Analysis of War Photography

Analysis of War PhotographyWar snatchy has existed since the ordinal century, when Roger Fenton set knocked out(p) to pullulate the Crimean fight in 1855. From the beginning of state of state of fightf ar icongraphy questions gift always been raised virtually their repre displaceation of the truth. Compared to groundbreaking day cameras the exposure time required to take a photograph ensured that action pricks were non possible. The range of mountainss could only be of dead on the field of view or posed for.This was apparent passim Alexander Gardeners photos of the Ameri outhouse Civil. The photographer, who created the disc Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War, was famed for staging versatile shots. The look which was subtitleed, The al-Qaida of a rebel sharpshooter was proved to get been staged. Civil war experts reviewed the send off revealing that Gardner had dragged the body into the shot and misrepresented his head towards the camera. The gun as w ell as within the image was placed st ordinategically by Gardner.During World War both the staging of photographs continued. The cameras used during this war were a signifi tailt improvement and allowed for action shots to be taken tho still questions were creation asked about the authenticity of some of the photographs. Yevgeny Khaldeis famous photograph of a Soviet soldier placing the Soviet Unions sag d induce atop of the Reichstag build in Berlin was in fact staged. The photo was taken three years after the Soviets had archetypically placed a flag at the top. The image was taken at such(prenominal) an angle to prevent baseing otherwise Soviet soldiers who were looting and the soldiers were handpicked by Khaldei.Another of a photo which is circled by rumours of being staged is the most reproduced photo in the world. Jim Rosenthals photo of the flag rising at Iwo Jima was claimed to be, too perfect. The image taken was not the first picture of a flag being raised. Marine photographer took the first picture of a flag being raised foregoing in the day while the marine were under heavy fire. Rosenthals photo was taken later in the day and pictured a ofttimes larger flag.There has always been a partiality of representation in major wars simply be perk up usually only one side is describe on by journalists representing intelligence activity institutes from the same country as the legions they report on. This begs the question of what is the purpose of war photography. Is it to allege the public or to provide morale for troops and the home public?The purpose of war photography has shifted throughout the years. During earlier wars photos were purely used to inform the public. Images were sent stake to keep the public updated on what their troops were doing. In contrast, new-made war photography, due to censorship and embedding, has become nothing more than propaganda. represent and altered shots are created in order to show the military machine in a incontrovertible light, therefore limiting the offence they create to the covering public.Other factors need to be taken into account, in order to jog whether war inform is purely for morale of the country or to inform the public, such as the safety of the nation. For instance the World wars threatened guinea pig survival, so therefore reports and photographs released and pened were intended to create a superstar of morale and keep the war effort going. This was mainly as everyone would put one over been affected by the war., while wars being fought in foreign countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan lead to a sense of anonymity as it is out of direct view of the public. Reports and images published from these photojournalists need to carry a veritable amount of truth to inform the public back in their home countries.The Vietnam War is known as the war that was lost on TV. The media was allowed to publish all kinds of images. During Vietnam the imperativeness was given remarkable immunity to report the war without all government control. Vietnam was the most heavily covered war in which reporters were not subject to extensive censorship. Pictures of decapitated bodies and civilians injuries were being broadcast back in America causing the public to think twice about the war that was taking place.President at the time Richard Nixon stressed this getting even by saying,In each nights TV news and each mornings papers the war was inform battle by battle, only little or no sense of the underlying purpose of the fighting was conveyed. Eventually this contributed to the fantasy that we were fighting in military quicksand, rather than toward an important and worthwhile objective.The tartness of the images was one of many factors that contributed to the Ameri hatful government losing the testament to fight on in the war. Many journalists generally reported what they saw both positive and negative, according to James Reston, journalists didnt think it was their mission to serve the war effort. The freedom they were given was interpreted in several different ways, with the majority account the war in a completely subjective way. Reston goes onto say, for better or worse it was the journalists views that prevailed with the public, whose disenchantment forced an end to American involvement.This was especially gravid in independent photographers, as they would not have an editorial agenda to adhere to. Inevitably during military briefings they would lose the idea of the big picture. Although it can be argued that military briefings are often thinly disguised as propaganda anyway.The general stance on reporting the war started to change as the war progressed. The longer the conflict continued the more graphic the images and reports were. The unsavoury and disturbing reports from Vietnam as well as conscription and the fatality rate led to many tidy sum staging an anti war balk and voicing their concerns about the war. The lar gest of which was at Washington DC when a reported two one ascorbic acid and fifty thousand people gathered in joint protest.Although it is claimed to be one of the contributing factors Professor Daniel Hallin of the University of California at San Diego conducted a study into the Vietnam coverage. He concluded that the war coverage was well-nigh completely sanitised on television, due to the need not to cause any offence to any of the soldiers families.As a response to what happened in Vietnam, the censorship put upon the press by the British government during the Falklands war was at an extreme. Every inch of columns and pictures had to be check thoroughly by army officials in the first place it was then passed onto the Ministry of Defence, who then proceeded to check it again before it could be published. The censorship in the Falklands was so extreme that it led to the give-and-take censored actually being censored. payable to the negative press that was created throughout V ietnam, the British government made a deliberate attempt to immobilise people knowing what was going on. The government were keen to project a positive picture back the British public and it did this by starving the press of any influential information. This was evident on the 14th of may 1982 when an Exocet missile hit HMS Sheffield. The military ensured that the news was delayed in stretchability the reporters present. All reporters were also kept at arms length any live footage sent back to Britain was shot from a few hundred metres away. Very few clear picture of HMS Sheffield were shown back in Britain. originally the invasion of Iraq it was decided that journalists would be embedding among soldiersThe concept of embedding reporters was an initiative proposed by the US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The concept was introduced after initial pressure from the countrys news media. The press were disappointed with the level of access that they were granted in foregoing con flict zones. The concept of Embedding reporters was not a new on but it was never carried out on this kind of scale before.After decision making to embed reporters among soldiers Rumsfeld explained the reasoning behind his decision,We need to tell the factual allegory-good and bad-before others informant the media with disinformation and distortion, as they most certainly will continue to do. Our people in the field need to tell our story-only commanders can ensure the media get to the story alongside the troops.The main concept of embedding reporters is that they would identify with the troops around them. all(prenominal) journalist would be assigned to a company of soldiers and would experience the war first hand in the frontline. Each reporter would be issued with military equipment they would also eat and sleep alongside their respective soldiers. By delegate a journalist to a troop, it meant that the reporter could be placed anywhere. This meant that the model of the embed could be decided by the military. Around six hundred national and local journalists were embedded with troops as they entered Iraq.The system of embedding reporters tended to have a psychological effect upon reporters causing them to lose the ability to retain objective. The system also led to reporters having tunnel vision especially when reporting on tactical operation. Journalists would only see one or two units in action, and therefore only reporting upon what they were doing. Gordon Dillow an embedded reported said, I fell in love with my marines I wasnt reporting the point was I was reporting the Marine grunt truth which had also become my truth.The followers images and articles will be analysed using Roland Barthes theory of semiotics. Building upon Ferdinand de Saussures linguistic theories Barthes constructed his own theory of semiotics. According to his paper Myth today (1957) the theory consists of a signifier, the mother wit and the sign. The signifier is the full term used to describe the image, which is being examined, and the signified is the term used to describe any ideas which are raised by the signifier, and the sign is the correlation of the signifier and the signified. Barthes also noted that anything signified by the signifier is culturally specific,Signifieds have a very close discourse with culture, knowledge, history, and it is through them so to speak, that the environmental world invades the system. Barthes (1967)This would suggest that whatever is being signified may change over time and that different people would interpret signifieds differently. For example within an Indian culture cows are perceived as a sacred holy animal, while in western culture the cow is simply a provider of food. Due to the fact that each signified is culturally specific Barthes theory also takes into account the uses of denotation and connotation. Denotation is a literal description of the image or object being examined while connotation is the ide as associated with the image or object.When analysing press photographs it is important to also include the caption, as Barthes claims that the image and the caption are two different structures. Barthes uses the terms anchorage and relay when referring press photograph captions. Anchorage refers to when the text within the caption, directs the reader through the signifieds of the image causing him to avoid some and receive others. Barthes (1977). Relay describes the addition of something in the caption, which is not actually present in the image.Barthes also included in his theory of semiotics the element of myth. Myth is depict as, a second-order semiological system. Barthes argues that moment is change integrity into two different sections connotations and denotation and myth is signification in the connotative level. Myth sees the signifiers in its raw form.Similar to signifieds myth is divided into two categories, the language object which is the linguistic system and myth i tself which is described as metalanguage because it is a second language which talks about the first one. Barthes described the use of myth as,When he reflects on a metalanguage, the semiologist no longer needs to ask himself questions about the composition of the language object, he no longer has to take into account the details of the linguistic abstract he will only need to know its total term or global sign (Barthes 1967)When using Barthes theory two competing myths can be attained about war. One myth is based upon frequent William Tecumseh Shermans quote that reads,It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for bloodWar is hell.The competing myth to this is that war can be fought in a morally unexceptionable way. Making a war morally manageable is minimising the risk to casualties and soldiers and hence political and electoral risks to their masters.By using various photographs and articles from differing conf licts such as Vietnam, the Falklands, and Afghanistan, this essay will use Barthes theory of semiotics to test the theory that images from non embedded reporters will support the myth that war is hell and embedded photographers will show that war can be fought in a morally acceptable way.