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University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol
Thursday 12th and Friday 13th July 2007
> Click here to view the detailed programme overview (online)
> Click here to download the detailed programme overview (pdf)
Conference Programme - Abstracts
Panel 9: Still Image
Chair: Prof Martin Lister
Representations of the Sami in photojournalism
Heli Lehtelä, University of Lapland (Finland)
photo journalism, representation, the Sami, otherness, content analysis
The Arctic is an active region with innovative people and resilient communities – but how is all this represented in photojournalism? Photojournalism is a powerful medium. Indeed, people outside the Arctic build their view of the area mostly through the news. News photos are representations which affect emotions. They engender meanings about reality and settings more subtly than texts.
The aim of the study is to find out how photojournalism creates power relationships. Photojournalism is making value judgements on issues, groups and persons through the size of the photos, settings, poses, depicted roles, and simply by choosing who is photographed. The material to be analyzed consists of news photos published in the Arctic press, in this case the issues of Lapin Kansa appearing in the year 2006.
I am interested in the news items dealing with the Sámi and how this ethnic minority is depicted in those representations. What kind of judgemental issues exist in the representations of the Sámi? For example are the depicted roles comparable to the real roles of the Sámi where occupations are concerned? Who takes on the active roles with power and who the passive ones? I use the concept of “otherness” for finding out priorities. Is there otherness between Finns and the Sámi or even among the Sámi for instance in relation between women and men?
Raiding the myth kitty?
Jonathan Milburn, University of Dundee
painting, myth, lyotard, ossian, art
Between the 15th and 19th Century, mythological painting prospered across Europe. Greek, Roman and finally Celtic myths were appropriated, re-interpreted and re-envisaged through painting practice.
Cultural theorist Svetlana Alpers (1970), identifies hegemonic tendencies within mythic painting, conceiving them as consumer objects, with little contribution to social or political change. Alternatively, Lyotard (1971) has described paintings as having the potential to transform cultural concepts.
This paper consequently examines mythological painting’s capacity to transform cultural tensions, pluralities, and contradictions within a cohesive framework. It addresses issues of pluralism, multiculturalism, and social fragmentation, comparing paintings of the Ossian myth at the start of the 19th century, to selected contemporary paintings that represent themes of cultural difference and eclecticism. The role of the Ossian myth paintings in determining Scottish cultural identity and changes of the time is discussed.
In 1765, James Macpherson published his reinterpretation of Celtic mythology in ‘The Works of Ossian’. The myth resonated throughout European culture: a tale of forgotten heroes, pathos, and nostalgia for a Golden Age. The impulse for Ossian was in part a response to Macpherson’s personal fragmentation, when Europe’s intellectual confidence in the enlightenment was also separating (Macdonald, 2000). Artists such as Girodet (1767-1824), Gerard (1770-1937) and Ingres (1780-1867), represented the Ossian Myth in their paintings, portraying Romantically the European cultural transformation of the time. Since historically mythical painting seems to have supported cultural, social, and political change
(Lyotard, 1971), what can contemporary painting learn from integrating myth into its practice?
British press and the Iraq war: tensions in developing a model of visual framing analysis
Katy Parry, University of Liverpool
visual framing, iraq, press photography
My project examines the photographic coverage of the Iraq War in the mainstream British press, investigating the diversity of the imagery and how narratives or ideologies are promoted in visual news discourse. This approach presents tensions in terms of methodology due to its interdisciplinary nature. Whilst employing a content and framing analysis approach that is able to chart the presence or omission of certain subjects and themes across diverse media, traditional readings of visual images reject an empirical or statistical approach and instead favour close interpretative consideration of selected examples. In attempting to find the balance between these two methods I hope to form a methodology encompassing the benefits of both. This paper discusses how I intend to handle the problems inherent in analysing of a large corpus of images, searching for symbols or visual cues that promote culturally resonant understandings of distant conflict.
Constructing ambiguous photographs
Vasileios Kantas, Wimbledon College of Art, UAL
staged photography, ambiguity, directorial strategies
My research project aspires to unfold the volitional act of imbuing ambiguity in staged photography. Given that the photograph is the fallacy par excellence, and that the study of fallacies is identified with the study of rhetorical figures, I search for directorial strategies related to rhetorical devices.
Considering Photography as a language, the methodology towards the understanding of how a sense of ambiguity is produced will borrow elements from two disciplines who have dealt with this issue:
Semiotics, as a structural foundation, by considering the photograph as a visual utterance, and
Psycholinguistics, as a guidance into how a spectator perceives a stimulus as an ambiguous one.
The understanding of the above notions, will provide potentially existing devices, which my practice aspires to realize, having firstly traced and analyzed existing directorial strategies in contemporary photographic practice, via the method of 4 case studies on cutting edge artists in this field of inquiry. A Collective case design was chosen to encompass their practice, and the sources of evidence to be used are documentation, interviews and physical artifacts.
The paper will have the form of a power point presentation , clarifying linguistic typologies of ambiguity and showing samples of photographic work produced until now.
Panel 1: Imperialism and Globalisation
Panel 2: Online Citizens and Democracy
Panel 3: Television Audiences
Panel 4: Mediating Identity 1
Panel 5: Reporting the Conflict
Panel 6: Journalism and Social Responsibility
Panel 7: Sexual Representations in Cinema
Panel 8: Popular Culture
Panel 9: Still Image
Panel 10: Branding, Advertising and Corporate Cultures
Panel 11: Film and Theatre
Panel 12: Alternative Film
Panel 13: Feminism, Gender and Identity
Panel 14: Fan Culture and Online Audiences
Panel 15: Public Service Broadcasting and Radio
Panel 16: Design for Screen
Panel 17: Uses of Music and Sound in Film
Panel 18: Mediating Identity 2
Panel 19: Citizens, Interaction and the Public Interest
Note: Please be aware that the programme might be subject to changes. Please refer back to this page for a final programme overview nearer the conference. The final programme will also be communicated to delegates via email.
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