Media Persuasion- Photography

This blog post is in response to the question asked in class, "should a photographer be subjective or objective?" Well, I do believe that a photographer should strive to be as objective as he or she can possibly be, but only because it is close to impossible not to be biased while taking photos that you are passionate about. Objectivity is important because it allows for the least amount of bias so that the audience can create their opinion on the photo without being swayed by its angle, lighting, or any other photography effects that allow the photographer's perspective to show through. So in this way, yes, a photographer should strive for objectivity. However, and most often, this does not happen. For example, when two people are arguing, it is nearly impossible to get your point across without a certain tone of voice and a biased opinion because you are trying to prove something. Unless one has not become close with a certain subject and is merely being factual, it is rare to not have your own perspective show through when you are talking. If it is easy for this to happen with words, imagine how easy it is to do this through pictures. When a photographer snaps a picture, they are usually doing so because they want to show the audience something. With that, and almost subconsciously, the photographer is providing his or her opinion through the picture they take. When you are watching the news in the morning and you see photos that journalists have taken of soldiers in Afghanistan, they aren't taking these photos just to take them. These journalists are taking these photos with motive; they want to show you the conditions of our troops and they want to evoke some emotional feeling from you. Through pathos, these photojournalists are providing their perspective that they hope will make you feel a certain way. This is why propaganda is, and has been, such a powerful force of persuasion. During wars, photographers aren't going to show our enemy struggling and in pain, unless they believe it is unjust and the war should be stopped. These photojournalists want to evoke a sense of pride and compassion from their audience for our soldiers. They want these photos of soldiers fighting for their homeland to make people feel pride and compassion. A great example of this media persuasion is during the Nazi propaganda and censorship, created in large part by Joseph Goebbels. The Nazi party censored and eliminated negative viewpoints from the media that could cause any potential threat to their power.  They made lists of books that should not be read by Germans and they ended up burning about 25,000 of them. They eliminated any pictures from the media that could potentially make them look bad. All in all, media persuasion is maybe one of the strongest forms of persuasion, especially in today's technologically fast-paced society, because of how fast it spreads and how "truthful" photos seem. The saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words" is extremely true. People take the word of a photo over just hearing someone say something. Whether or not that photo has been manipulated, well, no one would really know. So yes, photographers should strive to be objective for the sake of morale and genuinity and to allow for the smallest amount of bias. However, and as proven, this is almost never the case.