Hariman, Robert and Lucaites, John Jouis. No Caption Needed:

Hariman, Robert and Lucaites, John Jouis. No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture,and Liberal Democracy. Chicago UP: Chicago. (2007).

“Popular images disseminated, promoted and repeatedly reproduced by large-scale corporations and seamlessly sutured into the material practices of ordinary life—whether documenting victory or disaster, surely these images exemplify ideology at work” (2). =E
“But we are hardly alone: the study of various practices of visual representation is booming, so much so that it seems similar in scope to the ‘linguistic turn’ that expanded across the human sciences in the twentieth century” (5). =E
“Iconic photographs provide an accessible and centrally positioned set of images for exploring how political action (and inaction) can be constituted and controlled through visual media” (5). =E
“The most complicated relationship between the photographic image and public opinion occurs because images communicate social knowledge” (10). =E
“we define photo-jounalistic icons as those photographic images appearing in print, electronic, or digital media that are widely recognized and remembered, are understood to be representations of historically significan events, activiate strong emotional identification or response, and are reproduced across a wide range of media, genres or topics” (27).
“the iconic photograph is an aesthetically familiar form of civic performance coordinating an array of semiotic transcriptions that prject an emotional scenario to manage a basic contradiction or recurrent crisis” (29). =B & E
“by being placed amidst prin journalism, the icons can also work in conjunction with other discourses of polity such as speeches, declarations, official reports, judicial opinions, and editorial commentary” (30). =B & E.
“To capture the aesthetic engagement that we believe is central to its appeal, we make a second assumption that the iconic photograph functions as a mode of civic performance” (30). B & E.
“Photography is grounded in phenomenological devices crucial to establishing the performative experience. Framing, for example, whether by the theatrical state or the rectangular boundaries of any photo, marks the work s a special selection of reality that acquires greater intensity than the flow of experience before and after it (31). A+E
“The repeatedness of any photograph is in itself an iconic representation of the object to be seen within its frame: that object is not a unique conjunction of materials, but a typical, recurring feature of one’s environment. Thus, the photograph is capable of providing deep knowledge of social reality, both in its specific manifestations and as it is itself an unending process of repetition” (32). B & E
“By analogy, we would suggest that photojournalism, when it is operating as a form of ritual performance in a literate society, acquires the capability to reveal or suggest what is unsayable or at least not being said or seen in print” (33).
“Through phenomenological devices such as framing, the iconic image highlights the deeply repetitive features of social life, a condition reinforced further by the mechanical reproduction of the photograph itself” (33). B
“In addition, to have popular appeal a work must be open to multiple and often inconsistent perspectives” (34). B & E
“iconic photographs provide the viewing public with powerful evocations of emotional experience. Performances traffic in bodies, and they evoke emotional responses precisely because they place the expressive body in a social space. The photograph is such a space, and the iconic image constructs a scenario in which specific emotional responses to an event become a powerful basis for understanding and action” (35). B& E.
“David Hume observed that we feel more through the public exposure to others’ emotions than t hrough an interior circuit of sensations, and contemporary scholarship on the social construction of the emotions provides strong confirmation of this fact. The photograph’s focus on bodily expression not only displays emotions but also places the viewing in an affective relationship with the people in the picture” (35). =E ***
“The significant entailment is that the ideological implications of specific texts or images are necessary but not sufficient for understanding how public address fulfills the interrelated functions of constructing public identity and motivating political behavior” (48). B & E
“A photograph captures a tiny sliver of time and space yet can reveal in a flash the social order. Photojournalism shows what can be done in public, and it allows one to think that what is not shown cannot be done” (287). A& E ***
Exactly, the photos from the charities show only a moment, and only a certain part of that moment.
“For it is only by understanding how they worked—how they were formal compositions negotiating specific social and political problems—that talk of change can be effective” (288). B & E
“The first limitation of iconic memory is that it is necessarily mainstream. The icon is that which can inspire widespread identification, even when it is a disturbing image or one that supports political dissent” (289).
“Whether transgrtessive or utopian, the marginal image—or, the image of the marginal experience—is off to the side in the virtual space of the national cathedral” (289). B & E
“considerable energy still goes into either promoting or warning against visual media, rather than understanding how they are tangled together to create culture” (295). B & E
Words along with the visual media become enmeshed in order to create culture. All tangled up.
“The origin of rhetoric as a practice of reflection is instructive in this regard. From the first the art provoked intense discussion regarding its cognitive, moral and political effects” (295).
“You might say that rhetoric was speaking as it came to be seen through the lens of writing” (295). B
Does this mean that seeing photo rhetoric means that it becomes virtual through the picture. We can imagine ourselves there, in that photo, and what we would see?
“Our conclusions regarding iconic photographs cannot cover all of photojournalism, but we are positive that the entire medium is laden with complex negotiations of multiple social codes, political ideas, practical reasoning, and emotional intelligence” (297).
“What is seen? Our approach has put great emphasis on the content of the individual photograph. We should caution against too much of this. Public spectatorship depends primarily on the continual production and circulation of images” (300).
“Photographs capture moments of social interaction while situating viewers in social relationships. Public reason emerges as a practice of looking at and thinking about these things, and as a considered negotiation of the relationships in question” (301).
“The images come to present the public audience with an opportunity to reimagine itself” (305).