The Presentation Of Female Images In Photojournalism

With the omnidirectional penetration of mass media and the innovation of visual communication technology,endless image symbols occupy modern society,which powerfully and extensively affect the daily life style,moral principles,and aesthetic concepts of human beings.Among the many visual media,news photography has been hailed as the fuse to start the era of imageization,and its influence,authenticity and impact have inherent advantages.In 2016,the British Photography Foundation and the top prestigious university,Stirling University,released the "Status Report of Photojournalism",which pointed out: "There are distinct characteristics of male domination in the field of photojournalism,and more than 83% of its employees are men." Gender critical consciousness and news construction theory show that the group of photojournalists who have an absolute advantage in male numbers is bound to be insidiously induced by numerous power discourses,cultural prejudices,market factors,etc.,and project consciously or unconsciously gender concepts,values and aesthetic desire,and through the selection of visual symbols and the use of photographic techniques to achieve the construction of female image text,and whether the final female image can achieve the unity of phenomena and facts is worthy of in-depth thinking and comprehensive demonstration.Based on the above doubts,this article takes the female image presented by photojournalism as the research object,takes the female authoritative works of the World Press Photo Contest and the China International Press Photo Contest from 2000 to 2019 as samples,and uses the content analysis method and text.analytical methods,psychoanalysis,etc.explore the characteristics of female images presented by news photography and the tangled visual power relations,ideology,and social and cultural mechanisms behind them.The full text follows the idea of "What-how-why",relies on the knowledge of different professional fields such as semiotics,visual culture,feminism,etc.to discuss surface features,shooting techniques and typical paradigms of female photographers in photojournalism.Whether the "symbol violence" caused by gender imbalance is continuing,and what new characteristics will the male staring at the "other" of the female image show.The research conclusions of this article are as follows:First,according to the analysis of the demographic variables of women in news photography,news photography has obvious age and racial tendencies when selecting subjects,and most of them show women with low education level,political status and professional role,few Disseminate the knowledge image,political image and professional image of women;according to the analysis of the content of the award-winning works of women involved in photojournalism,its reporting topics are widely distributed,including different types of wars and disasters,daily life,contemporary hot spots,artistic style,natural environmental protection,etc.However,due to the pursuit of black lenses by news photography,heavy themes such as war,plague,turmoil,and violence have become the main fields of female images,and there is a clear crucifixion frame.News photography mostly presents the role of women in the private sphere,and the negative tone is dominant in the emotional tone.When presenting visual elements such as female face and body,they often directly display negative expressions such as sadness,pain,hatred,etc.,and emphasize the stereotyped female traits such as slenderness,thinness,and sexiness.There is a tendency to over-expose the female body;according to news photography Analysis of the shooting techniques used by women shows that news photography often uses close-up,close-up,black and white shooting,silhouette light,flat shooting,and contrasting composition methods when constructing female images.Second,the typical paradigms of female images presented by photojournalism include the images of victims,female family roles,elite female images,and marginal female images.They are related to female refugees,victims in daily life,mothers,wives,and female politics.Corresponding to home,female literary and artistic workers,high-class socialite,female athletes,female fighters defending rights and interests,sex workers,ethnic minority women,female religious believers,female children living in the haze.Third,according to the analysis of the power relations,social psychology,and cultural mechanisms behind the construction of news photography images,news photography overrides unequal gender relations and shapes the right to speak to women.Among them,the presentation of photojournalism to female victims reflects the "black lens" tendency of the the World Press Photo Contest and the China International Press Photo Contest and the male hegemony’s opinion on the image of female weak people;the presentation of female family roles embodies the collective unconsciousness of males.The chasing psychology of the mother prototype;the differential construction of the elite female image of developed races and the marginalized female image of backward races is a dual structure of gender gaze and racial gaze.Behind it is post-colonialism and eternal male desire in Western countries;The emergence of the media image of female fighters defending their rights and interests is a good indication that women’s right to speak can be awakened in the field of photojournalism.