Abstract
The universe of journalism has always consisted of interspersed texts, practices and meanings. Yet, much journalism research has often isolated either texts and/or contexts and thus assumed relations between professional practices, informed (rational) readers and (conceived) core texts. It is, however, more important than ever to shift attention away from texts to the processes through which they are circulated. This is partly because the many cultural forms of journalism (textual, institutional, technological, material, behavioural and imagined) are undergoing significant changes, one of which is being interrelated in new and increasingly complex ways. To understand some of the related processes, this article proposes a notion of circulation that implies a close attention to the ways in which the various forms of this landscape travel, intertwine and connect and, in particular, to the ways in which these forms construct and maintain what is termed cultures of circulation. In order to approach such processes, this article traces the photographic mediation of a specific event with the overall aim of beginning a theorization of the landscape of journalism as interrelated cultures of circulation.
Notes
1. Maass refers to some interesting academic studies of the consequences of the “victory” coverage. This will not be developed here.
2. The online service TinEye (http://www.tineye.com) is “the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching”. The image from the International Herald Tribune was searched through TinEye on May 16, 2013: http://www.tineye.com/search/54e79c4055944eb698c4cac15bf1310839158eed/?page=1&sort=score&order=desc.