“Her” Photographer: The Roanoke Live-Shot Murders and Visual Communication's Place in the Newsroom

Abstract

This study analyzed coverage of the shootings of two journalists in Virginia in 2015. Coverage of journalism by journalists, or metajournalistic discourse, makes it possible to examine the way an interpretive community represents and reproduces professional norms. Working with the framework of Pierre Bourdieu's field theory, the analysis considers the way journalistic specialists maintain their identity, professional boundaries, and hierarchal relationships. This analysis focuses on how visual journalism, in particular, is presented to the news audience. Based on our findings, we argue that coverage of the Roanoke live-shot murders provides insight into the way journalism maintains its authority by highlighting affect and diminishing its constructed dimension.

Notes

¹ British slang for a TV photographer who shoots nothing but quick voice-overs.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mary Angela Bock

Mary Angela Bock (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Her most recent project (with coauthors Shahira Fahmy and Wayne Wanta) is Visual Communication Theory and Research: A Mass Communication Perspective (Palgrave, 2014). Bock is also the author of Video Journalism: Beyond the One Man Band and coedited The Content Analysis Reader with Klaus Krippendorff. E-mail: [email protected]

Kyser Lough

Kyser Lough is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the School of Journalism's News as Culture graduate student working group.

Deepa Fadnis

Deepa Fadnis is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the School of Journalism's News as Culture graduate student working group.