Week 1.7 The Image in Politics

From the description of Week 1 of The Camera Never Lies:
Learning Outcomes (Week 1)
On completing this week of work, you should be able to:
1. Understand the broad objectives of the course, and its structure;
2. Begin thinking about your own reactions to images in a modern and historical context; and
3. Consider more critically the images you see in the modern media.

[Jingle]
(University of London International Programmes)

(The Camera Never Lies - Reportage)

[Emmett Sullivan] Advertising and images, that's one thing.

But as we've already talked about,

politicians seem to be particularly concerned about their image, who they're standing next to,

or in some cases, the publication's decision as to who they're standing next to.

In April, 2009, the Israeli newspaper Yated Ne'eman

took out of a collective photograph of the Israeli cabinet the two women members portrayed.

It is put forward that this is a particularly orthodox newspaper

and was not in itself supportive of female members of the cabinet.

Nevertheless, for their own morals and for their own audience,

they had chosen to manipulate an image which was more inclusive

than perhaps they thought editorially appropriate.

Now, continuing on the theme of politicians, something that I found quite amusing,

having a Glaswegian father and many of my relatives up in Scotland.

A photograph - again, 2009 - another collective photograph, in this case the Scottish National Party.

It appeared in an SNP newsletter.

What was described as an over-enthusiastic party member

had chosen to doctor the image, but not in an obvious way.

In, in the background, there were two pictures:

one of William Wallace, the other of Robert the Bruce. Two great Scottish heroes.

They had been digitally put into the image.

The Scottish National Party leaders were in fact sitting in front of two photographs

of the Queen and her husband Prince Philip.

There was a certain symbolism there, that clearly,

that one or two of the workers thought was too great to allow to go unedited or unchecked.

An apology was offered later.

For 2010, Fourandsix give an example of another political image

which had been doctored.

This one seems to be quite a mundane reason

but it's not the only example we find of this.

The state run Egyptian newspaper El Arham had digitally altered an image

which showed President Mubarak walking with Israeli leaders,

those from the US, the Palestine, and Jordan.

What they did was move Mubarak, so that he was at the head of that little posse,

rather than walking behind them.

Their argument was, they wanted to show, figuratively, Mubarak's leadership

on matters of Palestinian issues,

even though the original composition of the photograph

had him standing behind the other politicians.

Now when it comes to identifying how close one politician is with a protester

or another figure,

the example that I'm going to give you from 2004 highlights a young Senator Kerry,

John Kerry who ran for the American presidency in that year.

In a photograph standing next to Jane Fonda,

who during the Vietnam war became very outspoken about America's participation.

Only problem is, they weren't actually there together at the same time.

The photograph is a composite, showing Kerry from 1971 in New York

and Fonda in Florida, in 1972.

But the importance of conveying the image that John Kerry was

as a forthright and important speaker for those of a more radical view

during the Vietnam war

led to this composite going-together.

Whether it really does make a substantial change to the way we view this, I don't know.

But, if you're looking at the way that you trust an individual,

some staffers had made a decision for his campaign

that this was going to look good.

It's not just in the 70's or the 80's or the 21st century that who stands next to who

is important in political advertising.

Here is a photograph from 1939.

It shows the Canadian Prime Minister McKenzie King

standing next to the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowse-Lyon.

This doesn't look a terribly threatening image, except the King, George VI,

had been removed from the image.

It was an image which was used for publicity of Mackenzie King's reelection campaign,

and it was felt that his stature, both physically and figuratively,

was going to be enhanced by standing next to the Queen,

rather than the Queen and her husband.

(University of London International Programmes)