Maailma visuaalne representatsioon The Guardian´i online-rubriigis „24 hours in pictures“ 2010. a.
Date
2011
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
The title of this thesis is the „Visual representation of the world in the online version of The
Guardian’s „24 Hours in Pictures“ in 2010. This is rubric in Guardian’s online version, where
people can view everyday 10-15 pictures from around the world. The goal of the research was to get
an understanding of how it is possible to present different events in media with photos, what are the
main features of the rubric that was analyzed and what kind of world picture is presented in this
rubric.
I’ve chosen for the research pictures from the 2010 year, 2 days from each month. To get a picture
of the world I’ve separated it to regions (Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Near East, Africa, Asia,
Northern America, Central America, Southern America). The main research method , that I’ve used
was Roland Barthes visual-semiotic approach and Kress and van Leeuwen visual content analysis.
To accomplish the goal of the research it was necessary to answer two main questions: what is
shown and how it is shown. I’ve made separate methodologies to answer each of the questions,
because each of them required analyze of different kind of information.
The anwer to the first question, what was shown about each region made it possible to find out
what kind of characters and themes were covered. To do that I’ve analyzed the information from the
captions. The results have shown, that mainly ordinary people and everyday life was covered. That
could mean that photojournalism is showing the side of life, that print journalis usually doesn’t
cover.
The answer to the second question, how are the regions shown, made it possible to look what
kind of visuals were used and how they affect the perception of these photos. The results have
shown that photojournalism does have it’s own rules of using visual to be objective.
To sum up, my research made it possible to have a glimpse on the world picture, that was
presented by the rubric analyzed. It also showed the main features of the rubric and what kind of
functions does journalism have.