Editing reality: An ethnographic and analytical study of photographic production at four major news publications

This dissertation critically examines the processes and products of photographic news production at four mainstream news publications in the United States. They are: Time magazine, Newsweek magazine, the Washington Post and the New York Times.;This dissertation assumes that "reality" and "truth" are culture specific rather than universal. It also assumes that the routines, language, operating assumptions, etc. shared by news workers create a news media culture. And, this culture's visual discourse is both product and producer of a socially constructed reality.;Three types of methodology are employed by this dissertation in an effort to describe the processes and the products of photographic news production and to suggest ways in which the products are interpreted by news consumers. The methodologies are: fieldwork in the form of ethnographic interviews, textual analysis and quantitative content analysis.;This dissertation concludes that: (1) Photographic images are not representations of a universal "reality" but rather interpretations or representations of one reality among many. (2) The interpretive process generally begins before photographers become involved. The selection/omission of story ideas is most often performed by writers and word editors. (3) Photographers have some control in the interpretive process by making decisions concerning lens choice, composition, depth of field, lighting, etc. (4) Despite some managerial rhetoric to the contrary, newsrooms are overwhelmingly managed within a hierarchical framework, concentrating final editorial power within the hands of one or two top (managing and/or executive) editors. (5) At the four publications analyzed in this dissertation all of the managing editors are white males. (6) The news media, as profit seeking institutions, attempt to cultivate and maintain economically privileged audiences. The demographic qualities that constitute ideal audience members are much like the demographic characteristics of most top editors, thus news dissemination can be rather insular. Top editors select concepts (story ideas) and symbols (photographs) that are framed by their own views of the world. And, the concepts/symbols are received by many audience members within a context that is similar to the framework within which they were originally conceived.