Chapter 3: The Imaginary | Representation and National Geographic

In 2016 I wrote a thesis for my BA in Photography titled:

The Poetics and the Politics of Imagery:
National Geographic's representation of place through Instagram.  

I've decided to revisit my thesis as it was something I enjoyed working on at the time. Some of my opinions might have stayed the same, and on other things I've definitely changed, so it's been really interesting to share what I wrote then. First, there was the Introduction. Then there was Chapter One: the Poetics, and Chapter Two: the Politics. This is Chapter Three: The Imaginary.

Imagined Geographies

‘Imagined geographies’, the item of discussion in Joan Schwartz and James Ryan’s book Picturing Place[1], evolved from the writings of Edward Said and his work on Orientalism. The term ‘imagined geographies’ refers not to something that is made-up, but is about perception. In a more specific relationship to photography, it is about how space and place is perceived through images.[2]

In the introduction to Picturing Place, the power of the photograph is highlighted in relation to the progression of transport at the time of photography’s inception; “Thus, at a time when steamships, railways and the telegraph made the world physically more accessible, photographs made it visually and conceptually more accessible.”[3] The theory implies that it is less about the view of far off countries that people were given, but how this view was a very selected representation of this ‘new world’. While travel writing had strived to describe unknown landscapes, once the production of the photographic image commenced it became an almost void mode of representation. Joan Schwartz in her text The Geography Lesson draws upon the writings of Antoine Claudet to describe how photography changed the culture surrounding the viewing of other places. Schwartz quotes that photography gave life to the “historical records of former and lost civilizations; the genius, taste and power of past ages, with which we have become familiarized as if we have visited them,” and that reiterates the last phrase in italics in order to overtly highlight how the language being used to discuss photography was clearly publicizing the medium as truth; ‘As if we had visited them’.[4] Photography was seen as a pure representation and a champion for positivist science. By keeping visual representations of these unknown countries to within a set number of socially accepted and expected ideals, it made these places conceptually easier for the viewer to approach. This point is made clearly by Ryan and Schwartz:

“Initial emphasis on the realism and truthfulness of photography effectively masked the subjectivity inherent in the decision of what to record, from what angle and when … and likewise veiled the power of photography to mediate the human encounter with people and place.” [5]

When images are produced to reflect social expectations and aesthetics, the results can be found containing very little investigation of the place photographed. When formulas such as ‘the rule of thirds’ exist for aiding in composition (with many modern cameras coming with the options of screen grids for better reference) the photographs made can be seen as simple reiterations of previous work and generations.[6]

Since the production of the photographic image began, specifically the making of exploration photography, aspects of the imagined geographies of these far off landscapes has shifted in relation to who or what is the focus of the image. Photographic practices still capture images of the landscape and ethnic peoples, and Schwartz’s view of the photograph being seen as “not merely … visual reflections of the ‘real’ world, or solely of the intentions of their maker, but as discrete moments in the production and circulation of cultural meaning, which call into play a range of processes, spaces, actors and audiences,”[7] still applies. The major change in photographs taken today is the change in cultural meanings, something that is expected and anticipated with time; and the space the image is viewed in has become digital media, the audience therefore limitless.

(fig. 3.1) Randy Olson. ‘Writer on Phone’.[8]

When large corporations like National Geographic produce images of people they champion as explorers in different parts of the world, the image, while still referring to the ‘otherness’ of the native people, is no longer the reason the audience consumes the photograph. It has now become almost exclusively about the explorer, about the westerners building an image of themselves that is exciting, attractive, morally pleasing, etc. The surroundings become nothing more than an interchangeable backdrop.  From this our gaze should shift to “the roles of photography in making ‘imaginative geographies’” and how this “involves blurring the distinction between the real and the imagined.”[9]

In (fig 3.1), the image is focused on the white western man working on his iPhone. The mixture of his tousled hair, dark dirt-coloured clothing, unshaven facial hair and level of assumed physical fitness all fit within the current perception of an ‘explorer’. The man pictured is a writer for National Geographic. The accompanying text is written by the photographer he was working with at the time and goes into great detail about the relationship between the two of them.

The location of the image and the identity of children surrounding him are only alluded to in the closing sentences of the accompanying text. The text and imagery can both be read as works of self-promotion; being told in a storybook style of the time and space travelled though together immerses you in their lives. The landscape is not important but rather the idea of these men willingly spending their time there, a place that one assumes will result in an uncomfortable lifestyle (as the image implies it is not as developed a country as their own).

While it is true that “we have interpreted the geographical imagination to be the mechanism by which people come to know the world and situate themselves in space and time,”[10] the imagined space no longer has a specific place. The imagery is not taken to document the native people but to document the Westerner’s experience there. The landscape within (fig 3.1) is interchangeable with the majority of other developing countries in Africa. It holds the tropes that are associated with such locations: ethnic settlements, rural setting, and non-western looking people. It is the western writer that the viewer is directed to have the association with and form a connection to.

Elizabeth Edward uses (fig 3.2) for the cover of Photography and Anthropology 1860 – 1920.[11] In work I have read surrounding this photo, parallels are drawn between it and a zoo – the young girl standing separated from the black males in their ethnic dress as if there is a fence between them. The image holds a strange balance of power: the child seems unthreatened by the men standing in front of her like a display. Likewise the men seem to be waiting as if they were captured wild animals.[12] Although there is a strange relationship being shown in the image, there is a gaze directed towards the males, even if it is the view of the terrible ‘lesser’ people. In comparison to (fig. 3.1), where the role of the native people is merely background material to raise the social standing of the writer, there is a visible shift in interest.

(Rereading this now, I find it uncomfortable, as I feel like I didn’t quite know enough to write about race in 2016.)

(fig 3.2) “S. Andamans,” 1911. Photograph by H.W. Seton-Karr, Royal Anthropological Institute of England and Whales.

The writings of Judith Donath in Communities in Cyberspace[13], although composed in the late 1990s, alluded to the importance of such characteristics as identity and connection in online social society, and are applicable to imagery today. In her essay, Donath writes about the idea of online identity and deception in virtual communities. She foregrounds the work by lying out some basic differences between the idea of identity in reality and identity online. In reality normally one can say there is one body and therefore one identity. The existence of multiple online social platforms results in people creating a range of new social spaces, each of which can be created around a different persona of the same body. Because there is such possibility for deception online, assessing whether information is trustworthy or not brings about a search for something that proves identity and credibility; therefore “identity is essential.”[14] The rational that identity and ‘truthfulness’ are interlinked is both aided by and further binds the link between photographic representation and ‘truth’. It is this that blurs the line between fact and fiction on photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram. From this point it is clear why the story about the relationship between the photographer and writer of (fig. 3.1) relevant. “No matter now brilliant the posting, there is no gain in reputation if the readers are oblivious to who the author is.”[15] It is this need for connection between the viewer and the identity of the individual behind the information that has lead to this shift in vision.

To further the idea of a connection between National Geographic and their audience, they have created their own online community for people to submit imagery to. The community, ‘Your Shot’, has the welcoming blurb of: “Welcome to Your Shot, National Geographic's photo community. Our mission is to tell stories collaboratively through big, bold photography and expert curation. Get started and show us your best!”[16] The publicity of their community builds on viewer’s aspirations to be create content ‘worthy’ of their brand, offering the chance for members to have their work assessed by their editors and professional photographers.[17] The imagery that is submitted to their community results in people mimicking their style of photography to achieve esteem. 

The uploading of imagery to multiple virtual spheres brings about a loss in ownership and control on the image. When the distribution of an image was restricted to physical mediums there was the possibility of destruction or loss of the photograph. Once again, with the advent of digital dispersion the power of photography has changed. To quote Schwartz and Ryan, “The same images, now preserved across a range of social spaces … continue to influence our notion of space and place, landscape and identity, history and memory.”[18]

(fig. 3.3) Ciril Jazbec. ‘Migrant Child.’[19]

On online social platforms, the photos that one uploads form a timeline and represents specific views to the audience. When viewed one after another, the imagery displayed forms representations of either people or places or ideas. When conducting my content analysis on National Geographic’s Instagram account, I noticed that there was almost no imagery of violence or war. (Fig. 3.3) is National Geographic’s only representation on this social media outlet of the current crisis regarding Syrian refugees.[20]  Depicting a child under what is assumed to be the yellow tint of artificial light at night, the photo was made at the standing height of the child, conveying feelings of overcrowding and stress. The expression on the face of the child is at a minimum blank and tired, while in my interpretation expressing emotions of confusion, loss and extreme exhaustion. Without reading the text, it is impossible to tell the gender of the child in this image. The combination of large eyes and lips with no visible facial blemishes places the child in a gender-neutral bracket. The child becomes an easy person to relate to when there is no gender restriction for the viewer to be influenced by. The gender neutrality of the boy could be seen as an appropriation of the cherub child and their angelic characteristics. The child, while being a refugee, can also be aesthetically pleasing for the viewer, possibly making it easier for the audience to form a momentary connection to the child.

To add to this consideration is the result on gender representation from my content analysis. In the content analysis, the Middle East and Russia were the only land areas to have at least an equal or higher representation of women than men. The relationships between the United States and both territories have contained a strained nature since 1945.[21] With a higher representation of women and no major acts of violence shown (that were not part of a cultural or ethnic ritual), the countries within these areas receive a new image. National Geographic is a company based in the United States, and the representations of these areas could be assumed to be part of an emasculation[22] process. Similarly to (fig. 3.1) these countries often act as an interchangeable backdrop with specific geographical locations not given, and therefore become an imagined landscape the viewer can edit.

It is not just the images created by companies such as National Geographic that hold an imagined geography, but also the images that viewers then propagate of themselves. The creation of their online identity is now centered around photographic practices, playing “a central role in constituting and sustaining, both individual and collective notions of landscape and identity.”[23] With ambitions of gaining higher popularity users will recreate imagery in the style of those they admire or feel they should aesthetically copy. Donath reiterates this point, writing that throughout the multiple social platforms, “Though the rules of conduct are different, the ultimate effect is the same: reputation is enhanced by contributing remarks of the type admired by the group.”[24]

New projects using Instagram as a platform have taken the theme of identity a step further. During August of last year (2015), an Instagram account belonging to a Senegalese migrant embarking on an illegal journey into Spain became viral after receiving coverage from large reporting houses. It was revealed then that the account and imagery featured on it were part of a campaign to promote the international photography festival in Getxo, Spain. The festival organisers hired a team to produce promotional photographs and videos, while at the same time raising questions about the use of photography in modern society.

(fig. 3.4) Image of the ‘migrant’ Diouf [25]

All the images on the account were self-portraits made by the ‘migrant’ Diouf, with each image showing different stages of his journey to Spain.  In an interview for Time, the organisers of the festival stated that the fake account was a way to show how the “narration of reality is always in the hands of people with power, not in the hands of people living that reality.”[26] It is such statements that echo the shift of view of non-Western countries, and relates back to one of the opening quotes from Schwartz and Ryan:

“Initial emphasis on the realism and truthfulness of photography effectively masked the subjectivity inherent in the decision of what to record, from what angle and when … and likewise veiled the power of photography to mediate the human encounter with people and place.”[27]

Images today remain tied into the same trap of only representing social expectations and approved aesthetics. We now consume photographs that are created to give us an instantaneous connection to a person that is easily relatable to, or to enable the spread of images containing the view of the world that we approve of and then mimic.

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Footnotes

[1] Schwartz, Joan, and James Ryan, eds. Picturing Place: Photography and the Geographical Imagination (international Library of Human Geography). London: I. B.Tauris & Company, 19 Apr. 2003

[2] When looking back to the landscapes from the Darwin article that was analysed as part of chapter one, there is a very definite tone and perception to the reading of these images. The imagined geography of what we assume to be a representation of the Galapagos Islands instills ideas of abandoned spaces and untouched wilderness.

[3] Ibid. p. 2.

[4] Cit. Op. Schwartz, 1996. p. 20.

Quoting: Claudet, Antoine. ‘Photography in its Relation to the Fine Arts’, The Photographic Journal, Vol. VI (15/06/1860), quoted in Gernsheim, The Rise of Photography 1850 – 1880, 66.

[5] In the introduction to Picturing Place, Schwartz and Ryan open by writing about how one of the major trends of the Victorian Era was to categorise and collect – and how the advent of photography in such an era heavily influenced how it would develop as a medium. Cit. Op. Schwarts and Ryan p. 3.

[6] Maria Antonella Pelizzai refers to tourist photography (and photography produced for tourists) as a ‘homogenous production’, indicating to the lack of creativity or unusual imagery that one would find in tourist photo albums. Ibid. p. 56.

[7] Ibid. p. 8.

[8] Accompanying text:

photo by @randyolson | I’ve spent more time with @neilshea13 in Africa than any other writer IN MY LIFE. Many photographers for @natgeo are almost most of the time working in far off places. But Neil and I have worked through the top od the Omo River in Ethiopia to the bottom of Lake Turkana over the last many years – walking into the same villages, travelling in the same car and staying in the same camps. I have great admiration for him and his visual writing. Maybe I can convince Neil to post some scans of his notebooks so you will understand how he works … he draws everything ... he approached situations like a documentary photographer ... sitting back watching the scene unfold and taking it in … burning the visual into his brain so he can write about it later … sketching away in his notebook and being and ambassador for all of us as I do my “Cyclops” thing (his words about how photographers are mono-maniacal). And just recently he has entered our photography world with a documentary on Kakuma Refugee Camp. He is off soon for another story, on refugees and I will continue to post Lake Turkana photos here in the hopes that the people we met will still have a place to live after the Ethiopian dam on the Omo river goes online. In the hopes that they will not be the next wave of refugees.

You can see our project archived at #NGwaterstories, which is linked to our feature on Kenya’s Lake Turkana in the August 2015 issue of @natgeo magazine. Join us @randyolson and @neilshea13 as we follow water down the desert.

[9] Ibid. p. 6.

[10] Cit. Op. Schwartz and Ryan. p. 6.

[11] Edwards, Elizabeth, ed. Anthropology and Photography, 1860 – 1920. New Haven, CT: the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 1994.

[12] Keeping in mind what Elizabeth Edwards wrote in her introduction, it is hard to analyse images from other historical periods and not apply possibly misleading contemporary views upon them:
‘New and very different cultural and epistemological contexts make it impossible, of course, to view the material with the same conviction with which it was viewed by contemporaries.’
Cit. Op. Edwards. p. 3.

[13] Smith, Marc A., and Peter Kollock, eds. Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.

[14] Ibid. p. 29.

[15] Ibid. p. 31.

[16] National Geographic Your Shot (2015)
Available at: http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/about/ (Accessed: 8 January 2016).

[17] Competitions are held on the site, but are renamed ‘assignments’ or ‘stories’. This rebranding gives the user a feeling of inclusion within the NatGeo brand, and possibly more motivation or purpose to their image making. While the style of photography that National Geographic propagates is further copied and revered.

[18] Cit. Op. Schwartz and Ryan. p. 6.

[19] Accompanying text:
Photo by @ciriljazbec / Last night I entered the temporary transit camp Opatovac on the Croatian-Serbian border. There was a group of people waiting for a bus to take them t the Croatian-Hungarian border. It was a cold night and some people were wearing blankets, and this boy looked up at me as he waited patiently with his father. Follow more at @ciriljazbec and @natgeo #refugeecrisis #migrantcrisis

[20] As of 01/01/16.

[21] In regards to the Middle East, the United States has been involved in a ‘counter-terrorism’ military campaign with several areas within the Middle East, stemming from the end of World War II. There has been a marked increase in their efforts after the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers.
Russia and the United States were the key figures in The Cold War, a time of political and military tension after World War II. Since the cold war relations have remained tense. 

[22] Derived from from Latin emasculat- ‘castrated’, from the verb emasculare, from e-(variant of ex-, expressing a change of state) + masculus ‘male’. Therefore, to make someone/something weaker or less effective from the idea of making more feminine.

[23] Cit. Op. Schwartz and Ryan p. 6.

[24] Cit. Op. Smith and Kollock p. 31.

[25] Accompanying text:
The superbike for the first stage. I don't know what will waiting for. Problems tears and cold but now im positive my friend hagi take me to nouadhibou. #ontheroad#travelgram#jujuy#nicetime#discover#explore#instagood#instadaily#exploremore#backpackers#adventure

[26] Laurent, Olivier. Creators of fake Instagram account showing a migrant’s journey speak out. TIME.com, 3 Aug. 2015. Web.
Available at: http://time.com/3982506/immigrant-instagram-migrant-journey-abdou-diouf/. (Accessed: 8 January 2016).

[27] Cit. Op. Schwartz and Ryan. p. 3.

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Chapter 2: The Politics | Representation and National Geographic

In 2016 I wrote a thesis for my BA in Photography titled:

The Poetics and the Politics of Imagery:
National Geographic's representation of place through Instagram.  

I've decided to revisit my thesis as it was something I enjoyed working on at the time. Some of my opinions might have stayed the same, and on other things I've definitely changed, so it's been really interesting to share and discuss what I've written. First, there was the Introduction. Then there was Chapter One: the Poetics. This is Chapter Two, the Politics. 

Digital Debates and Content Analysis

(fig 2.1). National Geogrpahic cover, February 1982.

I: Digital Debates

Digital photography as a medium may have been born in the 1960’s[1], but it was not until the early 1990s that it became a topic of discussion. In Stephen Bull’s book Photography[2], he talks about this period of debate, where many of the major writers of the time saw this change in photographic production from film to digital as the death of photography as a medium. He mentions in particular Fred Ritchin and his discussion of the National Geographic cover image on the February 1982 publication.[3] This cover featured two pyramids that were digitally moved closer together so that they could fit both into the portrait styling of the magazine (see fig 2.1.). This example of photo-manipulation received such backlash because of National Geographic's self-built scientific and truthful standing; it was a publication that was seen to practice ‘straight photography’, and therefore a place people used to learn about the rest of the world.[4] If the images they published were ‘false’ representations, then National Geographic would lose its credibility. Photographic critics in general saw digital editing as a challenge to the ‘truthfulness’ of photography. Bull uses the phrase ‘if there was smoke, then there was fire’ as an example of how, before this scandal, ‘truth’ was an assumed part of all photography. The birth of digital media was seen as the turning point for ‘truth’; just because an image portrayed something it was no longer seen as solid evidence.[5]

When reading Ritchin’s essay ‘Photojournalism in the Age of Computers’ it is hard to ignore his clear distrust of digital technology. His description of the powers of manipulation in digital media gave the impression that any person who walked up to a computer could manipulate a photograph in unimaginable ways, with supposedly no prior experience needed. It was this ease of use to create seamless ‘new’ edited images that seemed to frighten him the most. Ritchin goes on to defend ‘traditional’ methods of manipulation, implying that being able to apply traditional manipulations was a skill that required training and a deep understanding of the photographic medium.
Bull’s remarks that the critics of the time held an assumption of the imminent death of photography - and that this assumption has visible roots in Ritchin’s writing. However, Ritchin does discuss multiple paths that he envisages photography possibly advancing down, and it is this part of his essay I found the most interesting. Some of his ideas have become issues we face today, such as the dematerialisation of photography.[6] For ‘… with the absence of both a permanent negative … and a print, there is no archival document that ca be with certainty called an ‘original’ photograph.’[7] What many critics of the time failed to acknowledge in any great detail when discussing digital manipulation, was the clear editing that could be achieved in analogue photography - never were the likenesses between the digitally manipulated image and the negative collages of the Victorian era compared.[8] It's interesting to think that understanding how a medium works therefore grants the right to "edit". 

With the passage of time such worries and arguments regarding the differences between the two mediums have disappeared - mostly through the disappearance of film photography. As speculated by Ritchin, the growth of digital media has lead to the dematerialisation of imagery. Bull lists certain forms that the debate surrounding the need for physical form manifested itself as; is a digital image at its truest value when viewed on a digital screen, remaining within the medium it was made? Or has the loss of the print and it’s tactile nature resulted in a disconnect between the viewer and the image? Is a digital image still ‘truthful’?[9]

Since Bull published his book the growth of the online world has accelerated. The majority of imagery I consume on a daily basis comes to me through an online social platform. In an article published in 2012, The Globe and Mail states that “Last year, one billion mobile phones with cameras were sold around the world; it’s estimated that more than one-third of the earth’s population owns a digital camera,” continuing with “every two minutes, they snap as many photos as the whole of humanity took in the 1800s … All the pictures ever taken add up to about 3.5 trillion shots.”[10] Working in the visual arts and living in an increasingly visual society, I try and collect interesting imagery that I find. However there are such overwhelming amounts that even within my own collections pieces become lost. Many of the photographs or digital content I come across have been shared and disseminated so much that they are untitled and have no knowable ownership.

It is because of this onslaught of digital imagery that I have chosen to analyse photographs shared on online social media. The specific social media I'm using as a source for my content analysis is Instagram. As everyone by now knows, Instagram is an image sharing social media platform based nearly exclusively on smartphones; at the time of writing, accounts can only be created on a phone, and imagery can only be submitted via the smartphone app. All images appear in a live, stacked feed, which the user scrolls through. The idea of the app (clearly pointed to in its name) is that you are part of an instantaneous photo stream, both consuming imagery and submitting digital snapshots of your surroundings. Once the user has viewed an image it is unlikely that they will see that photo again. Judgment must be passed on the photograph immediately, the viewer deciding simply between acknowledging and ‘liking’ the photo, or scrolling past it.
Instagram is also of course now also run with algorithms designed to show you what you're most likely to "like". Since originally writing this Instagram Stories have been added to the app, but I'm afraid if I start falling down this hole any further, there will be no returning. 

 So, while this is all of a digital nature, there is still an interaction with the image – increasingly so with the majority of tech using touchscreens. To ‘like’ a photo involves double tapping on the image itself, and to move between the images you are pushing or pulling the photographs up and down the screen. Whether a touchscreen phone or not, the image being presented on a handheld device returns some of the intimacy of a physical image to the experience. Bull refers to such imagery belonging to a re-conception of the medium known as transient photography.[11] He writes;

It is a kind of photography most people now make, use and view most of the time … Rather than fixed, physical objects such as negatives … transient photography centres on virtual, changeable elements such as digital files that are produced, reproduced, transmitted digitally and not printed, but viewed on screens …[12]

Using online publication as a way of dispersing imagery is free, and therefore the most popular mode of publication. Because of the overflow of information now readily available online, it is logical that it is seen as the easiest way to find answers. In 1832, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge founded their magazine on the proposition that “cheap communication breaks down the obstacles of time and space.”[13] While information is now free, and available at our fingertips every hour of the day, I would argue that space in relation to place has now created new strands of time. Referencing back to the discussion in chapter one and Yi-Fu Tuan’s text Space and Place, ‘In Western society, a distant place can suggest the idea of a distant past: when explorers seek the source of the Nile or the heart of a continent they appear to be moving back in time.’[14] When images lose their context through multiple redistribution in online media, their time and place become lost, resulting in the viewer being able to choose where in time and space the image is supposed to function.

When examining content made to be consumed through physical publication and content for online publication, there is a distinct difference in audience. The audience of a physical publication results in the imagery being actively engaged with – they are sourcing the magazine, and consciously deciding when to look at the content. Images displayed on social media are something that are passively engaged with and not premeditated. Therefore images distributed via social media must balance between adhering to accepted social constructs and being visually stimulating so as to attract the attention of the passing viewer. All the images analysed in the content analysis of the next section are taken from National Geographic’s Instagram account.

II: Content Analysis

The method of content analysis is based on counting the frequency of certain visual elements in a clearly defined sample of images, and then analysing those frequencies. Each aspect of this process has certain requirements in order to achieve replicable and valid results.[15]

The above quote is taken from the writing of Gillian Rose, and gives a well-defined introduction to the idea of a content analysis. Content analysis is a method of categorising that, while originating as a social science model for written texts, is applicable to photography. In such a study, a body of photographic images is dissected with a specific set of rules. When all of the chosen work has received the same analysis, the results can be used to draw both qualitative and quantitative findings.[16] The method of content analysis was devised for the scrutiny of written texts and not imagery, and therefore I recognize that layers of the images used in this study will be lost when constricting them to the parameters of such an analysis. 

In her discussion of a content analysis, Gillian Rose sets out four steps to conducting a content analysis; (1) Finding the right images; (2) Devising the right categories; (3) Categorising the images; (4) Results and post-analysis.[17]

1. Finding the right images

As with all methods for analysing images, the images chosen must be relevant to the chosen topic. However, unlike other methods, content analysis puts further conditions on which images you use. To conduct a reliable content analysis, the image pool must address all the relevant images to the research topic.[18] This does not mean that every image must be analysed: a sampling method may be used on the image pool. There are four methods of sampling:[19]

·      Random: Each image is given a number. Use a random number generator or a random number table to decide on your selection of images.

·      Systematic: Selecting every xth image from the sample (i.e. 4th or 11th). This method only works if there is not already a cycle or pattern to the sample pool.

·      Stratified: Taking samples from subgroups that already exist in in the image pool, making sure to use a clear sampling method as you choose your imagery from each subgroup.

·      Cluster: Choose groups randomly. These groups are now your sample pool.

2. Devising the right categories [20]

• Exhaustive: Categories must cover every possible aspect of the image in relation to the topic being carried out.

• Exclusive: Categories cannot overlap.

• Enlightening: The results of the categories must provide interesting, relevant and clear data.[21]

To cover the three criteria above involves being clear on the topic you are setting out to discuss. It can be difficult to develop a set of categories that covers everything – especially when analysing a large selection of imagery. The sheer number of photographs means that it is possible for the analyser to not realise they are missing a category, or have created categories that can overlap in very specific situations, until they have categorised a large selection of images. I recommend conducting a trail run on the categories chosen.

3. Categorising the images

For analysing images through content analysis, the chosen categories must be replicable – i.e. that if someone else was to do the same content analysis with the same sample pool and codes, that the results would be the same.

4. Results and post-analysis

For a content analysis to become more than just a list of figures, results must be analysed and discussed in relation to other literature or photography. One concern often held with content analysis is that the only information people tend to gain from them are the instances where something occurs very regularly, while failing to notice when there is a lack of something else. For example, within my sample pool, all the imagery portraying the Oceania territory was taken in a rural environment, lacking any acknowledgement that such countries have progressed passed the stage of an empty colony and possesses urban centres and people.

For my content analysis I am using National Geographic’s Instagram account as my sample pool, including all images uploaded to that account from March 25th 2012, to the 1st of October 2015. Within this sample pool, I will be using the random sampling method to select images for the content analysis. [22] As previously discussed in regards to the digital medium, I have chosen to apply this analysis to an online photo-sharing platform so as to look at the impact of digitally consuming photography through a mode of mass distribution.

The Categories I am using to analyse National Geographic’s Instagram account are as follows:

• North America (United States of America and Canada)

• South America (Continent of South America, and Central America)

• Africa (Continent of)

• Europe (Western Europe as far and inclusive of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Exclusive of Russia)

• Eastern Asia (Exclusive of Russia, and the countries listed below as part of the ‘Middle East’)

• Middle East (the countries of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan)

• Russia (the country of Russia)

• Oceania (The countries of Australia and New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Papua New Guinea)

• Polar (Contains the Antarctic continent, and polar regions surrounding the north pole, and the Svalbard archipelago)

• Western People

• Non-Western People

• Male Subject

• Female Subject

• Ethnic Dress

• Urban Environment

• Rural Environment

• Ethnic Settlement

• Landscape (Imagery containing a wide-angled view of an area, with distinct fore-, middle-, and backgrounds that emanate a sense of distance. The image should relate to the original painterly representations of city- and landscapes.[23])

• Animal Focused

• Outdoor Sports

To discuss the frequency of representation of different areas I decided to divide the world into nine segments (from here on known as territories). I have not used solely continents as I feel they were too broad to give an in depth research. Within these territories I analysing the prominence of gender; the depiction of Western people in non-Western territories; and whether the people of the different areas are depicted as being different to the extent of either lesser or alienating in the eyes of western media.

I am able to conduct this content analysis because of the work Reading National Geographic by Jane Collins and Catherin Lutz.[24] Lutz and Collins conducted their own content analysis of imagery from the print editions of National Geographic, examining six hundred photographs published between the years of 1950 and 1986. Their work is one of the only well known large-scale content analysis of images, and it is their work that Gillian Rose draws on when discussing content analysis. 

… our book is not at all about the non-Western world but about its appropriation by the West, and National Geographic’s role in that appropriation. It is not about now “realistic” Western images of that world are but about the imaginative spaces that non-Western people occupy and the tropes and stories that organize their existence in Western minds.[25]

The above quote is taken from their opening chapter and defines the major aim that I feel links their work and the content analysis that I have conducted together. While their analysis spanned a much longer period of time, and is a more detailed examination of National Geographic, I believe that with the technological developments of the past twenty years, there is a definite difference to the imagery that Luz and Collins examined and the imagery I have analysed.

To conduct one cross-examination of results, in Collins and Lutz’s study they found that in the 1960s there was dramatic drop in instances where western and non-western people were depicted in the same photo[26]. They connected this to the worldwide conflict happening in that time period, where the foundations of the conflict were based around issues of race and power. [27] During my content analysis there where images containing both Western and non-Western people. However, there seemed to be a strict non-violence condition attached to the uploading of photographs for the National Geographic Instagram account, with no ‘Western’ people shown holding a firearm. The imagery containing both ‘West’ and ‘Other’ was always positive, but lacking activity - i.e. when West and non-West are represented within one image, only one is discussed. Lutz and Collins remark that the photographs that are chosen for publication are normally the public’s ‘vision of what was interesting or aesthetically pleasing’ and from there the audience’s opinion is ‘validated, elaborated, and heightened by its presentation as scientific fact’ through the imagery produced.[28]

The two instances where I observed the anti-violence policy being waved were images depicting mild ethnic rituals, and photographs featuring the protection of wild animals. The people within such photographs were solely people of a ‘non-Western’ background. In the images containing endangered animals (see fig. 2.2 and the endangered white rhino), the images were composed to show the animals as weak and vulnerable, with people in official military or veterinary dress standing guard with firearms. Such imagery highlights the plight of an endangered species, but offers no information on how to help the preservation or care of the creatures. The uniforms of the military guards remove the individuality and create a nonautonomous being.

(fig. 2.2) Ami Vitale, ‘Protecting the last male white rhino’[29] shown on the National Geographic instagram account.

Of the 782 images analysed, 762 had a distinguishable territory. Being an organisation from the United States of America, there is no surprise that 32% of the photographic content was from the North America territory.

The photography produced at National Geographic is generally classed as documentary and ‘straight’ photography. The premise of Instagram is the propagation of ‘snapshot’ photography, styled almost as a highlights reel of experiences. When examining photographic work from this viewpoint, the imagery produced by National Geographic is a mixture between documentary and snapshot, science and entertainment, which correlates exactly to their ethos ‘science and storytelling’.

Richard Chalfen’s research into snapshot photography is drawn upon by Bull to highlight that snapshots are only used to record positive life events.[30] Dave Kenyon’s five-category system for classifying snapshots is also referenced, where he states that because all imagery he has analysed is applicable to his list of categories, that photography around ‘everyday drudgery, the unpleasant or threatening experience, illness, discord’ is unjustifiably missing. [31] It could be implied that these ‘missing’ photographs are propagated within National Geographic, but are given the category of ‘exotic’. To be given such a term the imagery needs to be disconnected from the viewer’s sense of place. This idea of place and distance returns us to the discussion in chapter one, and how through distance there is a disassociation with the everyday.

(fig 2.3) Content analysis result: number of images per territory.

(fig. 2.4) Content analysis result: percentage of Western to non-Western people represented in each territory.

(fig. 2.5) Content analysis result: gender balance in the imagery of each territory.

Similar to the number of images per country, the gender balance of the analysed imagery is also unsurprising, with again over 64% of the photos containing a male subject. When looking at each territory, the only places where there was not a male dominance portrayed were Russia and the Middle East, where there was a close to even split between the two genders.

Every territory came out with a specific category being more dominant than any other. In the photographs representing the Oceania territory, 68% of the imagery was animal focused. Eastern Asia has the highest percentage of ‘Outdoor Sports’ content – however, many if not all of these photographs were related to Mount Everest and the Himalayas mountain range. In the Middle East, all depictions of non-Western people were wearing ethnic dress. In the results of the content analysis, three quarters of the images of Europe did not contain people, with half of all the imagery void of all human and animal representation. Instead the imagery focused on a romantic style of picturing wilderness and the landscape.

The representation of specific regions through recognised tropes presents ‘not just [the] topography but [the] ideology’ behind travel and exploration imagery; ‘the camera, like the pen and the brush, when wielded by Western travellers, depicted the world in Western terms.’[32] The imagery visible on National Geographic’s Instagram is a sanitized version of the world. In the following chapter I look further into the ‘West’ and its place within the imagery of the ‘non-West’.

---

Footnotes

[1] Bull, Stephen. Photography. 1st ed. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2 Mar. 2009. p. 20.
It is said that this is when digital experiments first started with NASA.

[2] Ibid. p. 21.

[3] Ibid. p. 21.

[4] Ritchin, Fred. “Photojournalism in the Age of Computers.” The critical image: Essays on contemporary photography. Ed. Canol Squiers. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 14 Oct. 1991. 28 – 38. Print. p. 30.

[5] Cit Op. Bull. p. 22.

[6] While some of his specualtion felt surreal as he hypothesised that huamn photographers would all be made redundant by the introduction of robot photographers.

[7] Cit. Op. Ritchin. p. 35.

[8] Bull brings up the writings of Lev Manovich, specifically his essay ‘The Paradoxes of Digital Photography’. He points out that digitally manipulated photographs were only ever compared to documentary analogue images, the style of images normally found in National Geographic. Through such examples, he declares that digital photography does not subvert normal photography, because such thing as a ‘normal’ photography never existed. Bull ads that in this mindset, Manovich’s theory could in fact reinforce photo indexicality in images that are seen to be free of manipulation. However, at this point we could return to the arguments that no image is in fact a ‘true’ representation of reality and free of manipulation, as the photographer decides which parts of the landscape to include or exclude, cropping, exposure times, etc. 

Cit. Op. Bull. p. 22.

[9] Ibid. p. 23.

[10] Anderssen, Erin. ‘Photo-overload: Everyone’s taking pics, but is anyone really looking?’. The Globe and Mail, [www Document]  

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/photo-overload-everyones-taking-pics-but-is-anyone-really-looking/article4365499/?page=all.>

(Date Visited: 18/02/2016) (Date Last Updated: 35/06/12)

[11] Cit. Op. Bull p. 27 – 29.

[12] Ibid. p. 28

[13] Cit. Op. Schwartz, 1996. p. 18.

[14] Cit. Op. Tuan. p. 390

[15] Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2001. p. 56.

[16] Ibid. p. 54.

[17] A content analysis is designed to be scientific through the ability to be replicable.

Ibid, p. 56 – 66.

[18] Ibid. p. 57.

This can call into question the representativeness of the images available to you. If you are conducting a content analysis on a specific theme throughout a publication, but have found a gap of ten years in the archive you are using, then the content analysis will not show a full representation of the theme you are looking at.

[19] Ibid. p. 57 – 58.

[20] In a classical content analysis, the categories would describe only what was clearly visible in the image. Rose refers to the content analysis conducted by Lutz and Collins on National Geographic’s physical publications during the years surrounding the Cold War era. Rose writes that they developed their categories in relation to the topic they were researching, making the results of their categorising immediately applicable. She goes on to say that whether the categories are descriptive or interpretive, they must fill the three criteria Ibid. p. 59

[21] Ibid. p. 60.

[22] Using a random sample, I have analysed 782 images, giving my analysis a 95% confidence level with a 3.5% margin of error.

[23] "landscape (n.) c. 1600, "painting representing natural scenery," from Dutch landschap, from Middle Dutch landscap "region," from land "land" + -scap "-ship, condition". Originally introduced as a painters' term. Old English had cognate landscipe, and compare similarly formed Old High German lantscaf, German Landschaft, Old Norse landskapr. Meaning "tract of land with its distinguishing characteristics" is from 1886.

Harper, Douglas. “Online etymology dictionary.” etymonline. n.d.

[24] Lutz, Catherine A., and Jane L. Collins. Reading National Geographic. 1st ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Print.

[25]Ibid. p. 2.

[26] Cit. Op. Rose p. 63.

[27] E.g. The Cold War, the Algerian War, and the Nigeria Civil War.

[28] Cit. Op. Lutz and Collins. p. 25.

[29] Ami Vitale, ‘Proctecting the last male white rhino’ [www document] https://www.instagram.com/p/3pPHQRoVV1/ (Date Visited: 10/01/16) (Date Last Upadated: 08/06/15)

Accompanying text:
Photo by @amivtale. Guards watch over Sudan, the last known living male Northern white rhino, at Ol Pejeta Conservancy (@olpejeta). In 2009, I followed four of the last Northern White rhinos as they were brought back to Africa in the Czech Republic. It was a desperate, last-ditch effort to save an entire species. When I say these huge, hulking, gentle creatures surrounded by smokestacks and factories in the zoo outside Prague, it seemed so unfair that we have reduced and entire species to this. Today, with only five left, extinction seems inevitable. It survived for millions of years, but could not survive mankind.
Much needed attention has been focused on the plight of wildlife and the conflict between poachers and increasingly militarized wildlife reangers, but very little has been said about the indigenous communities on the front lines of the poaching wars and the work that is being done to strengthen those communities. #LastMaleStanding

#whiterhino #savetherhinos #natureisspeaking #rhinos #nature #magicalkenya #Africa #animals #safari #wildlife #NikonNoFilter #nikon #nikonambassador #amivitale #photojournalism #photooftheday #onassignment @nature_africa @natgeocreative @thephotosociety @nikonusa

[30] Cit. Op. Bull. p. 86.

[31] Cit. Op. Bull. p. 85.

Kenyon’s suggested five categories are as follows: (1) Family; (2) Christmas (or religious/secular festivals in general); (3) Holidays; (4) Weddings; (5) Environmental (landscapes, animals, wilderness, etc.).

[32] Cit. Op. Schwartz (1996). p. 31.

Chapter 1: The Poetics | Representation and National Geographic

This is the second part in a series of mini essays - here's the introduction. 

I: The National Geographic Society

The National Geographic Society is chartered in Washington D.C. as a non-profit scientific and educational organization “for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge.” Since 1888 the Society has supported more than 9,000 explorations and research projects, adding to the knowledge of the earth, sea and sky.[1]

For many people issues of The National Geographic Society magazine were shown to them as a child, the bright vibrant colours alluring. It was, and still is, marketed as a scientific journal – words which in English carry the ideas of “truth” and “fact”. The articles and the images of far-flung places contained within its pages are continually absorbed by millions of people every year, and have helped form views of the world today.[2]

The quote above can be found as a standard introduction paragraph in a vast majority of National Geographic’s physical publications since the turn of the century. Founded in 1888 as a scientific journal, The National Geographic Society was not an illustrated publication until 1905. Set up as a scientific institution, the Society is a private body that relies on sales to continue running as a company. There are plenty of theories as to why National Geographic became successful, with most claiming it to be a combination of the following ideas. Firstly, the end of the nineteenth century saw the start of mass journalism in the form of monthly magazines (which would not have been possible before the completion of America’s intercontinental railway system in the 1860s) and the start of advertising within said magazines. Secondly, the Spanish-American War in 1898 caused American citizens to become more interested in foreign lands and America’s colonial expansion.[3] Skip forward to 1905 and a ‘revolutionary’ editor goes against the managing board and publishes eleven full-page images of Tibet, increasing membership to the magazine by over 7,500 in that year alone.[4]

Whether such claims are true or not make little difference because it reads as an exciting success story. The company’s mission statement proclaims to be an “organisation driven by a passionate belief in the power of science, exploration and storytelling to change the world.” National Geographic presents itself to the world as a storyteller. The articles and photographic content the magazine began to produce at the beginning of the twentieth century were designed to be consumed as small samples of the places and ideas they represented.[5] It was the idea that these small representations have considerable power to create a specific worldview when viewed as a whole that intrigued me to begin researching this thesis topic.

II: Ideas of Representation

Stuart Hall is a writer who has worked extensively with the idea of representation. The quote below is taken from his book Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices,[6] outlining the power that representation has on the everyday.

In part, we give things meanings by how we represent them – the words we use about them, the stories we tell about them, the images of them we produce, the emotions we associate with them, the ways we classify and conceptualize them, the values we place upon them.[7]

Human communication through language reaches far further than the words we speak. Our language encompasses music and objects, images and emotions, body language and written word - all of which allow us to share our opinions, ideas and feelings.

There are two prominent forms of representational analysis for photographic work: the poetic (semiotics), and the political (the discursive – the effects and consequences of representation). Semiotics is a form of communication; it is a study of sign processes and cultural codes. As Stuart Hall writes “It is we who fix the meaning so firmly that, after a while, it comes to seem natural and inevitable. The meaning is constructed by the system of representation”.[9]

This quote is an example of how through the repetition of a specific notion of representation, the representation becomes an accepted truth or assumed reality without further proof. And these meanings we affix are produced in a set way. To develop this train of thought, we must discuss representation on a fundamental level. To do this, we turn to Ferdinand de Saussure, the Swiss linguist who is known as a father to modern day linguistics. His ideas about representation and language also helped construct semiotics.

In interpretations of Saussure’s work, it is said he believed that the production of meaning depends on language; if things such as words and photographs are used to communicate ideas, they are part of a protocol. His theory centered on a sign (the protocol) being two parts. There is the signifier (word, photograph, etc.) and the signified (the thought of the object, person, etc. that then pops into your head). These parts of the sign are not separate, but create one idea. According to Saussure, this sign or idea doesn’t exist if it doesn’t have an opposite (or binary). As with traffic lights, the red you see does not hold the idea of stop; it is applied to it through its inclusion in the sequence. It would also hold no meaning without it’s opposite colour, green to ‘tell’ you to go. Of course this categorizing of things into simple opposites and binaries completely ignores the fact that there can be finer details than black and white. But it was this work that lead to Saussure’s “proposition that a language consists of signifiers, but in order to produce meaning, the signifiers have to be organized into ‘a system of differences’”.[10]

Looking again to Hall’s Representation, it discusses a specific example of the power of language in the 1960’s. [11] Discussing how an advertising phrase changed representations of black people during that time period, Hall argues that simply because of a popular slogan, ‘Black is Beautiful’, the signification of the word ‘black’ changed. While the word (signifier) black remained the same, social connotations changed around the word. This clearly presents how signifier and signified are not independently affixed meanings, but come from a hierarchy of social conventions specific to places, cultures, and historical moments. Meaning is not freestanding, but comes from the society.

Roland Barthes took Saussure’s theories a step further. As each sign develops in a culture, with its signifier and signified, this sign becomes the signifier for the next iteration or a deeper cultural reference. In the constant building of signs and meaning, each sign is returned to the beginning and the meanings continue to deepen and evolve. See (fig. 1) below.   

(fig. 1.1)  Roland Barthes, ‘Introduction to Semiology.’

This meta-data that structures culture, and forms what societies are built on, is the structure through which people witness themselves, and recreate themselves for consumption. In Orientalism by Edward W. Said, he foregrounds his work by discussing how this constant evolution of signified becoming signifiers of further representation have lead to todays representation of the Orient.[12] 

The idea of recreating for further consumption and representations developing naturally within culture is reiterated in Peter Osborne’s Travelling Light[13], where he discusses Dean McCannell in reference to tourism in the modern age. The creation of tourism imagery allows us to constantly review our existence. Osborne discusses the roles that tourism fills: its offer of ‘escape’ from the disassociation and pressures of modernity. The same can be said of the role of the National Geographic photographer. As specified earlier, National Geographic include in their ethos: “We believe in the power of science, exploration, education and storytelling to change the world.”[14] It is such sentences where similarities between National Geographic and Osborne’s writings of photography’s flirtation with representation are drawn. Both pieces reiterate this blurred line of fact and fiction. On one side, touristic imagery is an enabler for fantastical daydreams, while holding onto visual realism.[15] Be it their own imagery or photos taken for brochures, tourists see these images as both proof of events and circumstances, while accepting that the situations depicted in this imagery are constructed ideals, fabrications. Taking a quote from Jonathan Culler:

The tourists are fanning out in search of
Frenchness, typical Italian behavior,
exemplary Oriental scenes, typical American
thruways, traditional English pubs.[16]

There is this concept of searching for the perfect touristic image, and an act of detachment with this process. Between you and what you are witnessing there is the camera, a machine built to put order on what one sees.[17] What Culler is observing is the tourist or traveller’s search for ‘authenticity’. If they can capture the assumed culture of the area, on their return they will be hailed as having experienced the ‘real’ place.

In an earlier section of the book, Osborne referred to Zygmunt Bauman describing the tourist as a modern day pilgrim. The word pilgrim invokes the idea of people travelling to a place in search of a special power, and that by reaching this place the pilgrim is given a new identity. As a tourist, it can be read that travelling for the touristic image, the pilgrimage to key sites, are all towards the formation of identity. However, while constructing this identity relies on the tourists immersing themselves in a new element or experiencing something different, the tourist is still disconnected from the activity. Whatever is being partaken in must be ‘wash-off-able’ – something that they can leave at the end of their time off and return to life as they left it. The imagery in National Geographic is styled to offer such escapes, with the text also following a storyline that arches through a beginning, middle, and end, so that the reader may leave with a whole and resolved experience while never leaving the comforts of their own home. To give these theories a context, I am looking at the print edition of National Geographic Magazine from February 2009, specifically at the piece made around the cover image, “What Darwin Didn’t Know”. Split into two articles, the first broadly looks at Darwin and how he came about his theory of natural selection.

The piece starts with four double page spreads, each spread depicting four contrasting landscapes; a green rainforest, a frozen bay with snowy mountains, sheer sea cliffs with birds, and tortoises bathing in misty murky brown hot springs.  Each image is accompanied by a quote from Darwin’s journal, which became the travel book The Voyage of the Beagle.

The article accompanying the imagery is written in a familiar manner, with a clear progression. It opens informing us that the story we know of Darwin and his discovery is more myth than fact. Written in a tone that suggests personal insight and connection to him, the piece goes on to describe Darwin as somewhat an underdog in his field, someone with “intense curiosity … talent for close observation, and … instinctive sense that everything in the natural world is somehow connected with everything else.”[18] This portrayal of Darwin sells him as someone anyone could imagine himself or herself being. The story highlights escaping the boring life of a small town, living for fun and adventure, while skimming over any serious details of his work. When interpreted as such, the text works as a reiteration of The Society’s ethos.

After the opening large landscape shots to the article, the subsequent five pieces of imagery are illustrations of maps and bones. They are all tinted yellow, giving the impression of being aged and ‘otherworldly’. The final imagery is contained in a timeline of how evolution as a theory developed in science. Throughout the article, there is always at least one image per double page spread.

(fig. 1.2) Sourced without text overlay.
Text located bottom right corner. Text overlay:

The Atlantic Forest, Carlos Botelho State Park, Brazil
“The day has passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest.”

            - The Voyage of the Beagle, February 29, 1832

(fig. 1.3) Above. Sourced without text overlay.
Text located on the black mountain on the right hand side of the image. Text overlay:

Pia Bay, Tierra Del Fuego, Chile
“It is scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful than the beryl-like blue of these glaciers, and especially as contrasted with the dead white of the upper expanse of snow.

- January 29, 1833

The landscapes at the beginning of the article are all bright in their respective colours. Each image is framed to lead the viewer into the image, with the clear connotation to further exploration, be it the overgrown path in the forest image (see fig. 1.2), or the mountains funneling the reader’s view towards a beach hidden from sight (fig. 1.3). Each picture is also paired with a suitable quote from Darwin’s journal. Through a combination of the vernacular writing, picturesque imagery, and deteriorating illustrations, the piece gives the impression that little to no time has passed since his exploration of the area (or that there has at least been no further development of the landscape).

Here is where concepts of space and place develop. Yi-Fu Tuan introduces this idea clearly in his piece Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective[19], beginning by observing that place has more substance than is commonly recognised. Place embodies meaning and history; it ‘incarnates the experiences and aspirations of a people’[20]. Once acknowledging the substance that ‘place’ holds, its relation to time also shifts. When Western society contemplates distance, tied to the thoughts ‘near’ and ‘far’ are also the words ‘here’ or ‘there’. A distant place (such as a non-Western country) ‘can suggest the idea of a distant past: when explorers seek the source of the Nile … they appear to be moving back in time.’[21] These images of South America give the impression that with the distance between the viewer and the location there is also a transition backwards in time.

The imagery of this article combined with its relaxed text sells the notion that such a journey is possible for almost anyone, and that these places of the distant past are waiting to be viewed. As considered by Osborne, the sight becomes two things for the viewer: a broadcaster of certain meanings and views, and then becoming a magnet for people who wish to immerse themselves in these ideas in physical form.[22]

This theory connects with Said’s discussion of it being our ‘job’ as westerners to go and observe these places – the reason of the place existing is for it to be seen, or alternatively, these places only exist because of our knowledge of them. Said in Orientalism opens his examination of the topic by studying a speech made by Arthur James Balfour in the House of Commons June 13, 1910, titled “the problems with which we have to deal in Egypt.”
To have such knowledge of a thing is to dominate it, to have authority over it. And authority here means for “us” to deny autonomy to “it” – the Oriental country – since we know it and it exists, in a sense, as we know it. British knowledge of Egypt is Egypt for Balfour, and the burdens of knowledge make such questions of inferiority and superiority seem petty ones.[23]

The ‘non-West’ only exists because of the West’s observation of it, and there is no deeper knowledge than what ‘we’ the westerners possess. The ‘West’ and ‘non-West’ are not inherent facts of nature. They are not simply there. They have been constructed. Said refers to the thought that men make their own history, and applies it to geography, and says that ‘both geographical and cultural entities  … such locales, regions, geographical sectors as “Orient” and “Occident” are man-made.’[24] He furthers the debate by saying that both representations of ‘West’ and ‘non-West’ are ideas that have developed a history, and therefore their own specific stylized imagery and set of assumed ideals, ending with the ‘two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.’[25] This reflection can be seen as a direct link to Saussure’s work, where one side cannot have a meaning without there being an opposite to compare it to.

In the following Chapter our discussion moves to two major topics; the digital medium as a way of disseminating photographic content, and content analysis.

---

Footnotes

[1] The National Geographic Society Magazine.

[2] Currently, National Geographic states that, “National Geographic reaches more than 700 million people a month through its media platforms, products, events and experiences” on their About page.

Source:
Geographic, National. About the national geographic society. National Geographic Society Press Room.[www document]

<http://press.nationalgeographic.com/about-national-geographic/>

(Date Visited: 27 Jan. 2016) (Date Last Updated: 4 May 2012).

[3] Lutz, Catherine A., and Jane L. Collins. Reading National Geographic. 1st ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Print. p. 16.

[4] Ibid. p. 27.

[5] During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, George Stocking writes that the Society sold the classical evolutionary idea, where rationality was at battle with instincts, and ‘primitive’ cultures were merely developing to the standards of western nations. It reinforced the mantra of looking at “how far we’ve come”, and reinforced the inequalities towards the ‘others’, be it gender, class or race.

Ibid. p. 19.

[6] Cit. Op. Hall.

[7] Ibid. p. 3.

[9] Op. Cit. Hall

[10] Ibid. p. 32.

[11] Ibid. p. 32

[12] Said, Edward W. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London: Penguin Classics, 28 Aug. 2003. Print.

[13] Osborne, Peter D. Travelling Light: Photography, Travel and Visual Culture (The Critical Image). 1st ed. New York: Manchester University Press, 10 June 2000, p. 75

[14] National Geographic, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/annual-report-2014/, 29.10.15

[15] Op. Cit. Osborne, p. 77

[16] Culler, Jonathan. Framing the Sign: Criticism and its Institutions. Oklahoma City: Oklahoma University Press, 1989.

[17]Again looking to Osborne’s text (cit. op. Osborne p. 82), this time with him referencing Davydd J. Greenwood in Culture by the Pound: An Anthropological Perspective on Tourism and Cultural Commodification:

“We look on or look in through the distancing arrangements of the camera or through eyes educated to see with the same ontological remoteness. The world of the tourist is ‘over there’, in the past-present, in the exotic-ordinary.”

[18] Quammen, David. “Darwin’s First Clues.” National Geographic Feb. 2009: 36 – 55. Print

[19] Tuan, Yi-Fu. “Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective.” Philosophy in Geography (n.d.): 387 – 427. Print.

[20] Ibid. p. 38.

[21] Ibid. p. 390

[22] Cit. op. Osborne, p. 84

[23] Cit. Op. Said. p. 32.

[24] Ibid. p. 5.

[25] Ibid. p. 5.

The introduction: looking at representation in National Geographic's Instagram

Two years ago I wrote a thesis for my BA in Photography titled:

The Poetics and the Politics of Imagery:
National Geographic's representation of place through Instagram.  

Why I chose to write this thesis is largely to do with what motivated me to start photography in the first place; the awe-inducing, colour rich imagery that filled the pages of the monthly magazines my family collected from National Geographic. As a child these photographs were pure escapism - and made me want to create similar work of far off places, abseiling down into million year old caves to capture their hidden beauty. And it was more than just that; I wanted to create pieces that filled others with that same amazement. It was only when I started college, learnt about the coding and implied meanings that are infused within all of photography that I started to look back at those glossy pages with a heavier heart. 

My abstract read as follows:
The gaze of western photography has shifted; while imagery is still produced to refer to the ‘otherness’ of the people from a non-Western society, is no longer the reason the audience consumes the photograph. Exploration and travel photography has now become almost exclusively about the explorer, about the westerner building their identity, and the surrounding country and culture become nothing more than a backdrop.

In this thesis I examine the change in representation of space and place in imagery published online. To do so I analyse the impact of social media on the genre of exploration and travel photography, specifically studying the imagery distributed on National Geographic’s primary Instagram account. I discuss how ‘representation’ develops cultural meaning using the work of Stuart Hall and Edward Said, and reviewing how digital media has evolved. I then conduct a content analysis of a sample of the @NatGeo Instagram account. I draw upon Jane Collins and Catherine Lutz’s previous content analysis of the print editions of National Geographic from 1950 - 1986. Expanding some of the results of the content analysis, I finish my analysis by looking at how the ‘West’ uses images of the ‘non-West’ to construct identity.

While there isn't much of a poetic flow to what I've written above, it does dive right into what I'm going to be talking about. Over the coming weeks I'm going to release each chapter of my thesis as a blog post, (but working on the language to make it a bit more palatable to everyday reading).

My decision to share this now, two years later, comes after reading an article by Susan Goldberg, National Geographic's current Editor in Chief. The piece is part of next months publication - The Race Issue, a special issue of National Geographic that looking at race. I couldn't not click on the headline: "For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It."   

Introduction

“Viewers tend to look through photographs rather than at them.”[1]

In his book Photography and Exploration, James R. Ryan discusses the imagery made around the topic of expeditions and exploration.[2] In the opening chapter he questions how the ‘quest for the unknown’ has created the expansive genre that exploration photography is today - and to answer this, Ryan discusses a series of smaller questions: regarding the relationship between photography and exploration; how and why were photographs of exploration made, distributed and displayed; and has photography impacted how explorers observe the world?[3]

Photography was developed during a time of western colonial expansion. Seen as a science, photography became the key element in whether an expedition had credibility, and gave the explorer higher status on returning home.[4] Giving people the ability to see places that existed thousands of miles away, from the comfort of their own house, was revolutionary. When the viewer looked at a photograph, they were seeing the object depicted as a fact, as opposed to regarding the image as merely a representation. Exploration photography was created with the aim to show the ‘truth’ and document. One on hand, an image can be referred to as an objective record; it reproduces what is put in front of the lens. However, it is also an affective image; the ability to crop certain things out, or to have a specific focus, results in the photographer being able to construct specific views of places. The technical and mechanical process that was involved with photography masked the fact that the person operating the machine held a power over how a space or person was represented, and resulted in its initial audience being woo-ed by it's perfect capture of life, and therefor factual accuracy. 

Beyond that, expeditions also needed funding. If the imagery from expeditions was boring and did not engage with the public, evoking some sort of emotional response, then sponsorship for further research would die out.[5] What Ryan sheds light on is how necessary the promotion and selling of an expedition was. After an expedition the explorers would give talks, and reproductions of the images from the trip would be made and disseminated in as many mediums as possible. The explorers who became famous from either commercial or state sponsorship championed the marrying of exploration and photography. Their work promoted a language of positivist science – a language and ideals where ‘objective observation could conquer the unknown.’[6]

For an example of the power that imagery possesses, you only have to look to the photos from Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition race to the South Pole in 1911.

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(fig 0.1). Henry Bowers, Oates, Bowers, Scott, Wilson, and Evans at the South Pole, 18 January 1912, halftone photograph reproduced in the Daily Mirror (21 May 1913) with the caption ‘Triumph Before Death: The Five Heroes at the South Pole’.

Scott’s team made it to the South Pole but lost the race, with the group dying on their trip home. However, because they and their belongings were recovered some eight months later, the photographs of their trip were returned to England. The photographer from the trip, Henry Bowers, was a skilled technician, and portrayed the men he was travelling with as brave and noble, while still appearing human. Once published, these images turned the team into heroic figures.[7] The photographs were widely published through newspapers, books and lectures, and their images are the main photographic work associated with the first expeditions to the South Pole. The propagation of exploration photography has only grown from here. What Ryan does not state specifically is how travel and exploration became part of the photographic discourse before photography was understood to be part of the travel discourse, never mind before it was accepted as a practicable medium for recording.[8] Therefore, it is unsurprising that photography developed with the assumption that it was a device of recording truthful and exact representations of places.

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(fig 0.2). Herbert Pointing, ‘Capt. Scott in his den’, 7 October 1911, gelatin silver print.

This thesis analyses exploration and documentary photography’s portrayal of different landscapes and peoples; how the explorer and the native are portrayed in photography; and how the digital medium has impacted the landscape, the people, and the viewer.

The next section to be published will be, Chapter one, whic opens with the history and ethos of The National Geographic Society. I then discuss representation, referencing “The Work of Representation” by Stuart Hall.[9] I use Hall’s text to create a foundation of what ‘representation’ means, the analysis progressing to Roland Barthes’ work on representation and semiotics. The discussion ends with a short reference to Edward Said’s book Orientalism. Here Saussure’s theory of representation is linked to how the ‘West’ and ‘non-West’ perceive themselves because of the other’s existence.
Ideas of how space and place affect people’s perception of time are then analysed, looking at images published by National Geographic. The article discussed depicts areas of South America with the assumption that they are imagery is faithful to Charles Darwin’s experience of that landscape during the 1800s. 

Chapter two will start with a review of how digital media has affected the production and propagation of images, then taking a specific look at the application Instagram as a platform, and continuing ideas of space, place and time, and how that is effected in the digital age. I then conduct a content analysis of National Geographic, drawing on the writings of Gillian Rose in Visual Methodologies, and that of Lutz and Collins in Reading National Geographic. The content analysis looks at trends in the image content of different areas of the planet. The results are examined and debated, with work by Edward W. Said and Joan Schwartz becoming more prevalent to the discussion.

In Chapter three I will take a closer look at images from National Geographic’s Instagram account and analysis why these images were chosen to be published. The dialogue then turns to look at other Instagram accounts who produce similar imagery as that found on National Geographic’s profile, but are ‘faked’ photographs or misrepresentations.

This series of post will then finish with the original conclusion of my thesis, as well as some of my thoughts on it now that time has passed and I can see it with some distance. 

If you want to stay up-to-date with this series as it's published, and my writing in general, you can now get it emailed straight to your inbox each week as soon as it's published.  

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Footnotes

[1] Ryan, James R. Photography and Exploration. United Kingdom: Reaktion Books, July 2013. p. 16.

[2] He defines exploration as ‘the search for, and recording of, new knowledge of undiscovered places, people, nature and phenomena.’ Ibid. p. 8.

[3] “Postcolonial critiques of Western ideas and writing about non-Western lands and people have proved a catalyst for studies that trace the deep involvement of practices of exploration within both the practical and imaginative dimensions of western imperialism; far from ‘discovering’ truthful knowledge of places and peoples, European and American explorers often constructed an ‘other’ which Western fantasies of superiority and justifications of political domination could be projected.”

Ibid. p. 8 – 9.

[4] Ibid. p. 15.

[5] Ibid. p. 16, 23, 24.

[6] Cit. Op. Ryan p. 33.

[7] Ibid. p. 55.

[8] Schwartz, Joan M. “The Geography Lesson: Photographs and the Construction of Imaginative Geographies.” Journal of Historical Geography 22.1 (1996): 16 – 45. Print. p. 19.

[9] Hall, Stuart. “The Work of Representation.” Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Ed. Stuart Hall. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage in association with the Open University, 1997. 1 – 75. Print.

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List of Illustrations

Figure 0.1: Bowers, Henry. ‘Oates, Bowers, Scott, Wilson, And Evans at the South Pole.’ Ryan, James R. Photography and Exploration. United Kingdom: Reaktion Books, July 2013. p. 55.

Figure 0.2: Pointing, Herbert. ‘Capt. Scott in his den.’ Ryan, James R. Photography and Exploration. United Kingdom: Reaktion Books, July 2013. p. 54.

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