been relatively scarce. These studies mainly examined wars, conflicts and disasters such as the visual framing of the first Gulf War (King and Lester, 2005), the 2003 Iraq War (Fahmy and Kim, 2008;Schwalbe, 2006;Schwalbe et al, 2008), the coverage of the Kwangju and Tiananmen Square movements (Kim and Kelly, 2007), the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (Fahmy, 2010;Kim and Smith, 2005), Hurricane Katrina (Fahmy et al, 2007) and the Virginia Tech shootings (Fahmy and Roedl, 2010).…”

The Moment is Frozen in Time: Photojournalists’ Metaphors in Describing Trauma Photography

“…Further, the motivation for creating photographs that depict violence and disaster may also be reinforced by competitions for photographic excellence; greater than 65% of winning photographs in international competitions (e.g., Pictures of the Year International, Pulitzer) focus on war, coups, poverty, and social problems. Competition judges tend to reward the photographer's courage (specifically relevant in a crisis situation) when deciding on winning images (Kim & Smith, 2005). Organizations-and the status of journalists within those organizations-are built around gathering this type of breaking news, which appears to be the most significant journalistic activity.…”