Annotated Bibliography: Number One

Fishman, Jessica and Marvin, Carolyn. “Portrayals of Violence and Group Difference in Newspaper Photographs: Nationalism and Media.” Journal of Communication, 2003.  53: 32–44.

            Fishman and Marvin make the comparison of United States photojournalism versus other countries photojournalism and how people and political factors relating to violence are displayed differently in media. Two hypotheses are proposed as to how the entities differ from each other. One is that the U.S. identity is related to visual displays of concealed violence. The second hypothesis is that other countries relate to obvious violence with their media. The article defines violence in media based on physical and oral coercion. The authors continue to expand the definition of coercive typology by categorizing it into three different types: explicit, latent, and dramatic. Studies conducted showed that other countries tend to be portrayed as being more explicitly violent in photojournalism than actual American entities in U.S. journalism. There is a mass debate over violence in the media displaying different actions that has been widely disputed and will continue to be a controversial issue pertaining to photojournalism.