Beyond clickbait and commerce
v13n2-3
v13n2-3
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Lyn McGaurr<br />
The photography of debate <strong>and</strong><br />
desire: Images, environment <strong>and</strong><br />
the public sphere<br />
Photography has long been a powerful tool of environmental<br />
communication <strong>and</strong> debate. In their efforts to promote<br />
environmental issues, l<strong>and</strong>scape <strong>and</strong> wildlife photographers<br />
committed to conservation may provide images to established<br />
environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs),<br />
appear in activist documentaries, found their own ENGOs,<br />
curate websites <strong>and</strong> social media pages, run galleries or<br />
publish books. Yet the same photographs <strong>and</strong> photography<br />
events that feature in activist media may also appear in the<br />
editorial sections of commercial newspapers <strong>and</strong> magazines,<br />
<strong>and</strong> in public relations <strong>and</strong> advertising for consumer goods.<br />
This paper draws on interviews with photographers <strong>and</strong> ENGO<br />
spokespeople in North America to consider the implications<br />
for the public sphere of image events that combine activist<br />
media <strong>and</strong> mainstream media to promote environmental<br />
concern.<br />
Key words: image event, public screen, public sphere,<br />
environmental movements, Great Bear Rainforest<br />
Introduction<br />
Contemporary anxieties about the role of the media in public debate<br />
include unease about the concentration of ownership (Barnett <strong>and</strong><br />
Townend 2015) <strong>and</strong> concern that rampant spectacle is ‘the ultimate<br />
expression of alienation <strong>and</strong> fetishization’ (Igoe 2010; c.f. DeLuca<br />
1999; DeLuca <strong>and</strong> Peeples 2002; DeLuca et al. 2011; McKee 2005).<br />
Shrinking newspaper <strong>and</strong> magazine workforces, a trend towards<br />
soft journalism, <strong>and</strong> easy access to online photographs distributed<br />
by image banks or produced by citizen journalists have contributed<br />
to retrenchment of many staff photographers (see Jurkowitz 2014<br />
for United States statistics) <strong>and</strong> reduced opportunities for in-depth<br />
photo assignments in mainstream media (Grayson 2014). Despite<br />
innumerable channels for dissemination offered by the internet,<br />
professional photographers wishing to direct their practice towards<br />
progressive ends can find it difficult to fund the necessary field<br />
trips, gain access to distant or restricted sites, <strong>and</strong> reach a wide<br />
audience without the backing of mainstream media (Grayson<br />
16 Copyright 2016-2/3. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. All rights reserved. Vol 13, No 2/3 2016
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