VISUAL JOURNALISM: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

News images shape our culture in ways both profound and deep. As we live through this era of communal violence and hatred, we cannot help but remember the searing photographs that have come to symbolize Gujarat riots or Babri demolition-- Qutubuddin Ansari’s crying face, demolished Babri Mosque, and so on. These photos have woven themselves into the collective memory of a generation. There are some who would even say that the mounting weight of photographic evidence was the one of the primary causes for igniting public sentiment during Gujarat riots.

Journalism is at its most dynamic when it’s done with the use of images as well as the written word; a strong image can capture attention and convey a message like nothing else. The use of images or visuals to provide information has its own history. From the prehistoric times to the current internet or computer age, visuals have gone a drastic change as a medium to communicate or inform.

PAST

The use of images to convey information goes back to prehistoric times. Cave paintings or rock paintings are the pictures painted on cave or rock walls and ceilings usually dating to prehistoric times, these are widely believed to be the work or respected elders or Shamans. These cave paintings can be called as the first occurrence of visual journalism, although the modern visual journalism started only after the advent of photography.

Photography and Visual Journalism

Photography traces its history back to camera obscura, a dark chamber or room with a hole (later a lens) in one wall, through which images of objects outside the room were projected on the opposite wall. The principle was probably known to the Chinese and to ancient Greeks such as Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. Late in the 16th century, the Italian scientist and writer Giambattista Della Porta demonstrated and described in detail the use of a camera obscura with a lens.

In 1727 the German professor of anatomy Johann Heinrich Schulze proved that the darkening of silver salts, a phenomenon known since the 16th century and possibly earlier, was caused by light and not heat. He demonstrated the fact by using sunlight to record words on the salts, but he made no attempt to preserve the images permanently. His discovery, in combination with the camera obscura, provided the basic technology necessary for photography. but we owe the name "Photography" to Sir John Herschel, who first used the term in 1839, the year the photographic process became public.

From the outset, photography served the press. Within weeks after the French government’s announcement of the process in 1839, magazines were publishing woodcuts or lithographs with the byline “from a daguerreotype.” In fact, the two earliest illustrated weeklies—The Illustrated London News, which started in May 1842, and L’Illustration, based in Paris from its first issue in March 1843—owe their origin to the same cultural forces that made possible the invention of photography.

But there can be found in the lapse of time between the invention of photo reproduction techniques and the integration of photography into real daily journalism (Becker

1992/2003). The half-tone process was invented in the 1880s and the first photograph was published in a newspaper shortly thereafter, a phenomenon that no one at the time seems to have paid particular attention to. In the United States, it was not until World War I that a visual interest was created, and several major newspapers began to publish weekly supplements that included photographs from the war. The tabloid press was the first to use photographs on a daily basis, and in the 1920s a sensationalistic journalistic genre quickly took root, based on a mix of large headlines and photographs. The more serious morning newspapers distanced themselves from this genre by avoiding the use of photographs altogether.

Although photography provided the essential technical breakthrough in capturing the times and space but another important tool of mass communication was being developed simultaneously, it was Printing Press.

Printing and Visual Journalism

The invention of the printing press depended on the invention and refinement of paper in China over several centuries. In the early 1450's rapid cultural change in Europe fueled a growing need for the rapid and cheap production of written documents. Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith and businessman from the mining town of Mainz in southern Germany, borrowed money to develop a technology that could address this serious economic bottleneck.

Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press is widely thought of as the origin of mass communication-- it marked Western culture's first viable method of disseminating ideas and information from a single source to a large and far-ranging audience.

The practice of illustrating news stories with photographs was made possible by printing and photography innovations.

Early reproductions generally carried little of the conviction of the original photograph, however. But the method used to reproduce photographs on the printing press was not perfected until the 1880’s, and it was not widely adopted for several more years. The New York Times, for example, did not publish photos until 1896. Photographers throughout the mid 19th century used other avenues to share their images with viewers.

Television and Visual journalism

Television (TV) news is considered by many to be the most influential medium for journalism. For most of the world public, local and national TV newscasts are the primary news sources. Not only the numbers of viewers, but the effect on each viewer is considered more persuasive, as described by Marshall McLuhan ("the medium is the message" in his book “Understanding Media”). Television is dominated by attractive visuals (including beauty, action, and shock), with short sound bites and fast "cuts" (changes of camera view).

Television came into being based on the inventions and discoveries of many men and scientists. The 'first' generation of television sets was not entirely electronic. The display (TV screen) had a small motor with a spinning disc and a neon lamp, which worked together to give a blurry reddish-orange picture about half the size of a business card! The period before 1935 is called the "Mechanical Television Era". This type of television is not compatible with today's fully-electronic television system.

1950-1959 was an exciting time period for television. In the USA, B&W television exploded onto the scene at the beginning of the decade, mid-decade saw electronic color television and remote controls launched, and at the end of the decade the public witnessed some interesting styling changes and the introduction of transistorized television.

Computer, Internet and Visual Journalism

“The future of the internet lies in its ability to connect with other media.”

Computers have brought many changes in the way visual journalism is pursued. Although, initial computers did not provide any help to journalism, but the role of modern computers can not be undermined. From manual editing to software editing, the transition has taken place due to computers only.

The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields. Both these inventions made the work of visual journalists easier, as recently as 15 years ago, nearly 30 minutes were needed to scan and transmit a single colour photograph from a remote location to a news office for printing. Now, equipped with a digital camera, a mobile phone and a laptop computer, a photojournalist can send a high-quality image in minutes, even seconds after an event occurs. Video phones and portable satellite links increasingly allow for the mobile transmission of images from almost any point on the earth.

The most pronounced change has been in the realm of reader interaction -- technology has made it possible for journalists, outside experts and other readers to talk to each other, to collaborate on news-gathering and analysis, to fact-check and to distribute journalism in new ways. It has pulled the newspaper package apart, allowing people to acquire and consume their journalism one piece at a time or to customize it to fit their needs. It has altered the journalist's relationship with sources and introduced new visual forms like the interactive graphic. It has picked up the journalistic pace.

Present

“Youtube.com, Flickr.com, Blogging… the new media...”

If we talk about the current state of visual journalism, it has come a long way from prehistoric times. Today’s newspapers or magazines have more visuals in the form of images and graphics; television has been an image plethoric visual medium to dissipate information.

The contemporary condition is often described as a state of being surrounded, even bombarded by images. The condition is also characterized as an image flow, increasing in its intensity as the means and sources of image production and distribution continue to expand geometrically.

Pictures are said to be the most common way of spreading information, of making an impact, of expressing oneself, of influencing others. Intimately intertwined with the development of new information technologies, this “new” culture of visual display has been celebrated as promising a pluralistic and egalitarian future, unfettered by the old linear competencies required by a text-based analogic culture.

This celebration of the image explosion has not gone unchallenged, however. From
many quarters the expanding flow of images is seen as a threat, to traditional forms of literacy and learning, to established cultural values and expression, to the sense of order promised by familiar discursive forms, including, it must be said, journalism. The deepseated ambivalence toward images in western culture (cf Mitchell 1994) has resurfaced in response to the intensified image environment in two ways. First, is the anxiety over the presumed “power of images” and fear of their influence. This is evident whenever images figure in sharp debates, often verging on moral panics over issues such as violence in news and entertainment media, invasions of privacy and the effects of advertising. The second ambivalence is directed toward the ways new technologies and forms of display alter conceptions of the image itself and its authority. This reaction can be seen, for example, in conflicts over the photograph and its representational authority in the “digital age” (cf. Lister 1995), and in debates over the forms and significance of post-modern art.

Future

Journalism is at the very heart of society and business. As the economy inexorably shifts from the tangible to the intangible, media in its many forms is accounting for an ever-increasing proportion of value created.

After tracing the history of visual journalism and examining the state of it today, one cannot help but wonder where visual journalism is going. Since nobody can confidently predict the future, the only option is to examine current trends and extrapolate. Certain technological innovations are likely to play significant roles in shaping tomorrow’s visual-journalism. Of course, without a crystal ball there is no way to be sure.

From the invention of printing press that made it possible to document images on paper, to the web visuals, technology has certainly played a part in the evolution of today’s journalism. One might even say that technology has been the predominant influence in the evolution of visuals. Likewise, technology will almost certainly be the driving influence regarding it in the future.

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Gaurav Shukla