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Södertörns Högskola International Masterʼs Program in Master thesis 2020

Student: Laura Jaël Marie Geigenberger Due date: May 27, 2020 Supervisor: Nina Springer (Ph.D.)

“Seeing is believing ... ?” An exploration of in war reporting and its conceptualization within the scope of War and

Abstract: Journalism is a profession which bears many social and political responsibilities. Particularly war correspondence is a challenging task for professional and thus constitutes a decisive part in the academic field of Journalism Studies. In order to evaluate the role of journalitic conduct in times of war, it is commonly dichotomized into two opposing concepts known as War and Peace Journalism. The concepts are most often studied in connection with text- based journalism which is why scholars have been stressing the need to create a similar conceptualization for photojournalism – a profession with a great relevance in war correspondence. First research approaches resulted in models such as War and Peace Photography which, however, only considered the visual contents of photojournalistic documents. However, particularly the legacy of images can be dynamic – hence, subject to change over long periods of time – and consequently alter the reception and categorization of a photograph as either a War and Peace document. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to explore the notion that many different aspects need to be taken into account before a fair and productive categorization of such documents can be offered. In addition to the method of visual analysis, it thus entails an empirical study in a triangulation setting in which photojournalistic material on the Vietnam War, the picturesʼ captions as well as their additional documentary material regarding the broader historical and political (e.g. published interviews, governmental documents, articles) will be analyzed in three consecutive steps: (1) The photos are assessed in terms of their War or Peace classification based on their visual impression; (2) the captures are analyzed content-analytically and put in relation with the visual observations; (3) the additional documentary material is explored to understand the picturesʼ social, political, and historical genesis. For the purpose of the latter, a new category system has been defined and assigned to the sample images. Findings indicate that a visual categorization of an image are not necessarily supported by its captions as well as the respective surrounding historical, political and social circumstances. Additionally considered context might contrast the most basic definitions of War and Peace Journalism. For example, the assessed cases of War Photojournalism were not used for “” purposes – an often-ascribed feature of War Journalism. From this, it can be concluded that visuals are only one of many factors which can impact the meaning and reception of an image and, as a consequence, its categorization. Sufficient conceptualizations of photojournalistic documents should thus consider not only what is obvious but also the experiences, actions, professional values and intentions of photojournalists within the images’ prehistory and aftermath, reasons for their publication, their reception by an audience, and external influences on their respective medium.

Keywords: Photojournalism, War Journalism, Peace Journalism, News images, War correspondence, Conceptualization, Journalism Studies Contents 1. Introduction...... 1

2. Journalism – a “social glue”...... 4 2.1 Ethics and responsibilities in professional journalism...... 4 2.2 Photojournalism...... 5 2.3 Ethics and responsibilities in photojournalism...... 6 2.4 Wartime reporting...... 8 2.5 Academic conceptualizations of conflict coverage: War and Peace Journalism...... 9

3. Taking the concepts to news photography...... 11 3.1 War Photography...... 11 3.2 Visual criteria for War Photojournalism...... 12 3.3 Peace Photography...... 16 3.4 Visual criteria for Peace Photojournalism...... 17

4. Reflections on journalistic practice...... 19 4.1 Photojournalists are more than ‘simply’ photographers...... 20 4.2 Gatekeeping and “hyperreality” theory...... 22 4.2.1 Visual gatekeeping ...... 23 4.2.2 “Hyperreality” in photojournalism...... 24 4.3 Contexts and captions...... 25

5. Peace (Photo)Journalism is controversial...... 27 5.1 Proposition and opposition of Peace Journalism...... 27 5.2 Imaging peace...... 28

6. Recap and research questions...... 30

7. Methods...... 32 7.1 Sampling...... 32 7.2 Operationalization and data collection...... 34 7.3 Critical reflections on the data collection procedure ...... 38

8. Results...... 39 8.1 Visual analysis and conceptualization of the images according to Fahmy & Neumann...... 39 8.2 Beyond the visuals I: The captions...... 40 8.3 Beyond the visuals II: Consideration and interpretation of the background material...... 41

9. Conclusion...... 48

References...... 51 Appendix...... 60 1

1. Introduction Academic models are usually a simplification or approximation of an aspect of reality in all its intricacy rather than an accurate depiction of it.1 In order to study the practices and features of journalism and photography – professions, which have long been the subject of academic research – scholars have established models and academic concepts. However, what needs to be considered is that journalism is originally a practical activity; therefore, it depends on its surrounding and situational circumstances. This raises the question about which aspects need to be considered so that theory and practice can be converged closely as possible in order to maximize the contribution which theoretical conceptualizations can bring to practitioners such as photojournalists.

Particularly photojournalists working as war correspondents face many challenges and have to live up to great responsibilities. Their reporting practices have also been explored by the academy and are most commonly interpreted within the scope of two opposing concepts known as “War” and “Peace Journalism”. The models refer predominately to text-based journalism but have also been expanded to . The dichotomies of War and Peace (Photo)Journalism are still widely debated within the academy – as are the criteria needed to formulate precise definitions. In order to integrate news photography into the War and Peace Journalism concepts, the consideration of their visual content seems to be an obvious starting point. Such strategies have already been suggested; and yet they have also been criticized by many scholars, who argue that visuals are only one of many considerable aspects of news photography in the definition of concepts for visual media. Alternative proposals are based on the idea that research approaches should connect visible contents of news photographs to their non-visible ʽbackground stories’, which include many more aspects than the visuals might suggest.2 Influences such as, among others, ethical and professional orientations of photojournalists, and their circumstances of time and place, can crucially influence photojournalistic production processes and should be included in the conceptualization of photojournalistic material – particularly in the difficult and ethically challenging task of war correspondence. So far, however, explorations of the application of the War and Peace Journalism models to news photography both with and without considerations of the photos’ background data have been limited.

Hence, this thesis aims to build on the models of War and Peace Journalism and their expansion to

1 T. Foucard, “Complexity and intricacy of mathematical and interpretative approaches”, in eds. C. Brossard & B. Reber, Digital Cognitive Technologies: Epistemology and Knowledge Society (London/Hoboken: ISTE/wiley, 2010), pp. 359-360. 2 Examples are, among others S. Mitra, “Re-thinking visuals: Understanding discursive reformulation of visuals to inform peace journalism”, conflict & communication online vol. 13 (2), 2014; and the several works by F. Möller on Peace Studies and Peace Photography (see references below). 2 photojournalism to determine the significance of the visual and non-visual aspects of news images such as their caption, and their social, historical and political contexts. For this purpose, three related research questions have been formulated for this thesis and will be applied to the case study of the Vietnam War, a conflict unique in terms of both its coverage by the media – and specifically by photojournalists – as well as the amount of visual and contextual material that resulted from it. The research questions have thus been formulated as follows:

RQ1: How are the criteria of War and Peace Journalism represented in the visual material (on the Vietnam War)?

RQ2: What role do the captions play in both the interpretative process and the classification of visual War/Peace Photographs by the respective researchers?

RQ3: How are the War/Peace concepts for photojournalism influenced by the consideration of the historical, social and political contexts of the images?

This thesis will initially explore theoretical, generalized approaches to the (photo)journalistic profession before outlining the results of an exploratory study on the specific case of the Vietnam War, which was conducted to answer the research questions listed above. First, the theoretical framework will be concerned with the ethical values and responsibilities of professional (photo)journalists both in general and in wartime reporting, as they constitute the groundwork of the (photo)journalistic occupation. Ethical values and rules of professional conduct of photojournalists are assumed to play a crucial role in their practice and could thus be an influential factor within academic conceptualizations of their products. The first chapter will be succeeded by presentations of the War and Peace Journalism models and their expansion to news photography based on visual contents. To substantiate the categories of research applied in the later study, reflections on media production processes with special regard to news images will be made a subject of discussion by presenting research concerned with “gatekeeping”, “hyperreality” theory, the notion of the “journalistic gut feeling”, and the role of contexts and captions in news imagery. All those factors might have an influence on photojournalistic conduct as well as on interpretation processes by and the impact of photojournalistic material on an audience. Therefore, the theoretical section will be concluded by exploring the proposition and opposition of the innovative Peace Journalism. Lastly, it will be transitioned to the study by exploring the idea that photojournalistic documents create legacies for themselves. A legacy is dynamic – thus subject to change over long periods of time – and, as a consequence, could alter the reception and therefore transforming the categorization of a 3 news photograph as either a War and Peace document.

For the study, news photographs will initially be categorized as War and Peace Photographs based on an existing research approaches considering only their visual content. Based on the observations from the theoretical section, their visual contents will then be correlated with the messages in the captions of the images as well as with their situational context, including the experiences, actions, professional values and intentions of their creators, governmental influences on the press, and the historical background and aftermath of their publications. For this purpose, a sample of six photographs from the Vietnam War (~1955-1975) was chosen with consideration to certain criteria. For one, all photos were taken by photojournalists working for the American Associated Press (AP), one of the biggest American news agencies at the time.3 In addition, two images each were chosen from the years 1961, 1968/1969 and 1973 as they entailed key events in the course of the war, all of which are also represented in the images. The first three images were chosen due to their often-cited status as visual ʽicons’ of the Vietnam War while their counterparts depict direct results from the ʽiconic’ events. Thus, the pairs were formed with regard to their similar historical and situational connection as well as their visual heterogeneity. It consists of the following twosomes:

I. 1963: “The Ultimate Protest” by Browne4 and “President Ngo Dinh Diem with Buddhist monks” by Faas,5 II. 1968/1969: “Saigon Execution” by Adams6 and “Demonstration Anti Vietnam Moratorium 1969” by AP III. 1972: “The Terror of War” by Ut7 and “Le Duc Tho Shakes Hands with Henry Kissinger” by AP Photo.8

The background data concerning the images will mainly be derived from 92 additional sources of both primary and secondary status. The former includes, among others, published interviews with

3 “Iconic AP Vietnam War Photos To Go On View at Huntsville Museum of Art”, AP, 2019, https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2019/iconic-ap-vietnam-war-photos-to-go-on-view-at-huntsville-museum-of-art, accessed May 9, 2020. 4 M. Browne, “Vietnam Monk Protest”, AP Images, 1963, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I- VNM-aphs019555-VIETNAM-MONK-PROTEST/a344206cdb5a490e9fceb1e1c2ebbefc/1/1, accessed May 4, 2020. 5 H. Faas, “President Ngo Dinh Diem with Buddhist monks”, AP Images, 1963, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS311049-President-Ngo-Dinh- D-/2c64708d60774313864b0c4ff12c290a/1/0, accessed May 7, 2020. 6 E. Adams, “Vietnam War Saigon Execution”, AP Images, 1968, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Vietnam- VIE-/156535629de5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/25/1, accessed May 5, 2020. 7 N. Ut, “Vietnam Napalm 1972”, AP Images, 1972, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM- APHS021000-Vietnam-Napalm-1972/e674e44489a54fbca89b41a7d821b89e/168/0, accessed May 2, 2020. 8 AP Photo, “Le Duc Tho Shakes Hands with Henry Kissinger”, AP Images, 1972, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-FRA-APHS308568-Le-Duc-Tho-Shakes- Ha-/0d21855472904440acc699dd6a31b524/8/0, accessed May 8, 2020. 4 the photojournalists, editors and eyewitnesses; speeches and letters, memoirs in the shape of eulogies and books, as well as declassified governmental documents, all of which are directly connected to the chosen images. Secondary sources were only taken into account if they could be considered reliable pieces of collective memory like, for example, reports of the renown and time- relevant publications. As this exploratory study combines different qualitative methods – visual analysis, documentary research and content analysis –, it can be considered as taking a triangulating research approach. To make the research processes as transparent and as comprehensible as possible, the chosen methodology and the sampling will be explained in more detail before the results will be presented and discussed.

2. Journalism – a “social glue” Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch establish journalism as “one of the most important social, cultural, and political institutions” of which the study is a “worthwhile endeavor for scholars”.9 Journalism is essential for the development and the sharing of information and is therefore understood as a profession which is able to construct and shape how the world comes to know about and interprets real events. Journalism is furthermore “essential to successful self-governance” because it enables exchanges and deliberations between and among the public and their representatives, thereby making “political action [...] possible”.10 Discussing and tying the outputs of this “social glue”, as Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch call it, to social and political contexts can further the understanding of how citizens identify themselves withing a local, national and increasingly global sphere.11

2.1 Ethics and responsibilities in professional journalism Professional journalism bears many responsibilities for its practitioners. First and foremost, it is seen as an informant and key actor in maintaining political stability in democratic countries. Wolfgang, Vos & Kelling argue that a democracy cannot function and be maintained without the “information environment journalists help create” in the shape of reliable, accurate news, information, and interpretation.12 An informed citizenry contributes to the functioning of a democratic country by making reasonable and rational choices; most importantly in elections but also in other political and social contexts.13

9 K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, “Introduction: On Why and How We Should Do Journalism Studies”, in eds. K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, The Handbook of Journalism Studies (New York/London: Routledge, 2009), p. 3. 10 Ibid.; R.E. Park, “News as a form of knowledge: A chapter in the sociology of knowledge”, American Journal of Sociology vol. 45 (5), 1940, p. 678. 11 Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, loc. cit. 12 J.D. Wolfgang, T.P. Vos & K. Kelling, “Journalismʼs Relationship to Democracy: Roles, Attitudes, and Practices”, Journalism Studies vol. 20 (14), 2019, p. 1977. 13 B. McNair, “Journalism and Democracy”, in eds. K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, The Handbook of Journalism Studies (New York/London: Routledge, 2009), p. 238. 5

According to McNair, the media – produced by professional journalists – in democratic states should always fulfill three main political functions on behalf of the citizenry. One is the “Watchdog” or “” role, in which journalists act as critics of “the powerful in […] influential spheres”, such as a government or a business. Secondly, McNair understands to be “mediators” between the political elite and the public. As a representative – or, as McNair also terms it, an “advocate” or “champion” – of the latter, they should ensure that the publicʼs voice is present within a democratic sphere at all times.14 Moreover, the task of “enlightening a citizenry” can contribute meaningfully to society and politics. It requires the professionals to produce independent, high-quality contents, which provide “accurate and thoughtful information and analysis about current events” both nationally and internationally.15

Since the reporting of journalists might influence how the public perceives and responds to an issue, the choices they make in their work – rhetorical, stylistic and personal – matter. Professionals are thus expected to commit to moral standards and ethically normed interactions. Rules of what constitutes ethical journalism are comprised in so-called “Codes of Ethics” and have been published as such by professional journalism associations and/or individual institutions across the globe. While the codes might vary in formulations depending on their different social, cultural and political contexts, Hafez has detected a broad intercultural consensus on specific standards like, most importantly, truthfulness, accuracy and objectivity. He finds that “factual, correct, and unbiased coverage [are] a consensual value of journalism” which forms the “core and essence of the journalistic profession” and simultaneously defines its boundaries.16 Since this general framework is at the core of the journalistic profession, it is also an acknowledged part of the basic research in Journalism Studies. Determining the adherence of journalists to said values and principles – such as their independence from external ʽinfluencers’, for example – could thus be seen as an important consideration in any study about professional journalism and the potential impact of its output.

2.2 Photojournalism Since its invention in 1839, photography soon became a fixed part of journalistic practice for it was a valuable addition to social investigation and the documentary style of news production.17 According to Ohrn, the characteristics for photography as a documentary tool incorporate “all

14 Ibid., pp. 239-240. 15 P. Anderson & G. Ward (eds.), The future of journalism in the advanced democracies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 65. 16 K. Hafez, “Journalism Ethics Revisited: A Comparison of Ethics Codes in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Muslim Asia”, Political Communication vol. 19 (2), 2002, pp. 225, 228-229. 17 L. Wells, Photography: A Critical Introduction (Florence: Taylor and Francis, 5th ed., 2015), p. 79. 6 aspects of the making and use of photographs”.18 A photographerʼs goal while creating a “documentary style” picture thus surpasses a solely creative purpose; rather, the photographer aims “to bring the attention of an audience to the subject of [the] work and, in many cases, to pave the way for social change”.19 In that sense, photographers intending to create historic records could be perceived as watchdogs, just like word-based journalists. In addition, the documentary nature of photography not only compares to but also combines different “aspects of journalism, art, education, sociology and history”, according to Ohrn.20 What makes photography a unique contributor to the news media is that it integrates the art form of visual imagery into and expands the documentary purpose of professional journalism, thereby creating the profession of photojournalism.21

2.3 Ethics and responsibilities in photojournalism It is an accepted thought that photojournalists – presenters of news and information primarily through visual imagery22 – have developed a professional culture of their own, which is different from but still related to text-based journalism.23 As a profession, photojournalists also oblige values and rules of ethical conduct created by professional associations, the majority of which was adopted from journalism codes when photojournalism became a vocational sector within the journalistic profession in the nineteenth century.24 For instance, it has been argued that photographic documents have been such a longstanding constituent of journalism thanks to their “truthful depictions of an objective reality”.25 Kobré has explored the connection between both fields and found that a set of visual criteria exists, which aligns photography with journalistic practices. Photojournalists, he writes, aim to capture moments of action – unstaged and in one precise moment. They furthermore pay attention to stylistic techniques such as camera angles to reveal the drama of a news story and add perspective and intimacy to images.26 By trying to provide snapshots of reality which bring

18 K.B. Ohrn, Dorothea Lange and the Documentary Tradition (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), p. 36. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 W. Lowrey, “Word people vs. picture people: Normative differences and strategies for control over work among newsroom subgroups”, Mass Communication & Society vol. 5, 2002, p. 428. 22 B. Brennen, “Photojournalism: Historical dimensions to contemporary debates”, in ed. A. Stuart, The Routledge companion to news and journalism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), p. 73. 23 T.M. Mortensen & P.J. Gabe, “Does Photojournalism Matter? News Image Content and Presentation in the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record Before and After Layoffs of the Photojournalism Staff”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly vol. 95 (4), 2018, pp. 991, 994. 24 Lowrey, op. cit., p. 411. 25 Brennen, loc. cit. 26 K. Kobré, Photojournalism: The professionals’ approach (Oxford: Focal Press, 5th ed., 2004); cited in Mortensen & Gabe, “Does Photojournalism Matter? News Image Content and Presentation in the Middletown (NY) Times Herald- Record Before and After Layoffs of the Photojournalism Staff”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly vol. 95 (4), 2018, p. 994. 7 aspects of conflict, proximity, human element, novelty, and timeliness as core values to a spectator, photojournalists practice a photographic version of journalism.27 In fact, the Greek origin of the term “photography” literally translates to “writing with light”.28

The notion of “depicting reality” implies that photojournalism – like journalism – is based on the journalistic value of objectivity. In the nineteenth century, photography was said to be “a pencil of nature” which offers the triumphs of reality and accuracy over illusion and art.29 In other words, photographs were thought to provide actual evidence of events and occurrences, be extraordinarily realistic, and offer an authentic representation of reality. However, according to Brennen, it soon became apparent that “different people took different pictures, even when they were photographing the same thing”.30 Sontag explains this phenomenon in her book On Photography as follows:

The camera is the ideal arm of consciousness […]. Any photograph seems to have a more innocent, […] accurate, relation to visible reality than do other mimetic objects. [However,] although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.31 This means that photographers do indeed capture a visible reality the second they close the shutter on their camera. However, a photograph is also a product of what its producer saw and assigned meaning to by choosing to capture and frame it a certain way. Thus, a picture can be seen as an interpretation of the photographerʼs personal and contextualized reality.

Brennen has also noted a shift in the interests and interpretations of news photojournalism between the past and current centuries. Until the mid-twentieth century, photojournalism was believed to be the accurate portrayal of an objective reality. Contemporary photojournalists, on the other hand, put less emphasis on the physical process and focus on a more interpretive role by “providing representations, persuasions, and understandings of larger issues in society”.32 Brennen quotes the photojournalist Vernaschi, who has suggested that contemporary photojournalism has been shifting from an explicit to an emotional documentary style which “goes beyond illustrating ideas and concepts” to help readers “feel the intensity of what they read” in journalistic reports. The power of connecting emotionally with an audience – by entertaining, educating, persuading, and presenting them with a certain world view – bears great responsibilities for photojournalists. According to Brennen, media ethicists are therefore suggesting “that great care should be taken with all images

27 Mortensen & Gabe, loc. cit. 28 Brennen, op. cit., p. 71. 29 S. Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 5; K. Adatto, Picture Perfect. Life in the Age of the Photo Op (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 42. 30 Brennen, op. cit., p. 72. 31 Sontag, op. cit., p. 175. 32 Brennen, op. cit., p. 77. 8 that are published in order to insure that the representations do no harm”.33 This principle generally applies for all photojournalists as well as their text-based colleges, of course, which is why their codes coincide with each other especially with regard to the values of independence, objectivity and truthfulness. One additional feature in photojournalism codes, which reinforces the stance of truthfulness even more, is the interdiction to manipulate the visuals or change the content and context of photographs in any way.34 The adherence to rules of ethical and professional practices is particularly important for (photo)journalistic correspondents, who cover wars and report in times of crisis, as the following sub-chapter will outline.

2.4 Wartime reporting In the coverage of wars and conflicts, journalists have proven to be substantial in both documenting and shaping conflict history, not least by influencing and mobilizing public opinion. Nohrstedt writes that “wars are not only fought by military means. […] A media war is [simultaneously] fought over public opinion and the willingness to fight of populations and troops”. 35 Wars cannot be fought without public support. Therefore, documenting journalists are likely to be used as a tool to campaign for the peopleʼs approval and support of a governmentʼs actions in wars – they “are drawn into the conflict”, either voluntarily, under orders, or unaware. The media can thus be “perceived as a crucial war zone themselves”, or even a “fourth branch of service or a fifth column”.36 Moreover, participating forces in conflicts particularly seek to influence and control reporting in international media, according to Nohrstedt. He has found this to be especially the case with visual materials – first and foremost photographs.37

McMaster suggests that, to understand the different dimensions of war, one must study conflicts by taking a multidisciplinary approach. Among all fields reviewed, he writes, wartime “photography may be the most influential” due to its language-neutrality and accessibility to people “who may support or oppose the use of violence to accomplish war aims.” Certain photos might even “become iconic and shape how wars are perceived and remembered”.38 In other words, photography not only creates a visual record of wartime but it also shapes how a conflict is perceived and remembered. It could thus been seen as a powerful disseminator of wartime news, which transmits pictures from the battlefield directly into people’s living rooms, thereby making events in a war directly accessible to

33 Ibid., p. 78. 34 “Code of Ethics”, National Press Photographers Association, n.d., https://nppa.org/code-ethics, accessed May 20, 2020. 35 S.A. Nohrstedt, “New War Journalism – Trends and Challenges”, Nordicom Review vol. 30 (1), 2009, p. 95. 36 Ibid., p. 96; E. Segev & R. Miesch, “A Systematic Procedure for Detecting News Biases: The Case of Israel in European News Sites”, International Journal of Communication vol. 5, 2011, p. 1948. 37 Nohrstedt, loc. cit. 38 H.R. McMaster, “Photography at War”, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy vol. 56 (2), 2014, pp. 187-188. 9 a civilian audience. More than any other documentary style media, McMaster says, photography has the capacity “to evoke the human and psychological experience of war […], mentally and emotionally engage viewers’ interests and to provoke questions, [which] gives the genre its unique value”.39

Griffin phrases it even more directly, assigning images originating in wars the power to “sway public perceptions and attitudes, potentially reinforcing or eroding public support for war policy”.40 Like McMaster, he deems the study of wartime news photography to be particularly important, not only with regard to its potential impact on an audience but also to its significance as vital tool for determining influence of political and social authorities on the media. Photojournalism, he writes, reveals “the nature of government/press relationships, […] media agendas, the filtering and fixing of images as historical evidence, and the social establishment of photographs as cultural icons, narrative prompts and markers of collective memory”.41

2.5 Academic conceptualizations of conflict coverage: War and Peace Journalism Throughout the past decades, the interconnection between conflicts, peace, and (photo)journalism has been frequently examined within the academic field of media studies. Tumber goes as far as calling the study of war and peace reporting a “fascination to […] scholars”, which is triggered by “the dramatic nature of war and conflict, its importance to states and its publics, and the amount of time and money devoted to it by media and news organizations”.42 While extensive research in this field has led to “many important theoretical and conceptualized debates within the academy”, scholars have payed particular interest to two competing concepts which have become known as “War Journalism” and “Peace Journalism”. They were first explicitly formulated in 1997 by Peace and Conflict Studies pioneer Galtung and have since played a central, yet controversial role in the field of (photo)journalism studies – they both have been applied to news photography, used to examine the visual framing of conflicts, praised and criticized by various scholars depending to their opposing opinions on the matter, and much more.

The first contours of (word-based) Peace Journalism appear in Galtung & Rugeʼs article 1965 “The Structure of Foreign News”, where the term, however, is neither explicitly coined nor conceptualized.43 Only much later, in 1997, Galtung put forward a new approach in order to re-

39 Ibid., pp. 188-190. 40 M. Griffin, “Media images of war”, War & Conflict vol. 3 (1), 2010, p. 8. 41 Ibid. 42 H. Tumber, “Covering War and Peace”, in eds. K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch, The Handbook of Journalism Studies (New York/London: Routledge, 2009), p. 386. 43 J. Galtung & M.H. Ruge, “The Structure of Foreign News”, Journal of Peace Research vol. 2 (1), 1965. 10 evaluate the “traditional” – and probably most commonly applied – style of conflict reporting, which he refers to as “War Journalism”. According to him, War Journalistic practices constitute a violation of the basic tenets of the media as a reliable, unbiased, and detached informant of the public for it promots violence, spreads propaganda, works elite and victory-orientated, and fails to provide crucial context information.44 Galtung thus perceives an engagement in such practices as going on the “low road” of journalism:

The low road, dominant in the media, sees a conflict as a battle, as a sports arena or gladiator circus. The parties, usually reduced to two, are combatants in a struggle to impose their goals. The reporting model is that of a military command: who advances, who capitulates [...]; losses are counted in terms of numbers killed or wounded and material damage. [The] perspective draws upon sports reporting where “winning is not everything, it is the only thing.” […] War journalism has , and court journalism, as models.45 His definition implies that War Journalism feeds off violence, dehumanization and suffering. Hence, it is dependent on and needs to promote the escalations of conflicts in order to be effective. In Galtungʼs own, drastic words: the currently existing “lousy media” constitute “major contributing factors to violence”.46

Galtungʼs proposed alternative is a new approach to war reporting – he terms it “Peace Journalism” – which uses conflicts to create opportunities for society and critically evaluate non-violent responses to a war. This should be done by exploring the formation of conflicts as well as by humanizing all parties and individuals, and by promoting and suggesting measures to enhance a peace process.47 Particularly nonviolence, transparency, creativity, and balanced coverage should be at the forefront of what Galtung praises as the “high road” of journalistic practices:

The high road […], peace journalism, would focus on conflict transformation. Conflicts would be seen as a challenge to the world […]. As people, groups, countries and groups of countries seem to stand in each otherʼs way […] there is a clear danger of violence. But in conflict there is also a clear opportunity for human progress, using the conflict to find new ways, transforming [it] creatively so that the opportunities take the upper hand – without violence.48 While conflicts are prone to taking on a violent path, they also bear new opportunities which can be achieved through peaceful resolutions, according to Galtung. His distinction between the inferior War Journalism and the superior Peace Journalism model is clear-cut: Peace Journalismʼs focus “is

44 J. Galtung, On the Role of the Media for World-Wide Security and Peace (Paris: Université Nouvelle Transnationale, 1985), pp. 10-11. 45 J. Galtung, “High Road, Low Road – Charting the course for Peace Journalism”, Track Two: Constructive Approaches to Community and Political Conflict vol. 7 (4), 1998, https://journals.co.za/docserver/fulltext/track2/7/4/track2_v7_n4_a4.pdf? expires=1578169210&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=4C264A9FAFD8A262578D38184B991BFB, accessed March 30, 2020, pp. 1-2. 46 J. Galtung, “The Task of Peace Journalism”, Ethical Perspectives vol. 7 (2-3), 2000, p. 162. 47 Galtung, “High Road, Low Road”, op. cit., p. 3.; J. Lynch, “(2) Peace Journalism For Journalists”, Transcend Media Service: Solutions-Oriented Peace Journalism, 2008, https://www.transcend.org/tms/about-peace-journalism/2- peace-journalism-for-journalists/, accessed March 18, 2020. 48 Galtung, “High Road, Low Road”, op. cit., p. 2. 11 on the conflict and its peaceful transformation” whereas it is “on the meta-conflict that comes after the root conflict, created by violence and war, and the question of who wins” in War Journalism. 49 Put in metaphorical terms: war reporting is a two-way-street, of which only the high road leads into the ʽrightʼ direction.

The Peace Journalism concept was driven forward by both scholars as well as journalists, among them McGoldrick & Lynch, who co-authored the first guidelines for (text-based) Peace Journalistic practices. According to them, Peace Journalism practitioners rely on “insights of conflict analysis and transformation to update the concepts of balance, fairness and accuracy in reporting” by acknowledging and addressing the indefinite variables of a conflict – as opposed to the ʽclassicʼ one-versus-one scenario.50 Furthermore, Peace Journalists should convey “awareness of non- violence and creativity” in both and reporting to produce a peace, truth, people and solution- orientated coverage.51 Thus, McGoldrick & Lynch conclude, Peace Journalism is the ʽbetter counterpart’ of the propaganda, elite and violence-oriented War Journalism as it gives all involved parties a voice, highlights positive aspects and works solution-oriented. Since the developers of the concept did not distinguish between different journalistic fields, their proposed practices could presumably be applied to all kinds of journalism – including photojournalism.

3. Taking the concepts to news photography Ottosen demands that the afore mentioned approaches to Peace Journalism should also be applied to visual elements such as news photographs. Current news imagery, he claims, depends mainly on War Journalism characteristics: they contribute to the “propaganda-orientation” of texts by underlining “ethnocentric and militaristic” approaches and consequently play “an important role in creating enemy images”.52 This also fits the general consensus that a ʽWar Journalism theme’ exists, which is a ʽclassic’ feature of mainstream wartime reporting, not only in textual form but also in terms of visual news material. In return, demands for Peace Journalistic approaches also involve both word and image based practices, as it will be established in the next sections of this thesis.

3.1 War Photography It was the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) which paved the way for what would later be conceptualized as War Photography. Though cameras had already been present in previous 49 Ibid., p. 1. 50 The variables consist of “χ parties, у goals, ƶ issues […] open space, open time; causes and outcomes anywhere.” A. McGoldrick & J. Lynch, “Peace Journalism – What is it? How to do it?”, TRANSCEND manual, 2000, https://www.transcend.org/tri/downloads/McGoldrick_Lynch_Peace-Journalism.pdf, accessed March 30, 2020, p. 29. 51 J. Lynch & A. McGoldrick, Peace Journalism (London: Hawthorn Press, 2005), p. 5. 52 R. Ottosen, “Emphasising Images in Peace Journalism: Theory and Practice in the Case of Norwayʼs Biggest ”, conflict & communication online vol. 6 (1), 2007, pp. 2-3. 12 conflicts, advanced camera technology in particular made it possible that wars could be visualized to an unprecedented, revolutionizing extent. In the course of the Spanish Civil War, photographers were able to produce dramatic, on-location photographs which openly depicted violence – “gritty and graphic photographs of soldiers […] in action, bombed homes and villages, maimed children, corpses and grieving survivors” – and to publish them in European magazines.53 In addition to the novelty of graphic imagery being distributed by mainstream papers, Griffin notes that it raised “the visual expectations of the image-viewing public ever after. Such photographs became both a mark of the new capacity of modern media to deliver images of ongoing world events, even from difficult and dangerous locations, and prototypes for a new genre of photojournalism: war photography”.54 Since photojournalism had not yet been extensively academized and conceptualized at that point, it can be presumed that the photographers of the Spanish Civil War chose their motives intuitively. Their intention might thus have solely been to apply photographic technology as a way to create a visual record and – based on the presumption of photography’s natural verisimilitude and objectivity – supply an audience with a direct and authentic sense of real events. As Griffin puts it: “bring apparently authentic views of distant events to [the peopleʼs] breakfast tables and living rooms”.55

What began as intuition and is still perceived as the ʽtraditional wayʼ of photojournalistic war correspondence has been turned and expanded into the criteria for what the academy has established as the War Photography concept.56 Both supporters and critics of this practice acknowledge that this model lives in/is a snapshot of a specific moment of a war, seeking to produce “dramatically charged images” of compelling war scenes with “above all ʽdramatic visual impactʼ”.57 War Photographs are generally valued by news organizations for their capacity to grab and hold viewer attention, according to Griffin. He refers to Thussuʼs observation that good news would be not compelling enough. Rather, the media “thrives on violence, death and destruction – be that from natural causes (earthquake, floods, hurricanes) or human causes (wars, riots, murders). [They] score more highly than peacetime events”.58

3.2 Visual criteria for War Photojournalism Two scholars, who have established a set of visual criteria according to which a picture can be

53 Griffin, op. cit., p. 10. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., pp. 9-10. 56 Galtung, “High Road, Low Road”, op. cit., p. 1. 57 Griffin, op. cit., p. 9. 58 D.K. Thussu, “Live TV and Bloodless Deaths: War, and 24/7 News”, in eds. D.K. Thussu & D. Freedman, War and the Media (London: Sage, 2003), pp.123-124. 13 categorized as a War/Peace Photograph, are Fahmy & Neumann. In an exploratory study of the photographic coverage of the Gaza Conflict in , they attempt to enhance Galtungʼs perception of what constitutes War/Peace Journalism both in terms of the conceptsʼ definitions as well as their application to photojournalism. Rather than connecting Galtungʼs approach to a visual analysis, however, their criteria actually presents a simplification of the War and Peace Journalism dichotomy as they focus solely on a pictureʼs visuals. Fahmy & Neumann justify their approach by stating that, while “previous scholarship primarily tested the […] theory with regard to written news content”, it should to be acknowledged that “visuals are different from texts”. 59 This implies that news photographs are generally disconnected from textual influences and can thus be conceptualized based only on the visual impression they transmit.

To prove their proposition, Fahmy & Neumann identify certain War and Peace Journalism criteria, which are applicable to the study of photographs, like, for instance, the contrast between images depicting suffering people versus pictures of peace negotiations. The incurring divide would offer “a powerful demonstration of how the visual dimension of reporting news events could potentially create a war journalism frame (with a particular emphasis on victims and belligerents) and a peace journalism frame (with a particular emphasis on negotiators, peace treaties, and demonstrators)”.60 Moreover, they use the degree of physical and emotional suffering, as well as the roles and ages of subjects as additional aspects as coding items to “help determine whether a visual can be categorized as a war [or] peace journalism frame”.61 Fahmy & Neumann define the categories as follows:

Physical harm/Suffering: A War Journalism frame inhibits any visible form of physical suffering, be it injury or death, which can be categorized in three main strands. “Not severe” photographs display no clear physical damage; thus, whether a “non-severe” picture actually fits the War category needs to be determined based on other factors. “Severe” cases show people with injuries such as skin abrasions, wounds and/or loss of extremities. Lastly, suffering in photos is “most- severe” if they depict dead people or bodies being carried in body bags.62 Emotions: Furthermore, the extent to which depicted persons in a photograph appear to be particularly emotional is assessed. However, Fahmy & Neumann acknowledge the difficulty to mediate, capture and interpret emotional nuances in pictures correctly in visual content analyses.

59 S. Fahmy & R. Neumann, “Shooting War Or Peace Photographs? An Examination of Newswires’ Coverage of the Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009)”, American Behavioral Scientist vol. 56 (2), 2011, pp. 3, 6. 60 Ibid., p. 6. 61 Ibid., pp. 6-7. 62 Ibid., p. 13. 14

Rather than developing a scale or ranking emotions, they thus dichotomize what is visible in photographs into “negative” and “positive” emotions. In War Photography, emotions tend to be predominately negative, which can be expressed through, among others, signs of anger, frustration, sadness, mourning, fear, and pain.63 Roles: Another distinction is made between two different “war roles” which individuals or groups can perform in War Photographs. The first role includes “victimized” subjects, such as suffering civilians or refugees. This role also comprises a visible “theme of destruction”; for instance, destroyed landscapes and towns, or devastated fields. Secondly, “belligerents” are persons engaged in war actions as well as actors who appear to be hostile to one another. In general, belligerents – including both individuals and groups – are defined as “not very likely to be seen as contributing to peace by a larger public.” It is mainly the “violent nature of the actions performed by [them]” which helps in the discovery of belligerents in photos. Thus, one needs to be careful in assigning a certain role based solely on the picture because, depending on the moment it has captured, “a specific individual could be categorized as a belligerent in one context whereas in other contexts be categorized differently.”64 Age: The possible age groups of photographed subjects can play a distinctive role in drawing emotions and associations from an audience. Though a crisis affects people regardless of their age, it might not necessarily be evident in a picture. It has been suggested that photos of children in critical situations evoke stronger emotions in spectators than those of adults, due to a child’s innocence, dependence and vulnerability. Hence, photos of suffering children might be used specifically to attract attention. The scholars therefore argue that “photographs of children and adolescents have become an essential frame of war narratives in the news”.65 To utilize these findings in the study, another dichotomy distinguishes between “children” and “adolescents/adults” in critical situations. The age category, however, can only be applied to cases where people are shown. If both age groups are present in one picture, the focus is put on the “dominating group”; or, in other words, the group at the center of action, which attracts the most attention.66

To illustrate with an own example, Image A)67 contains typical traits of what would be considered a War Journalism frame, according to Fahmy & Neumannʼs categorization. It was taken by Faas, a Pulitzer Price winning photojournalist, who worked for the news agency AP and dedicated himself

63 Ibid., p. 13. 64 Ibid., pp. 11-12. 65 Ibid., p. 7. 66 Ibid., pp. 12-13. 67 H. Faas, “Vietnam Saigon U.S. Embassy Bombing”, AP Images, 1965, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS207327-Vietnam-Saigon-U- S-/b822bdef28bd451dbfcf0a82d98bc557/341/0, accessed March 19, 2020. 15 to following troops and civilians during the violent conflicts of the Vietnam War.68 The image depicts a scene of said conflict in Saigon, Vietnam, shortly after a bomb had exploded outside the US Embassy on March 30, 1965. According to the description provided by AP, the people in the picture are “injured Vietnamese [receiving] aid as they lie on the street [while] smoke rises from wreckage in background […]”.69 The picture captures a truly gruesome “scene of destruction” as well as clearly visible physical suffering. Presumably dead and badly, if not fatally injured people are scattered on the ground, suffering from wounds and burn marks from the explosion. Therefore, the degree of physical suffering in the photograph can be rated as “most severe” according to the categories established by Fahmy & Neumann. The determination of the emotional suffering in this particular case is more difficult as the photograph was taken as a so-called “full-shot”, in which more emphasis is put on action and movement rather than on the subjects’ emotional states. Indeed, the faces of the depicted persons are mainly hidden or not clearly visible in this case. However, the man in the front appears to clasp his hands behind his head, with his elbows pointing forward. This type of body gesture is understood as a signal of disbelief and denial and is most likely to be displayed when something shocking happens – thereby provoking “negative” emotions.70 The man in the middle of the shot also appears to be in a state of shock and fear as he is standing on the street with his eyes wide open, a blank expression on his face. “Belligerents” are not visible here; the picture only shows the “victims” of the attack – Vietnamese civilians – as well as what appear to be security guards and rescuers in uniforms and helmets. In addition to the casualties of the attack, the embassyʼs surroundings are clearly devastated: debris covers the ground, the building at the corner of the street has seemingly lost its front wall as a result of the detonation, and fire and smoke can be seen in the back. Both the people and the location were thus “victimized” in an act of violence as part of warfare. While it is difficult to determine the age range of the people present in the picture, it appears like adults are the dominating group. The slight skewness of the camera angle as well as the cut-off person in the front suggest that Faas, like the civilians on the street, was surprised by the event, pulled out his camera and took the shot, without giving consideration to its aesthetics or the possible influence it could have on an audience. According to the coding items established by Fahmy & Neumann, this specific image would be identified as War Photograph.

68 “Photographer Horst Faas”, AP Images, n.d., http://www.apimages.com/Collection/Landing/Photographer-Horst- Faas-/03e5ff94483648859f53486e967ec079, accessed March 19, 2020. 69 H. Faas, “Vietnam Saigon U.S. Embassy Bombing”, AP Images, 1965, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS207327-Vietnam-Saigon-U- S-/b822bdef28bd451dbfcf0a82d98bc557/341/0, accessed March 19, 2020. 70 H. Parvez, “Body language: Scratching hair and touching the head”, PsychMechanics, 2015, https://www.psychmechanics.com/body-language-scratching-hair/, accessed March 19, 2020. 16

3.3 Peace Photography In hindsight of the notion that “politics, global and otherwise, is to some extend shaped by visual images, […] nowadays more than ever”, Möller requests more reflective, self-critical approaches to photographic representations of peace:

We should think not only about representations of war and the question of how images represent and contribute to [organized] violence but also about representations of peace and the question of how images may represent and contribute to peace. If images can be complicit with violence, then they can also be complicit with peace.71 So far, however, he claims that this particular photographic discourse has been ignored by the “institutionalized academic discipline” of peace research, which “seems to be interested neither in peace nor visual images”. Rather, despite their stated interest in the analysis of war and peace, peace researchers would prioritize “analyses of the former over the latter” – and thereby even nurture their own personal “fascination with violence”.72

Allan has taken these observations as a reason to “reconsider war photography anew [by] seeking to disrupt the ideological purchase of its accustomed norms, values and priorities”.73 To Allan, customs of the current practice of wartime photography are to enable a morally questionable “form of spectatorship”, which “makes possible the means to apprehend […] other people’s pain” from a distance. No one would profit from such coverage, however, since it would only be an “often- rendered assertion that the grisly representation of violence [in news photos] necessarily threatens public support for military intervention”. In addition, Allan sees “no necessary correlation between images of human suffering and compassion, let alone concerted action”.74 He thereby dismisses the commonly voiced opinion that pictures categorized as War Photographs could have an emotional impact on an audience and possibly influence people’s sentiment towards a certain conflict. His suggestions for Peace Photography practices thus call for a “profound re-imagining of photographic form, practice and epistemology” so “the lived realities of human suffering in all of their complexity” could be documented in a constructive way by simultaneously “engendering opportunities to [visualize] alternatives”.75 Hence, rather than portraying war as two-sided matter, of which violence is the side-effect to be expected, photographs should aim to humanize and explore the opportunities, hopes and chances arising from a conflict.

While the matter of what constitutes Peace Photography would be too complex to be confined to

71 F. Möller, Peace Photography (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), p. 40. 72 Ibid., pp. 39-41. 73 S. Allan, “Documenting War, Visualizing Peace: Towards Peace Photography”, in eds. I.S. Shaw, J. Lynch & R.A. Hackett, Expanding Peace Journalism (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2011), p. 149. 74 Ibid., pp. 148, 162. 75 Ibid., p. 162. 17 fixed categories, Allan suggests the “creation of a new visual grammar resistant to the pull of binaries [such as ʽgood’/ʽevil’, ʽus’/ʽthem’]” as an initial step to approach definitions for the new concept.76 In their previously mentioned study, Fahmy & Neumann have proposed their own counterframe to War Photography, which, they think, could help to distinguish between War and Peace Photography.

3.4 Visual criteria for Peace Photojournalism Fahmy & Neumann have established their own Peace Photography criteria, which foresees the trade of graphic images containing, for instance, stigmatizations, human suffering and casualties caused by warfare for photos taken during peace negotiations to emphasize acts of resolution, reconciliation and reconstruction. This is done by contrasting their War Photography coding items – physical and emotional suffering, the role a subject plays in a photo and the age group of the depicted – with Peace Photographic counterparts. By acknowledging them, they say, Peace Photographers are able to possibly create “more positive, hopeful [images] in the viewer’s mind”, which cannot be said about the products of War Photographers.77 Fahmy & Neumann’s Peace Photography criteria are:

Physical harm/Suffering: As mentioned in the chapter “War Journalism Criteria”, the degree to which suffering both in the form of physical and emotional harm is depicted in a photograph can be ranked. War Photographic pictures are thought of to display predominately cases of “severe” and “most severe” suffering. The degree of harm in Peace Photography, in contrast, is commonly expected to be “not severe”, which applies to pictures in which no clear physical damage is apparent. One example of this would be an image of people, who demonstrate against the war in a non-violent way.78 Emotions: To classify the emotionality of depicted persons in Peace Photography, the dichotomy of “negative” and “positive” emotions is once again used. Peace in itself is generally associated with positive feelings; such as hope, confidence, redemption, delight, or happiness. Since Peace Photography should constitute a “positive counterpart” of War Photography by contributing to more hopeful, peace-promoting conditions, it needs to display signs of people’s positivity rather than negativity.79 Roles: The afore mentioned “war roles” are contrasted by two peaceful counterframes. One is the role of the “negotiator”, which can consist of different constellations: Most likely the highest

76 Ibid., pp. 160, 162-163. 77 Fahmy & Neumann, op. cit., pp. 6-8. 78 Ibid. p. 13. 79 Ibid. 18 symbolic value can be ascribed to images of antagonists engaging/negotiating in peace talks together. Political and organizational leaders, who act as external mediators – thus are “non- belligerents” – can also be identified as negotiators. This further applies to pictures which capture foreign leaders in contact with one or different conflict parties due to the obvious disposition to attempt negotiations with outside help. The second role is that of a “demonstrator”. While demonstrations can be done both violently as well as peacefully, the term is only applied in instances in which “people in worldwide locations peacefully protested against the war without doing any physical harm to bystanders or security forces”.80 This includes, among others, demonstrations in which people march holding signs and banners, whereas it would not apply to stone-throwers. Age: Photographs of children in war-torn regions can also be used to create “a more positive, hopeful image in the viewer’s mind” if they are displayed in a peace-related context, such as, for example, a picture of children studying in classrooms. While children in their role as victims are a common subject in War Photographs, their occurrence in Peace Photographs mainly displays them in states of happiness and progress, potentially spurred on by humanitarian work and, ideally, a proceeding peace process. Though the same is true for images portraying only adults in similar ways, children in images provoke strong emotional responses – either negative or positive, depending on the content.81

Image B)82 serves as another independent illustration of how this criteria could function in the detection of a Peace Photograph. The picture was taken by the AP photographer Lipchitz during the peace negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam at the time of the Vietnam War. It captures the end of a meeting between Kissinger, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to US President Nixon, (r.), and the Representative of North Vietnam’s delegation, Thọ (l.) on June 12, 1973, in France. Watching from behind is Thọ’s aide. The captions convey the picture’s context and basic information. One sentence might be particularly important: “They have yet to finalize their draft accord to tighten the Vietnam peace agreement”.83 This formulation implies that a peace agreement to end the Vietnam War had already been in place at that time, and that state leaders of the opposing parties were actively working on its improvements to satisfy their nations.84 The

80 Ibid., p. 12. 81 Ibid., pp. 8, 10, 12-13. 82 M. Lipchitz, “Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho 1973”, AP Images, 1973, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-International-News- Fran-/332d428e921c458c9bf097e8e508d9f4/11/0, accessed April 9, 2020. 83 Ibid. 84 A peace treaty had already been signed in January of 1973. Yet, US and Vietnamese delegates had to conduct further meetings to establish a more “stable peace” since the fighting had continued, rendering the accords increasingly ineffectual. The meeting on June 12 was concerned with the implementation of a cease-fire in Vietnam. The effort 19 photograph conveys an impression of general consent, mutual respect, and friendliness between the subjects. Because it was taken during peace negotiations in France – thus far away from the actual battlefields in Southeast Asia – no destruction and/or physical suffering is visible. If categorized in regard to the visible suffering it displays, it would hence be a “non-severe” image, according to Fahmy & Neumann’s criteria. The body language exhibited by all persons in the picture is unambiguously “positive”: Kissinger and Thọ smile openly at each other, both showing their teeth and making wrinkles on the outer part of their eyes. The two persons in the background of the image also have smiles on their faces. Such facial expressions are generally known to send a positive message and create a “feel-good factor” by letting a person appear warm and approachable, and by affecting the receptiveness persons feel towards each other.85 In addition, the photograph has captured the politicians in the moment of an apparently firm handshake: Thọ’s hand is almost entirely covered by that of Kissinger, whose thumb is pressing down on Thọ’s knuckles. At the same time, they make eye contact with each other – a bodily way to express interest and respect.86 Kissinger also seems to lean slightly towards Thọ, potentially signaling his interest and willingness to listen.87 Thus, the emotions displayed by the subjects in the picture – including interest, openness, respect, and friendliness – fit Fahmy & Neumann’s definition of “positive” emotions. Furthermore, Kissinger and Thọ clearly fulfill the role of “negotiators”; they are antagonists, who engage in a peace talk together. Fahmy & Neumann’s consideration of age groups cannot be applied in this case as no children are present and the age of the protagonists does not add to/detract from the general impression of the picture. Nevertheless, all the above considered attributes visible in the photograph suggest that it could be classified as Peace Photograph, according to Fahmy & Neumann.

4. Reflections on journalistic practice Most scholars – among them Galtung, Lynch and McGoldrick – have acknowledged that studies of the interpretation and conceptualization of visual content play a role in the War/Peace Photography models. Mitra, however, has criticized such a categorization of photography for being too “restricted to explicit content” while studies of production processes and situational contexts are ignored. Visual analyses thus only focus on the ʽfinal product’ of the production process leading up to the published photograph. However, if samples are defined as having the same ‘meaning’ rather failed, however, as Thọ was not satisfied with formulations in and last-minute changes to the treaty. Nevertheless, both leaders stressed their goal to normalize the relations between their people and remained respectful towards each other and agreed to meet again the next day for further discussions. J.M. Carland & A.M. Howard (eds.), Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume XLII, Vietnam: The Kissinger-Le Duc Tho Negotiations (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2017), pp. VI-VII, 1710-1719. 85 V. Bindra, Everything About Corporate Etiquette (New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2015), chap. 4, Kindle Edition. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. 20 than what “meanings they might be given in their eventual discursive contexts”, their categorization could be misleading. She hence argues that “the omission of how the photos are eventually used to support or negate news discourses in media renders studies of ‘peace’ and ‘war’ frames of visuals of a conflict limited”.88 In this regard, it would not be enough to only consider visual contents in news photographs to recognize if and which concept they fit into. Instead, the War/Peace Photojournalism researchers should take a set of variables into account in order to determine both the models’ attributes as well as limitations. Among others, such variables could include the production and gatekeeping processes of the news media, the professional role in practices and routines of (photo)journalists and editors, their ethical behavior and intentions, and a picture’s situational and temporal contexts.

4.1 Photojournalists are more than ‘simply’ photographers References to photojournalism usually contain notions of ‘bearing witness’, ‘visualizing reality’ and ‘capturing the truth’. According to Sousa, it was the natural witness intent of humans which created the “first photojournalism without photojournalists”.89 Though he distinguishes slightly between two news media photography practices – “photojournalism”, which reports on current events, and “photodocumentalism”, which is of predominately “timeless value” – their overarching, main objective will always be to testify. This is also what makes photojournalism a product of as well as for the media.90 For Baeza, photodocumentalism is the defining principle behind the photojournalistic profession, which, in return, is dictated by the terms of the news media: “Photojournalism is one [form] that photodocumentalism can adopt”; it is a “documentalism that depends on media-defined actions or guidelines for issues […] connected to the values of information or news”.91 Photojournalists are thus defined and – to some extent – constrained by the expectations of both the traditional perception of photography as a timeless document as well as the demands and guidelines of the news media. Golden’s definition also frames photojournalism as correlation of both principles: “Photojournalism is the presentation of stories through photographs – photojournalists are journalists with cameras”.92 Man, the inventor of photographic interviews

88 S. Mitra, “Re-thinking visuals: Understanding discursive reformulation of visuals to inform peace journalism”, conflict & communication online vol. 13 (2), 2014, pp. 1, 3. 89 J.G. Sousa, “Estatuto e Expressividade da Fotografia Jornalística”, Biblioteca On-Line de Ciências da Comunicação, 2011, http://www.bocc.ubi.pt/pag/sousa-jorge-estatuto-e-expressividade-da-fotografia.pdf, accessed April 18, 2020, p. 1; cited in J.C. Luz Ramos & B. Alcaraz Marocco, “Photojournalism: Diverse Concepts, Uniform Practices”, Brazilian Journalism Research vol. 13 (1), 2017, p. 135. 90 J.G. Sousa, Uma História Crítica do Fotojornalismo Ocidental (Porto: Fernando Pessoa University), 1998, p. 3; cited in Luz Ramos & Alcaraz Marocco, op. cit., p. 136. 91 P. Baeza, Por una funcion critica de la fotografia de prensa (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gilli), 2007, p. 45; cited in Luz Ramos & Alcaraz Marocco, op. cit., p. 136. 92 R. Golden, Photojournalism: 150 years of outstanding press photography (London: Carlton Book, 2nd ed., 2008), p. 8. 21 known as “reportage portraits”, describes his photojournalistic method in fact as “writing with the camera instead of the pen and leaving everything undisturbed in its natural conditions”.93

Man’s belief in the often-cited ‘record-as-it-is policy of photojournalism’ is also reflected in the code of conduct of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). As the practice of photojournalism “affords an opportunity to serve the public”, it is the photographer’s “individual responsibility [to] strive for pictures that report truthfully, honestly and objectively”. Furthermore, the NPPA specifies that, in documentary photojournalism, “it is wrong to alter the content of a photograph in any way [...]”, thereby affirming the notion of photojournalists as ‘truthful witnesses’. In general, the stated responsibilities of photojournalists are independent reporting, keeping public trust through credibility and transparency, documenting society truthfully, and preserving history.94 Those obligations to society are what distinguishes photojournalists from amateur photographers, according to Pedroso:

Photojournalists […] meet the demand of seeing and telling their stories/news with enthusiasm and interest in an intelligent, different, understandable, and stimulating way. If they do not, then anybody could do their job, replacing heavy equipment for a cellular phone with a camera, and a thinking mind for a mind that thinks of pressing a button and letting the others do the rest.95 In part, Newton agrees to Pedroso’s opinion: The view that anyone can be a […] photojournalist, speaks to the underlying assumptions of objectivity, [...] and a mechanistic world view: that there is a fact-based truth to be discovered and told or shown, and that using a tool, such as a camera, or a method, such as journalism [...], can achieve such discovery and ultimately capture fact.96 However, she spots the difference between professionals and amateurs in their different levels of awareness and intention – a trained observer, she thinks, “may see [and] gather and recall more than someone who does not ‘practice’ observation as a core method of everyday life”.97 Becker also finds a certain level of awareness and concern in photojournalists about their responsibilities, which they would try to justify by finding their personal “legitimation in the response their work generates in viewers” as well as affirmation of directions by “organizations, audiences, and peers [surrounding] them as they do the work”.98 In other words, a photograph’s inherited journalistic purpose and its

93 “Felix Man Reportage Portraits 1929-76”, National Portrait Gallery, 2012, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/about/photographs-collection/national-photographic-record/felix-man-reportage- portraits-1929-76.php, accessed April 18, 2020. 94 “Code of Ethics”, National Press Photographers Association, loc. cit. 95 E.S. Pedroso “Reflexões sobre fotografia no jornalismo impresso”, in eds. Â. Felippi et. al., Edição de Imagens em Jornalismo (Santa Cruz do Sul: Edunisc, 2008), p. 48; cited in J.C. Luz Ramos & B. Alcaraz Marocco, “Photojournalism: Diverse Concepts, Uniform Practices”, Brazilian Journalism Research vol. 13 (1), 2017, pp. 145- 146. 96 J.H. Newton, “Photojournalism – Do people matter? Then photojournalism matters”, Journalism Practice vol. 3 (2), 2009, p. 237. 97 Ibid. 98 H.S. Becker, ‘‘Visual Sociology, Documentary Photography, and Photojournalism: it’s (almost) all a matter of context’’, Visual Sociology vol. 10 (1/2), p. 11. 22 submission to the media’s production processes known as “gatekeeping” inevitably affects the photojournalist himself; thus directing him in his practice and influencing his decision to (not) depict a certain event. Photojournalists are therefore caught between their professional obligation to report objectively and unswayed by external influences, and the demands posed by the medium they work for. Thus, exploring the decision of a photojournalist to (not) take a certain picture could hint at his professional identity as well as any underlying intentions.

4.2 Gatekeeping and “hyperreality” theory Like any other form of news publication, photojournalistic content generally undergoes an entire production process by which information is filtered based on certain decisions of a newsroom. This practice is known as “gatekeeping”. The according “gatekeeping theory” was first defined by Lewin in 1947 and later applied to newsroom routines. It outlines various decision points – a “myriad of individual, [organizational,] and extra-media influences” – according to which incoming “news items are stopped at ‘gates’ while a few others make their way to publication”.99 Those “gates” are commonly operated by editors, who receive and filter submissions to their newsdesk.

Different scholars have identified different decision points with a different degree of importance in their studies. They are based on , a set of twelve factors first outlined by Galtung & Ruge in 1965, which determine whether an event is perceived as “newsworthy” or, in other words, if it will be covered in a news publication and how it is portrayed. It is interesting to note that many of Galtung’s criteria align with the ‘reprehensible’ practices of his definition of War Journalism. For instance, negativity is more newsworthy than positivity, according to Galtung – “negative news is more unexpected […] in the sense that the events referred to are more rare [and] less predictable” – and an “elite-orientation” is also clearly visible.100 Thus, the more news value an event is prescribed to during the production process, the more likely it will be selected to ‘become news’.

In her study, Schultz explores the connection between gatekeeping theory and its significance for journalists personal judgment of what is worthy of coverage – she calls it the “journalistic gut feeling”. Her exploration is notable since both editors and journalists experience their practice as “unpredictable”, thus opposite to the theoretical models portraying the decision-making routines of

99 H. De Smaele, E. Geenen & R. De Cock, “Visual Gatekeeping – Selection of News Photographs at a Flemish Newspaper”, Nordicom Review vol. 38 (2), 2017, pp. 57-58. 100 The twelve factors are: 1. frequency, 2. threshold (absolute intensity & intensity increase), 3. unambiguity, 4. meaningfulness (cultural proximity & relevance), 5. consonance (predictability & demand), 6. unexpectedness (unpredictability & scarcity), 7. continuity, 8. composition, 9. reference to elite nations, 10. reference to elite people, 11. reference to persons, 12. reference to something negative. Galtung & Ruge, op. cit., pp. 64-64, 70. 23 newsrooms as clear and repetitive.101 Yet, one of Schultz’s interviewees admits that news criteria affect his decisions about (not) covering a story. He describes it as an unconscious feeling, almost like an additional, embodied sense:

[The criteria] are somehow part of your spinal cord, part of how you assess and form an opinion about news stories. But it’s not as if it’s a checklist you pull out, asking yourself, ‘‘Ok, how many criteria does this story apply to?’’ [It’s more like a feeling] in the back of your head […] whether you think this is a news story or not.102 Thus, the “journalistic gut feeling” of editors, who assign tasks and/or select submissions, and journalists, who receive tasks and/or submit stories, appears to entail similar news values to those established by scholars.

4.2.1 Visual gatekeeping Visual contents are viewed as an important part of the news in that they can affect an audience and shape their perception on a certain matter. Despite the “rich tradition” of gatekeeping theory in media studies, however, De Smaele et. al. argue that studies of its application to photojournalism are still underrepresented.103 In their own research, they find striking differences in gatekeeping routines of the “general news desks […] deciding what’s news”, and the “photo desk” which “illustrates the news.” While editors still weigh “one picture against another”, they “are inclined to consider their choices as autonomous, intuitive and even emotional” like in the journalistic gut feeling. However, De Smaele et. al.’s observations outline that traditional news values as defined by Galtung & Ruge are only barely applicable to the editorial selection process of news photographs. Overall, editors appear to opt for “balanced, tasteful images” rather than sensational ones, and avoid “shock simply to shock”. This means that the selection of news photos is both “content-driven” in that they are chosen to depict the main events presented in a news story as well as motivated by aesthetic and considered ethical demands of an editor.104

In return, it can be assumed that such guidelines influence photojournalistic conduct, shaping both the content and form of photographs as well as affecting the actions and thoughts of practitioners. This is why the identities and practical orientations of photojournalists and their respective media should be included in any conceptualization concerned with their profession and their products. This thought is echoed by Chaves, who says that photojournalists are not just camera operators who freeze frames of reality: rather, “behind every lens [is someone] with convictions and conditioning,

101 I. Schultz, “The Journalistic Gut Feeling – Journalistic doxa, news habitus and orthodox news values”, Journalism Practice vol. 1 (2), 2007, p. 192. 102 Ibid., p. 198. 103 Ibid., p. 59. 104 Ibid., pp. 66-69. 24 selecting the issues and frameworks for which images will be printed”.105 In other words, they make subjective choices about what (not) to include in what appears to be an objective medium. To some degree, this makes photojournalism a gatekeeping institution itself and renders it incapable of reflecting reality in a neutral way. News photography can hence never fully depict a full reality – it can merely serve as a representation of it, though it might be presented as the truth by the press. This effect, in which “imitations or reproductions of reality acquire more legitimacy, value and power than the originals themselves”,106 has been described by philosopher Baudrillard as “hyperreality”.

4.2.2 “Hyperreality” in photojournalism In Baudrillard’s theory, a hyperreality consists of “simulations”, i.e. replica or imitations, which are used as substitutes for reality. As a result, the transformation of reality into a hyperreality lets the latter appear “more real than reality itself”.107 According to Baudrillard, the media offers hyperreality the perfect platform to manifest itself: they “represent more than the real” and thereby produce and define a reality of their own “that is defined by its absence of reality”. 108 Baudrillard has proven the value of his theory by discussing apparent discrepancies between actual events and the news coverage of the highly mediatized Gulf War (~1990-1991). He found that the media’s representation of the war had a highly propagandistic character and had yet been accepted globally as an accurate portrayal, even though its true form was lost behind its presentation. The purposely created confusion then contributed to the acceptance of the hyperreal narration of the Gulf War by the media:

If this war had not been a war and the images had been real images, there would have been a problem. […] The non-war would have appeared for what it is: a scandal. Similarly, if the war had been a real war and the information had not been information, this non-information would have appeared for what it is: a scandal. In both cases, there would have been a problem. […] One further problem [is]: how [did a real war] not generate real images? Same problem for those who believe in the Americans’ “victory”: how is it that Saddam is still there as though nothing had happened? […] Everything becomes coherent if we suppose that, given this victory was not a victory, the defeat of Saddam was not a defeat either. Everything evens out […]: the war, the victory and the defeat are all equally unreal, equally non-existent.109 Thus, Baudrillard’s theory is considerable in the studies of War/Peace Photojournalism in that it demonstrates the capability of a photograph to deceive. At the same time, it illustrates the 105 R. Chaves, “Fotojornalismo”, in ed. L.E. Robinson, Ensaios sobre o Fotográfico (Porto Alegre: Municipality of Porto Alegre, 1998), p. 63; cited in J.C. Luz Ramos & B. Alcaraz Marocco, “Photojournalism: Diverse Concepts, Uniform Practices”, Brazilian Journalism Research vol. 13 (1), 2017, p. 141. 106 C. Chaput, “Hyperreality”, in eds. V.E. Taylor & C.E. Winquist, Encyclopedia of Postmodernism (London/New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 182-183. 107 Ibid., p. 183. 108 Ibid. 109 Saddam Hussein was the Iraqi president at the time of the Gulf War and the “enemy” of the US. J. Baudrillard, The Gulf War did not take place (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 81- 82. 25 complexity of the study of visual documents: though every image – no matter how untouched it appears – is manipulated, its transmitted evidence is heavily relied on by media consumers and constitutes a crucial part of the daily flow of information. While it may be impossible to ‘get behind the real truth’ of news photographs, their historical and political environment, the medium in which they appear, the photojournalist’s reflections on his experiences, and the coherence of the captions with all the former could help to disguise simulations.

4.3 Contexts and captions Since news photography only provides an extract of an original real-world situation, it is necessary to consider both a photojournalist’s action to achieve and transmit a certain picture as well as the circumstances under which it was taken in order to understand and appreciate it. According to Barrett, such contextual information can be found and analyzed on three levels – “internal”, “original” and “external”. An analysis could begin with the “evident” internal context, which inherits “identification of subject matter, consideration of its form, and relationships between the two”.110 This means, the study of internal context focuses on describing and analyzing the obvious – including what and how it depicts a scene – and how those variables fit together. While it is possible that some photographs can be understood and interpreted solely based on internal evidence, others require additional contextual knowledge about the surrounding circumstances – hence, the original context – to become meaningful. Those can consist of a broad range of factors and variables:

Original context broadly refers to that which was physically and psychologically present to the photographer at the time the photograph was made. [Thus,] consider the photographer’s intent, if it is available, and biography; the intellectual, imagistic, and stylistic sources of the work; the relation of the photograph to [contemporary others]; and the social, political, philo- sophical, and religious character of the times.111 Lastly, Barrett notes that every photograph is presented with a context, “and its presentation is at least a pre-set orientation to its interpretation”. Therefore, a photograph’s meaning depends on its external context, thus “presentational environments” including how and in which medium it is published, its reception, and the context provided in accompanying texts such as titles, headlines, reports and captions. Particularly the latter can have a profound impact on how a picture is received and interpreted. Thus, attempts should be made to identify their origin – whether they were written by the photographers themselves or, for instance, their editors. While accompanying text produced by photographers should be considered part of their products, an editor’s caption are forms of interpretation.112

110 T. Barrett, “Teaching about Photography: Photographs and Contexts”, Art Education vol. 39 (4), 1986, pp. 33- 34. 111 Ibid., pp. 34-35. 112 Ibid., pp. 35-36; K. Becker, “Photojournalism and the Tabloid Press”, in eds. P. Dahlgren & C. Sparks, Journalism and Popular Culture (London: Sage, 1992), p. 144. 26

Photojournalism, in particular, depends on the interconnectedness of an image and its captions. Though both consist of different codes – one is visual, the other linguistic – they interact so fluidly that readers will enter what is known as a “loop”: “Readers look at a photograph first, then at the caption [below]. If [it] intrigues them by providing context and background information, readers will look back at the photograph and see something new”.113 This implies that a caption can also ‘steer’ a reader in perceiving an image a certain way by assigning meaning to a photograph, thus acting as a semiotic sign-system. Semiotics, in general, refer to meaning which is composed of denotative – literal/physical, common-sensical – and connotative – socio-cultural, associative – signs. A caption can either convey the denotative meaning of a picture alone or it can express both the denotative and connotative signs of a photograph.114 In this regard, Park refers to the relationship of press photos with their captions as a “multisemiotic system” of which the prominent feature is the combination of verbal (textual) and non-verbal (visual) signs. As the verbal caption constitutes an interpreting system of the visual (nonverbal) signs, the latter becomes the interpreted system.115

Though it may seem as news photography is thus heavily dependent on textual additions, Logaldo asserts that pictures actually “tell stories and in a very ‘economic’ way” by communicating more information in less time than its verbal description. A caption thus bears the almost paradoxical task to add its own value to an image while simultaneously aiming to “create a very short summary for a document […] which captures the main content of the image […]”.116 This task, to detect and devise the topics of the picture and its related document, thereby assigning it a first interpretation, and conveying it within a limited word-count, stands in direct contrast to the imperative in journalistic caption-writing to avoid attributing thoughts to the portrayed or giving unnecessary interpretations. This already thin line is further complicated by the commonly accepted guideline in caption-writing to never state what is obvious/visible in a picture.117 As the style guide of The New York Times, for example, demands: “A caption should normally explain what readers cannot see for themselves in the picture”.118 Caption-writing hence is a delicate craft – a caption risks to either lose its informativeness by only stating ‘the unnecessary’ or to violate journalistic conduct by providing too

113 “Pictures with a caption”, Newspaper Article, n.d., http://newspaperarticleyear6.weebly.com/pictures-with-a- captions.html, accessed April 25, 2020. 114 S. Park, “Semiotic analysis of photojournalism captions: A comparison of Korean-English and Korean-Japanese translations”, Perspectives vol. 24 (3), 2016, p. 501. 115 Ibid., pp. 501-502. 116 M. Logaldo, “The Last Laugh? A Multimodal Analysis of Captions in Photojournalism”, Pólemos vol. 11 (1), 2011, pp. 252-253; Y. Feng & M. Lapata, “How Many Words is a Picture Worth? Automatic Caption Generation for News Images”, in eds. T. Huang et al., Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Uppsala: ACL, 2010), p. 1241. 117 Logaldo, op. cit., p. 256. 118 A.M. Siegel & W. Connolly, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: The Official Style Guide Used by the Writers and Editors of the World’s Most Authoritative News Organization (New York: Crown, 5th ed., 2015), p. 52. 27 much interpretation, which has consequences for how an image might be perceived. This realization is also valuable in the study of War/Peace Photojournalism as it stresses the relevance of captions in the overall analysis and, on the other hand, raises awareness of how they might prescribe certain interpretations to a photograph.

5. Peace (Photo)Journalism is controversial The foregone considerations only touch on some of the more prominent issues which affect both the theories and practices of (photo)journalism. As they are indefinitely complex, they remain open subjects to controversies concerning the conceptualizations of War/Peace (Photo)Journalism and its transposition. While War (Photo)Journalism is commonly perceived as the ʽtraditional’ practice of conflict reporting, it is its Peace (Photo)Journalistic counterpart which stirs up debates among its proponents and opponents.

5.1 Proposition and opposition of Peace Journalism Bauman & Siebert, for instance, see Peace Journalism not as a ʽnovum’ per se. In fact, they say, the media are already an acknowledged part of conflict mediation, because they inform, debate, contextualize, propose solutions, build consensus, and provide a platform for emotional exchanges.119 The only difference between the traditional War and transformed Peace practices might thus only be a change in reporting styles. Falk goes one step further by suggesting that the demands posed by Peace Journalists align with journalistic ethical codes: journalists should “focus on root causes of conflict such as poverty or prior abuse, and not merely report on the surface events associated with violent political encounters” to help readers “understand the context of conflicts in ways that make reliance on political violence seem both unimaginative and unethical”.120 Self-evidently, such “exploration of nonviolent modes of conflict resolution constitutes an aspect of [the] proper inquiry and presentation” expected from professional journalists.121 Howard, as well as Lee & Maslog, too, argue that Peace Journalism can be an influential factor in peace-building processes when it “responds well” to its news values and “own professional strictures such as accuracy, impartiality, and independence.” Peace Journalism would thus be “mere extensions of the objectivity credo” as it “reports facts as they are”. Furthermore, they say, Peace Journalism is less intervening than the ʽpropagandistic’ War Journalism – it avoids good-bad labels as well as a ʽdemonization’ of language, and takes nonpartisan and multiparty

119 M. Bauman & H. Siebert, “Journalists as Mediators”, in eds. L. Reychler & T. Paffenholz, Peacebuilding: A Field Guide (Boulder/London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001). 120 R. Falk, “Foreword”, in J. Lynch, Debates in Peace Journalism (Sidney: Sidney University Press, 2008), pp. vi- vii. 121 Ibid. 28 approaches. Thereby, Peace Journalists are also more moderate in their narrations of conflicts; they “do not exemplify a strong contributory, proactive role by journalists to seek and offer creative solutions and to pave a way for peace and conflict resolution”.122

Particularly the latter argument – that Peace Journalists would minimize the suggestive nature of news reporting – is debated. Critics have accused Peace Journalists of operating under a “false morality” while, in reality, pursuing a form of “”, or, in extreme cases, another form of propaganda. Hanitzsch has pointed out several theoretical, ethical and practical limits of Peace Journalism, which he believes is a rather loosely defined, “hetergenerous movement”.123 He too identifies advocacy journalism as one major strand in Peace Journalism and warns that advocacy work, like the active promotion of peace through public communication, could even be “misunderstood as legitimation for biased coverage”.124 Kempf’s verdict of the reformative agenda put forward by Peace Journalism advocates is quite drastic:

When journalists go on a ʽcrusade against conventional reporting’, they all too easily become recruits for the propaganda war. But Peace Propaganda is nothing other than propaganda either, and a Peace Journalism that crosses the border to propaganda does not deserve to bear the name of journalism.125 When it comes to Peace Photojournalism, the critical debate is enhanced by Möller. Though peace researchers have “explored war photography in abundance, including numerous ways to engage with, challenge and expand the photojournalistic tradition”, he finds, the most important question has remained unanswered: How would photographs, that engage with peace, actually look like?126

5.2 Imaging peace The imaging of peace is debated by a range of scholars. Möller, for example, dismisses the Galtung- inspired Peace concept and its application to photojournalism as utopistic: if peace only equals the “absence of violence of all kinds”, he writes, “it can be referenced photographically only as [an unattainable] ideal-type.” Furthermore, as this would assert that “most photographs taken at any point in time […] would appear to be peace photographs”, the expansion would be too significant to

122 R. Howard, “The Media’s Role in War and Peacebuilding”, in eds. G. Junne & W. Verkoren, Postconflict Development: Meeting New Challenges (Boulder/London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005) p. 117; S.T. Lee & C.C. Maslog, “War or Peace Journalism? Asian Newspaper Coverage of Conflicts”, Journal of Communication vol. 55 (2), 2005, p. 324. 123 T. Hanitzsch, “Situating Peace Journalism in Journalism Studies: A Critical Appraisal”, conflict & communication online vol. 6 (2), 2007, pp. 2. 124 Ibid., pp. 2-3. 125 W. Kempf, “Peace Journalism: Between advocacy journalism and constructive conflict coverage”, in eds. T. Ilter et. al., Communication in Peace. Conflict in Communication (Famagusta: Eastern Mediterranean University Press, 2008), p. 18. 126 F. Möller, “From Aftermath to Peace: Reflections on a Photography of Peace”, Global Society vol. 31 (3), 2017, pp. 318-319. 29 provide a guideline to how peace can be photographed.127 In fact, representations of peace efforts in the media – particularly in the form of peace talks – are sometimes perceived as a political farce; a “play for time” in a “game of exploiting the unrest”, as Jones writes, in which negotiators would “rather see a peace deal signed in blood than in ink”.128 Marshall has identified portrayals conveying hopes for effective peace talks as frauds, which would only make matters worse: “Sham negotiations cannot lead to real peace, they can only arouse a sense of betrayal and intensify existing grievances”.129 Möller admits that both a visualization of peace as well as defining one general concept for Peace Photography are difficult tasks – not least because an universally shared understanding of peace does not exist. How peace and a resulting Peace Photojournalism concept is understood thus depends on the cultural and social context in which the concept is formed. Not only does that limit the “generalizability” of a Peace Photography definition to the cultural sphere from which it stems but it also reflects and claims validity only within it. This realization is crucial as it reflects a certain degree of equality and respect for foreign values: “[Peace Photography] is not a matter of ranking concepts but one of acknowledging difference” since “different ʽpeaces’ need different forms of visualization”.130

Möller asserts that photojournalism mainly represents aspirations for peace negatively – thus, through its absence – which, in itself, could have the positive effect of raising attention to the issue and thereby call for intervention. In fact, some “images may emanate from rather violent circumstances”.131 Yet, they might not be yet recognized as such or understood differently as time passes. Photographs are time-enduring documents; therefore, their assigned meaning and perception can change over time and also impact their respective concept. As Möller puts it: “What seemed to qualify as a war photograph some time ago may be reinterpreted as a peace photograph today (and vice versa)”.132 This could mean that peace, whether seen or unseen, visible or invisible, is an omnipresent part of human imagination. Though its definition varies depending on its social and cultural context, peace can be imagined and thus read into any picture during the interpretation process. As a result, every picture would have certain Peace Photographic elements to it. Möller argues:

127 Ibid., p. 323. 128 L. Jones, “Sharon’s Temple Mount Visit ‘Unprecedented Act of Provocation,’ Says Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs vol. XIX (9), 2000, pp. 9, 47. 129 R. Marshall, “Nothing Without US Pressure on Israel”, The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs vol. X (4), 1991, p. 14. 130 Möller, “From Aftermath to Peace: Reflections on a Photography of Peace”, p. 323; F. Möller, “Peace Aesthetics: A Patchwork”, Peace & Change vol. 45 (1), 2020, p. 29. 131 Möller, “Peace Aesthetics: A Patchwork”, op. cit., p. 38-39. 132 Ibid., p. 40. 30

We may also refer to images in terms of peace that are not normally designated as peace images – both conflict [and] war images may have peaceful connotations. […] Images reveal socially constructed habits of seeing – or not seeing – peace. Peace may exist although we do not see it or recognize what we see as peace.133 The notion of peace of a social construct, which evolves as part of human imagination and visual interpretation, is intriguing. It makes the thought of each photograph taken in conflict containing aspects of Peace Photography all the more fascinating. Möller thus calls for more openness in the approach to peace and its imaging, and careful consideration of its “discursive frame” – cultural and contextual circumstances as well as impact and reception of photojournalistic documents. As this is only possible after a considerable amount of time has passed, the best place for opening a re- investigation might hence be the archive, says Möller:

Peace photographs may be found where we would least expect them, and one place to look for them is the archive where, in a process of discursive renegotiation, what used to be understood as war photographs may be redesignated as photographs of peace.134 Möller’s idea thus reinforces the observations made in the theoretical section of this thesis, that many different factors need to go into the study and conceptualization of photojournalistic documents. Of course, their visual content cannot be neglected. Yet, it is their situational background, including the stories of their creators, the circumstances under which they were taken and their reception, which ultimately influences their legacy and whether their assigned meaning – and thus their classification – might change over time. The following practical section of this thesis will hence be concerned with exactly that – examining the War and Peace Photojournalism models in terms of their visuals and beyond by using material from the archives.

6. Recap and research questions The theory section has established that photojournalism, like journalism, is a profession which needs to rely on a set of ethical and professional values, especially when deployed in a war zone. Photography is commonly thought of as a ‘depiction of reality’, which implies that photojournalism is based on the journalistic value of objectivity and can therefore be understood as trustworthy. Critics of this assertion, however, argue that images only reflect a photographer’s take on the situation he has depicted, or, in other words, visualize a photographer’s interpretation of reality, and could therefore be used by the media to manipulate an audience. Particularly in war reporting, in which the media bears the functions of a mediator, photojournalism could thus crucially influence public opinion. The issue has been recognized by scholars and peace researchers like Galtung, who has criticized “traditional” war reporting for prolonging a war by publicizing violence and serving propagandistic purposes to rather than focusing on positive, non-violent events such as negotiations, 133 Ibid., p. 29. 134 Ibid., p. 40. 31 thereby promoting the peace process. Based on his observations, Galtung established and introduced the opposing models of War and Peace Journalism, the latter of which should become common practice in professional journalism.

Galtung’s concepts have been expanded to war photojournalism by Fahmy & Neumann, who proposed visual frames according to which images could be categorized as War or Peace Photographs. This approach, however, has been deemed incomplete since they only consider the visual attributes of a photographs, which are only the result of a long chain of events including both the situational context in which an image was taken as well as the production process behind the photograph’s publication in the media. Scholars have argued that, in order to determine the fitting concept for an image, one must keep in mind that the publication of photographs depends on their news value and choices made by photographers and editors. Furthermore, every news photograph is published with a caption, which also needs to be included into the interpretation process as it might explain non-visible details, thereby expanding the visual content of a photograph and situating it in a larger context. Möller argues that Peace Photographs are more than just a depiction of the absence of violence. He thus dismissed a categorization of Peace Photojournalism based solely on visual contents. His take on Peace Photojournalism is based on the notion that every photograph is dynamic and can change over time, once the reception of a photograph and the role it has fulfilled in society. This would mean that a graphic image can still be a Peace Photograph if it was taken for the right purpose, and has contributed to peace in the long-run – for example by raising attention to a conflict.

The aim of this thesis is thus to revisit the concepts of War and Peace Photojournalism both in terms of their visual criteria and beyond, the aims of the study have been defined in three research questions of which the first is as follows: RQ1: How are the criteria of War and Peace Journalism represented in the visual material (on the Vietnam War)?

Secondly, the influence of the caption on the conclusions about War and Peace Photojournalism based on the visual analysis will be considered: RQ2: What role do the captions play in both the interpretative process and the classification of the visual War/Peace Photographs by the respective scholars?

The findings from RQ1 and RQ2 will be complemented by Möller’s suggestion that a conceptualization of photojournalism as War or Peace Photojournalism can only be based on their 32 long-term transformation and the place they take in the history of a conflict. The third research question will therefore be: RQ3: How are the War/Peace concepts for photojournalism influenced by the consideration of the historical, social and political contexts of the images?

In order to answer RQ3 as sufficiently as possible, the findings from the preceding theoretical chapters will be applied to the sample of pictures chosen for the practical study. To explore the over- time transformation of news images, including their political and social impact, and thus their possible shift from War to Peace Photography or vice versa, Möller has suggested to turn to the archives and engage in a “process of discursive renegotiation”.135 This can be done best by turning to images from a concluded conflict of which all events and their outcomes are already known and documented, and by triangulating this data within the scope of qualitative research.

7. Methods To provide a transparent and comprehensible insight into the exploratory study that was conducted for the purpose of this thesis, the following stages are intended to serve as an explanation of the sampling process of the photojournalistic documents. Furthermore, the used research approaches will be presented before a newly established category system will be introduced and explained. Lastly, brief, yet necessary reflections on the limitations of the data collection procedure will be in order to eliminate possible misconceptions concerning the observations made throughout this thesis.

7.1 Sampling As it will be outlined in the following chapter, the research required to apply the chosen methodological approaches for this study is extensive. Due to an additionally limited time-frame and constrains in space and resources, the number of images for the analysis is thus narrowed down to six. The images originated from the Vietnam War (1955-1975). Vietnam was deemed a fitting sample for the study because it was the first war in which technology had become more advanced and mass media had expanded greatly. Television, satellite communication and computer technology enabled the media to report live from the scene, broadcast mainly uncensored information, collect and distribute visual contents and transmit them directly from the battlefield into the homes of a worldwide audience, while the American government increasingly lost its ability to control the news media.136 The Vietnam War could hence be seen as a novelty in the history of wartime reporting by foreign correspondents, and thus media coverage in general. In that

135 Möller, “Peace Aesthetics: A Patchwork”, op. cit., p. 40. 136 J.T. Phinney, “And That’s the Way It Is: The Media’s Role in Ending the Vietnam War”, Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management vol. 7 (1), 2011, pp. 2-7. 33 sense, it is interesting to asses how this independence affected photojournalists in their portrayal of the war, and what impact their coverage specifically had on the American people both at the time of their publication and in the long-run.

The from which the photographs are derived is AP, an American news agency. This choice is based on the reputation of AP as the largest and most professional news agency to cover the Vietnam War as well as a main outlet for news photographs from the conflict. The coverage of AP’s photojournalists in Vietnam won six Pulitzer Prizes and is thus said to have created one of the greatest photographic legacies of the 20th century.137 Since the pool of AP images from the Vietnam War – all of which are accessible in the agency’s archive – is too large to be explored within the scope of this thesis, the sample photographs had to conform to certain criteria, which justified their consideration for this thesis. The pictures were chosen based on three time periods, each of which constituted a crucial point in the war and also span over the administrations of US Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, under whom US forces were an actively engaged in the Vietnam War. Those time frames are:

1. 1963: The year of the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam – an important turning point for US involvement in the Vietnam War. 2. 1968/1969: The years which saw major developments in the Vietnam War as well as governmental changes in the US. 3. 1972: The climax of the Vietnam War.

The first three images were chosen due to their often-cited status as visual ʽicons’ of the Vietnam War.138 Each of them is contrasted by another image from the same approximate time period in order to ensure they had a similar historical and situational context (see image list below). In addition, all three pairs are directly tied to each other in that the ʽicon’ is thought of to have caused the event from which its counterpart originated. Since none of the ʽresulting photographs’ could match the prominence or, in other words, the ʽiconicity’ of the images from a ʽtriggering event’, their selection was justified by the significance of each of the occurrences they depict. Furthermore, attempts were made to include a variety of different visual attributes within the samples images to test the sufficiency of Fahmy & Neumann’s item catalog. This means that the images were also chosen and contrasted against each other with regard to their obvious visual heterogeneity. For reasons of conciseness when the results are explained, all pictures will be assigned a number.

The final sample, in which the triggering event is always listed first, consists of the following

137 “Iconic AP Vietnam War Photos To Go On View at Huntsville Museum of Art”, op. cit. 138 R. Pyle, “Vietnam War Photos That Made a Difference”, The New York Times, 2013, https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/vietnam-war-photos-that-made-a-difference/, accessed May 26, 2020. 34 images: I. 1963: (1) “The Ultimate Protest” by Browne139 and (2) “President Ngo Dinh Diem with Buddhist monks” by Faas,140 II. 1968/1969: (3) “Saigon Execution” by Adams141 and (4) “Demonstration Anti Vietnam Moratorium 1969” by AP Photo/CPG,142 III. 1972: (5) “The Terror of War” by Ut143 and (6) “Le Duc Tho Shakes Hands with Henry Kissinger” by AP Photo.144

7.2 Operationalization and data collection In order to provide a platform on which the chosen photojournalistic documents in terms of their visuals, their captions and their wider background can be examined, different research approaches were chosen and combined. The application of several methods to collect and explore different sources on the same subject is known as “Triangulation”. Such methods can usually not be ranged in one single binary system since different types of samples as well as methods of data collection will have to be considered. In addition, triangulation is not necessarily used to weigh up different methods but rather produce results which outline different dimensions of the same study objects and possibly increase the validity of the observations.145 In this thesis, different qualitative methods were combined to provide an in-depth, interpretative approach. In addition to a category-based visual analysis of photographs and content analyses of their captions, documentary research was applied. Documentary research is a method allowing the involvement of personal and official documents – such as government and census publications, newspapers, certificates, novels film, video, photographs, and diaries – as source materials. This approach constitutes one of the three major types of social research.146 To establish a connection between these sources and the sample images, their content was also analyzed and then sorted into categories which were established for the purpose of conducting this thesis. Guided by the three research questions, the study comprises three consecutive ʽsteps’, all of which served to continually penetrate into the depths of the material.

The first step was to study the images in terms of their visual content according to the criteria of Fahmy & Neumann and consequently interpreted as and designated them to either the War and Peace Photography concept. In that sense, the images were searched for specific ʽvisual clues’ which might already suggest possible narrations of what happened in the moments they were taken

139 M. Browne, “Vietnam Monk Protest”, loc. cit. 140 H. Faas, “President Ngo Dinh Diem with Buddhist monks”, loc. cit. 141 E. Adams, “Vietnam War Saigon Execution”, loc. cit. 142 AP Photo/CPG, “Demonstration Anti Vietnam Moratorium 1969”, loc. cit. 143 N. Ut, “Vietnam Napalm 1972”, loc. cit. 144 AP Photo, “Le Duc Tho Shakes Hands with Henry Kissinger”, loc. cit. 145 L.A. Guion et. al., Triangulation: Establishing the validity of qualitative studies (Gainesville: University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, EDIS, 2011), p. 1. 146 J. Scott, Documentary Research (Berkeley: SAGE Publications, 2006), p. 3. 35 and thus possibly prescribe an interpretation. Such an indicator could be the clothes of the subjects of an image, for example – if one subject is wearing a military uniform whereas the other is dressed casually, the narration could include an interaction between a soldier and a civilian. If such clues could be identified, they were furthermore allocated either the War or Peace Photography model. As previously explained and illustrated, the components in Fahmy & Neumann’s model consist of different degrees of physical harm/suffering, the dichotomy of positive and negative emotions, the roles of subjects portrayed in an image and the age groups of subjects and their possible impact. If any traits were not clearly visible and were thus read into an image based on its overall content, or were an additional interpretation of the visible contents, they were also identified as part of either the War or Peace category depending on the emotions and thoughts they provoked.

In the second step, the captions of the images were analyzed and interpreted. They were initially examined for their content; thus, whether they contain any ʽkeywords’ and additional information, which imply something that cannot be seen in their respective images. Such keywords could, among others, consist of notions which verify/falsify and/or amplify the visual impression. They could furthermore provoke certain associations, which are the result of a common assumption. For example, a “Buddhist monk” might be thought of as an old – and therefore wise – member of a generally very peaceful and relaxed religious community. Additional information, on the other hand, could for instance consist of explanations of the historical, political and/or social circumstances that surrounded the image when it was taken. Basic data such as the name of the photographer and his/her news agency, the date and place of origin; names and positions of depicted subjects, and descriptions of what is occurring in the image were also counted as additional information. The observations made during the interpretation of the captions were then conjuncted with the visual impression from their images to evaluate whether – and if so – how they add to the overall interpretation process of the documents, which could also have an impact on how they might be received. In other words, the ʽstories’ told by the captions were compared to the ʽstories’ told by the visual contents of the images in order to detect similarities and controversies between them and to connect those different semiotic systems to each other. Outlining their consistencies or, in contrast, non-conformities could also help to evaluate whether interpretations of the images’ visual contents are already accurate enough to classify them as War or Peace Photographs, or whether a more in-depth analysis, such as in the third step, is required.

Lastly, the historical and contextual backgrounds of the images as well as their legacies and places in the Vietnam War – thus non-visible and underlying embroilments – were taken into 36 consideration. This was done by analyzing sources and documents related and referring to the chosen sample. The preferred sources were primary; they thus consisted of interviews with the photographers and eyewitnesses, speeches, opinion polls and official tapes and documents. The former were not self-conducted and had either been published in written form by newspapers and magazines, or were included as segments in podcasts and videos. In some cases, they had to be transcribed for the purpose of this study. Own interviews could not be conducted, however, since three of the six photojournalists chosen for this sample have already passed – Adams died in 2004, Browne and Faas in 2012 – and two more could not be identified. In addition, the constraints in time and resources did limit the possibility to locate and interview eyewitnesses or, respectively, contemporary witnesses. Therefore, more data from further sources had to be taken into consideration. Declassified governmental records were also considered as primary sources because they contain speeches of politicians, transcripts of their conversations, memoranda, and private memoirs. They were derived from governmental archives like the American National Archive, the National Security Archive, the anthologies Foreign Relations of the United States, and presidential libraries. Secondary sources included reliable pieces of collective memory such of renown newspapers, which already existed at the time the pictures originated. Among them are, for example, the renown newspapers The New York Times and The Guardian, Time magazine – one of the worldʼs most circulated magazines147 – and the British public broadcasting service BBC. Books written on the basis of said primary sources were also taken into consideration, the most notable of which were written by Halberstam, a Pulitzer Price-winning journalist who covered the Vietnam War alongside Browne, Adams, Faas and Ut.148 All sources were searched for systematically by consulting the respective archives for news contents on the selected events and by retracing citations from secondary sources to their original publications. In total, 92 additional documents were collated, sighted, in some cases transcribed and analyzed in order to reconstruct the backgrounds of each of the six photojournalistic documents as accurately as possible. Thus, on average, fifteen sources were parsed per image. A catalog listing the additionally consulted sources chronologically by images and primary/secondary sources will be included in the appendix.

The third step of this empirical study was expanded by a newly established category system which builds on the literature review from the previous theoretical chapters and expands established scholarly work. All sources were thus searched for any traits of the above mentioned War and Peace (Photo)Journalism concepts. The categories were based on the findings made in the theoretical

147 “About TIME Magazine”, TIME, n.d., https://subs.time.com/about-time, accessed May 23, 2020. 148 D. Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era (New York: Random House, 1965). 37 section of this thesis, where it was already established that ethical and professional orientations of photojournalists and their media, their gut feeling about the news value of events, and the reception and long-term legacy of their images should be considered for a sufficient conceptualization. The coding items established for the evaluation were:

Human(itarian) aspects/Peace traits: This category applied to observations – in the shape of statements, narrations and quotes – which contained notions of humanitarian actions such as crisis assistance, a desire for peace and peace work, positive impacts, as well as emotions and thoughts which also contrasted the often-ascribed feelings and thoughts in War (Photo)journalism. Among those are, for example, compassion, desire for change, intention/belief to work for/towards peace through action, and political discontent. This category could thus be indicative of Peace (Photo)Journalistic traits, which might have been present in the production of a document even though they could not be interpreted from the visual contents of an image. Anti-human(itarian) aspects/War traits: The former category is contrasted by notions which are commonly ascribed to the War (Photo)Journalism model. Thus, this category includes all statements which simplify or even glorify human suffering, contain notions of the assertion that “negativity makes news”, imply propaganda and elite-orientation, and hint towards a negative impact of the publication – for example, by negatively affecting the lives of the persons connected to the image after its publication. News value/gut feeling/intuition: This category was mainly applied to primary sources such as interviews with photojournalists and editors and their recollections of why they chose to take and publish their respective image. As mentioned before in the theory section, photojournalists and editors both function as gatekeeping institutions based on their own ethical and professional identity as well as on the demands posed by their respective medium. Evaluating their gut feeling and the news value they assign to a certain event could therefore be a revealing insight not only of their orientation as an independent photojournalists but also of the agency they work for. Journalistic professionalism: This section assessed statements made by the photojournalists and editors, which outlined their individual ethical principles, values of professional conduct, and feeling of responsibility and obligation towards their audiences. With regard to (photo)journalistic codes of conduct, such principles should include an effort to report events objectively, truthfully, accurately and independently from external influences – most importantly any of the governments involved in the conflict. Legacy of the image: This last section was mainly based on Möller’s idea that the dynamic legacy of an image could influence its reception and thus its classification. Therefore, the aftermath of the 38 study samples were also assessed in terms of their immediate reception and any long-term consequences resulting from their publication in both the personal lives of the creators and photographed subjects as well as within their respective historical, political and social sphere.

For the purpose of maintaining the clarity of the study of the images, their captions and the additional documents, a set of three different spreadsheets was composed similar to Pfaff-Rüdiger’s illustration of an interview transcript.149 Those spreadsheets were used for the visual and caption analysis and also to list and sort the quotes from the additional documents. In order to arrange particularly the latter in a more synoptic way, the table was divided into three consecutive columns. The first was concerned with the historical context of the analyzed image – thus, its historical background. The second contained memories and recollections of the event itself while the last column focused on statements of an image’s reception and legacy. The table rows, in contrast, served to sort the statements according to the major contributors and/or affected persons of an image. This could include the photojournalists and editors and the depicted subjects as well as other affiliated persons. A last table row called “other sources” was finally concerned with narrations and reproductions of the occurrences by secondary sources. Each image was first assigned an empty version of this spreadsheet before it was filled up with the quotes and statements from its respective sources, which were then searched for traces of the above mentioned categories. In a way, both the images as well as their affiliated documents were thus ʽtranscribed’ as if interviews had been conducted with the concerned protagonists. To make this ʽtranscription process’ and the presentations of the results appear more comprehensible, statements which matched the criteria were marked with different colors in order to outline their presence as well as their frequency of occurrence. Lastly, they were put in connection with the observations from the visual and caption analysis in order to reassess the previously made findings and draw the final conclusions regarding the War and Peace Photojournalism concepts. The ʽoperational sheets’ as well as an example of the finalized study can be viewed in the appendix.

7.3 Critical reflections on the data collection procedure It must be acknowledged that the narrow sample size as well as the focus on only one source fully exclude a representativeness of the study. All results refer only to the sample taken for this thesis and should not be understood as a conclusion which universally applies to all of AP’s images, photojournalistic documents from the Vietnam War, or conflict reporting in general. Furthermore,

149 S. Pfaff-Rüdiger, “Medien im Alltag. Methodenprobleme qualitativer Nutzungsforschung”, in eds. S. Pfaff- Rüdiger & M. Meyen, Alltag, Lebenswelt und Medien. Qualitative Studien zum subjektiven Sinn von Medienangeboten (Berlin: LIT, 2007), p. 39. 39 the study was neither conducted to endorse one concept and ʽbash’ the other, nor to criticize or even falsify theoretical conceptualizations of journalism. Just the contrary, the debate concerned with the role of the media in war – both domestically and in the shape of foreign correspondents – is a necessary and crucial one as it draws attention to practical issues with the way war and peace is publicized and pictured. In a way, this thesis aims to contribute to this debate by regarding such images as parts of historical processes, which should help to explore the theoretical concepts from a different perspective to help determine what shape they can take on once they are applied in the practical world.

8. Results The results found during the visual analyses and conceptualization of the images, the assessments of their caption, the examinations and interpretations of their background documents, as well as the conclusions drawn from the findings will be presented.

8.1 Visual analysis and conceptualization of the images according to Fahmy & Neumann The first research question explored whether the criteria associated with War and Peace Journalism could be found in the sample images to draw conclusions about their applicability to news photographs. As outlined before, the categories established by Fahmy & Neumann are based on Galtung’s definitions of the War and Peace Journalism models and are intended as a tool to conceptualize news photographs based solely on their visual content. Their categories distinguish between four degrees of “physical harm/suffering”, expressions of “positive” and/or “negative” emotions, different roles/affiliations, and age groups of the subjects. It could be concluded that Fahmy & Neumann’s method was applicable to all six pictures considered in the study, which means that three images (1, 3, 5) could confidently be identified as War Photograph based on the majority of their visual content, while the remaining three (2, 4, 6) were identified as Peace Photographs. Within the sample size, the three War Photographs showed “severe” to “most severe” degrees of suffering, which were inflicted by acts of violence such as a shooting (3). Two images even showed people in the process of dying (1, 3). Those graphic contents were enhanced by what Fahmy & Neumann termed “negative” emotions in both the facial expressions and body language of the depicted subject, such as pain, fear, or shock. The most common “role” the subjects in War Images took on were those of victims – every picture contained at least one victim – picture 3 also featured “aggressors”. The “age groups” of the respective subjects only mattered in the cases of image 3 and 5, in which their obvious “youthfulness” increased the images’ shock and emotional value. In contrast, none of the visual Peace Photographs contained even the slightest notion of 40 violence; one case captured a peaceful demonstration (4) while the remaining two images featured apparently friendly meetings between people of different nationalities, positions and/or religious affiliations. All three Peace Images moreover showed smiling people. The pictures of meetings (2, 6) conveyed an impression of friendliness and mutual respect between the subjects, while the people in the demonstration conveyed a sense of determination, excitement and unity. Such emotions were deemed “positive” by Fahmy & Neumann. The subject appeared to be either politicians/representatives of their respective countries and/or civilians. In the case of image 2, the particular visible attributes of three of the depicted persons – their shaved heads, robes and special beads in their hands – led to the conclusion that they must be religious Buddhists. In those specific Peace Photography cases, the age of the persons did neither add to nor deduct from the emotional impact the visuals have on a viewer.

8.2 Beyond the visuals I: The captions However, Fahmy & Neumann’s categories only worked well unless the caption assigned to the image was not taken into consideration. While all six captions contained ʽstandard’ information such as the photographers’ names, and the photos’ dates and places of origin, each of them also added contextual, non-visible details, which were crucial in order to understand what was shown in the images. All captions did thus serve to allocate the image to their respective historical, political and social contexts, for instance by explaining the affiliations of the depicted persons (e.g. “Viet Cong suspect”, “US Presidential Advisor”, “Buddhist monks”). In the cases of the three War Photographs (1, 3, 5), three main functions of the captions could be identified: A) they added invisible context and information needed to make the image fully understandable; B) they both verified and amplified the visual impression of the image by adding certain details and verbal connotations (e.g. affiliation of the subjects, situational context, emotions) which could not be concluded from the visuals, thereby adding a certain interpretative and associative value; C) they explained/justified the image’s news value – and thus its publication – despite its ʽgruesome’ visuals. One of the three War Captions even contained an editor’s note issuing a “graphic content” warning (3). Furthermore, all three War Captions revealed details which contrasted the visible content in their images to some extent. One example was image nr. 5 of a crying Vietnamese girl running from a bomb strike on her village. By looking only at the visuals, it would be natural to assume that the attack was coming from the “enemy”. However, the captions revealed that the strike had been carried out by the girl’s own people and their allies – i.e. South Vietnamese and American forces – and had in fact ʽonly’ been a mistake. Similar observations were made for two of three Peace Captions (2, 6): they contrasted their images by contextualizing them and explaining non- 41 visible details. This meant, for instance, that image 2 of the apparently friendly meeting between the Vietnamese president and a group of monks was contrasted by the explanation that the president’s soldiers were simultaneously roaming the city to stop monks from protesting against the government’s discrimination of their religion by setting themselves on fire. Further findings concerning the Peace Captions include that they either did not justify the news value of their image or made clear that their picture did not cover what was happening beyond the visuals. Thus, another difference was observed in the functions of the captions of the Peace Image samples: they often warned the viewer that there was more to the overall situation than what the visuals suggested.

Those controversial findings already hint towards the necessity to consider not solely the visuals in a photograph when trying to conceptualize them, as this could cause certain misinterpretations and would reduce the accuracy and credibility of the War/Peace Photojournalism models. Without consideration of the context as it might be explained in a caption, images could easily be misused under the false pretense of being a ʽgood’ Peace Photograph. This would bear the danger of using them for the same propaganda purposes; a feature, which is usually ascribed to War Journalism in general. By specifically conveying wrong impressions, they could be directly used to steer an audience into certain beliefs, which could have a sustained impact on public opinion. In a sense, Peace Photojournalism is thus just as capable of constructing a hyperreality as the so often criticized War Photojournalism when it is not appropriately contextualized. Particularly in the case of this study, some captions have explicitly demonstrated that visually ʽsound’ Peace Photographs lose much of their appeal when their broader context does not align or even contrast the seemingly positive visual content of an image. Thus, an image depicting a seemingly friendly and potentially successful end of a peace meeting between two opposition leaders can forfeit its positivity when it is accompanied by the notion that those leaders actually parted without having reached any agreement.

8.3 Beyond the visuals II: Consideration and interpretation of the background material To affirm these first observations, more research about the photographers themselves, the government-press relationship during the Vietnam War, and the general historical, political and social situation during this era had to be conducted. It soon became apparent that primary sources related to the three War Photographs – particularly interviews with the involved photographers, subjects, witnesses, and editors – proved to be far more accessible than in the cases of the Peace Photographs. Though all six images depicted noteworthy events in the course of the Vietnam War and were taken by and for AP, only one of the three Peace Photographers – Faas, the creator of 42 image 2 – was credited by name. The Peace Photographers of images 4 and 6 could not be assessed. The three War Photographers – Browne (1), Adams (3) and Ut (5) – on the other hand, were all named. The four designated photojournalists, however, have given multiple interviews about their experiences and recollections, which could be considered for this study. Regardless of the visual differences of their images, the accounts of those four photojournalists aligned in certain points. The most striking similarity was that all four kept referring to their professional responsibility as photojournalists to report what they witnessed accurately, even if that required the shooting and publication of graphic images. In the cases of the War Images from Vietnam, the news value thus overrode any reservations which would otherwise have prevented the publication of graphic images in the mainstream media. Faas, editor-in-chief of AP’s Saigon Bureau, who issued the publications of Adams’ and Ut’s (now iconic) images, put it as follows:

[AP’s] New York office often reproached us for showing what the South Vietnamese were doing: They were torturing, hanging people by their feet, killing prisoners. So why photograph all this? Because we were convinced that these were not isolated cases. It was an ongoing practice. They did not hide it. It took place before our lenses, everywhere and frequently. It was for us an obligation to also show this aspect of the war.150 The three War Photographers argued similarly, explaining how they felt compelled to do their job to the best of their ability and with a clear consciousness. This also explains why the captions of the Peace Images stood in such explicit contrast to the visual contents: the correspondents most likely felt the obligation to add non-visual details in order to avoid wrong interpretations or even the publication of their photograph for the wrong purposes. This observation could be affirmed when historical background of the respective Peace Images was considered. The captions of photograph nr. 2, which depicts a seemingly friendly meeting between Buddhist monks and the South Vietnam’s president Diệm, for example, indicated that Vietnamese Buddhists had actually been persecuted by Diệm’s administration, and that soldiers were even raiding the city at the same time the image was taken. The administration of US President Kennedy had come under pressure for supporting Diệm’s increasingly cruel and totalitarian regime. Official documents from the National Archives show that, only shortly before the image was taken, Kennedy considered a coup d’état to remove Diệm from office if he failed to adjust his policy towards Buddhists. Diệm was aware that US support for him was dwindling.151 This suggests that he might have staged the meeting with the monks and invited Faas – an American news photographer – in the hopes that this “friendly gesture” would appease 150 J. Hill, “The Man Who Shot Vietnam”, The New York Times, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/the-man-who-shot-vietnam.html, accessed May 7, 2020. 151 G.W. Ball, “281. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam”, 1963, in eds. E.C. Keefer, L.J. Smith & J.P. Glennon, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume III, Vietnam, January- August 1963 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1991), pp. 628-629; E.G., Lansdale, “304. Memorandum for the Record by the Secretary of Defense’s Assistant for Special Operations, Washington, August 27, 1963”, 1963, in eds. E.C. Keefer & J.P. Glennon, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1991), pp. 665-666. 43 and reassure the US government. The same findings were made while researching the historical context of Peace Image 6, in which the captions also contrasted the visuals. It shows US Presidential Advisor Kissinger and the North Vietnamese negotiator Thọ smiling and shaking hands while another North Vietnamese official holds an umbrella over their heads. While the visuals convey the impression that the negotiations must have gone well on that day, the captions actually stress that the peace talks were over for good but that “no announcements of any peace agreement” had been made.152 Memoranda and taped conversations from the archives reveal that Kissinger suggested the bombardment of North Vietnam to President Nixon and other government officials only hours after the image was taken.153 The attacks were carried out the following week – they are most commonly known as the “Christmas Bombings”. Kissinger and Nixon further agreed to hide the unsuccessful negotiations with Thọ and the planning of the attack from the media and thus also from the public.154 This suggests that Kissinger might have smiled intentionally for the cameras in order to hide the failed negotiations from the media.

The information provided in the captions of the War Images, on the other hand, align with both their visual contents as well as the broader situational context of the depicted events – even if this meant denunciation of the South Vietnamese and American forces for the crimes they committed. The caption to Ut’s image of a girl running from a Napalm attack (5) thus informs the viewer that the attacker had actually not been “the enemy” – North Vietnamese Communists – but that South Vietnamese and US forces had “accidentally” bombed a civilian village of their own people.155 Adams’ photograph (3), too, could be misinterpreted based on what it depicts, but is put into perspective by its captions. It shows a soldier casually shooting a man in civilian clothes at point blank range. Given Adams’ job as a correspondent for an American news agency, the most natural conclusion again would be that his image is depicting a war crime committed by “the enemy”. The caption, however, explains that the shooter was actually a South Vietnamese police chief, who was murdering a Viet Cong officer – not a civilian – without granting him a fair trial.156

The inclusion of such revelations in both War and Peace Photographs are also revealing in terms of

152 AP Photo, op. cit. 153 H. Kissinger, “171. Message From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig)”, 1972, in eds. M. Carland & E.C. Keefer, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 2001), pp. 620-625. 154 R.M. Nixon, “180. Memorandum From President Nixon to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)”, 1972, in eds. M. Carland & E.C. Keefer, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 2001), pp. 687-691. 155 Ut, op. cit. 156 Adams, op. cit. 44 the photographers’ commitment to the professional journalistic value of independence and thus the relationship between the news media and the US government. Documents from the time of America’s active involvement in Vietnam show that the Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon had made countless false statements to the public in the efforts to justify America’s involvement in, the draft of millions of young Americans for, and the long duration of the war. They furthermore tried to talk down the violence with which the war was being fought. By taking and publishing these War Images, however, AP correspondents not only uncovered discrepancies between official versions and the actual situation in Vietnam; they also gave a face to the suffering of the Vietnamese people and outlined the extreme brutality which the US government had so desperately tried to hide from the public. The extremely graphic visuals in the War Images and the resulting shock value thus actually helped to make those images public and more credible than the official versions issued by the White House. Yet, the AP newsmen stressed they did not want to go on a crusade against the US government – they all said their only intention was to portray the war accurately; thereby working neither against nor for the government. Their independence even cost them their protection by the US government, as congressional records show. In 1963, several AP photojournalists were assaulted by South Vietnamese secret police while covering the memorial ceremony for a Buddhist monk, who had burned himself to death. The photograph of his self-immolation by Browne (1) had circulated globally and had been causing public outrage. In an open letter of protest, the correspondents wrote to US President Kennedy:

Mr. President, this incident involving U.S. newsmen is […] the latest manifestation of [a] continuing effort to humiliate and to discredit American press representatives and to discourage them in the honest performance of their responsibilities to the people of the United States. […] we find that the support of the newsmen by our own officials on-the-spot leaves much to be desired. […] we have a right to expect that government [to] facilitate their efforts to provide an independent reportage to the people of the United States on a situation in which this Nation is involved deeply and at great cost. The independent press and its place in the American system may not be appreciated elsewhere [but] continued public support […] depends heavily on public access to an independent source of information such as only the press can supply.157 The U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, however, declined any responsibility to act: “I don’t feel I have enough basis for [engaging in the protest]. I can’t conclude that it was a planned attack”. 158 The relationship between AP’s newsmen and the US government had therefore obviously been strained. These findings are insofar interesting as they contrast the most basic definitions of War and Peace Journalism as phrased by Galtung. The assessed cases of War Photojournalism were not used for “propaganda” purposes as described for example by Galtung, Lynch and McGoldrick in their studies. Rather, AP correspondents operated independently from their own government. In doing so, 157 M. Mansfield, “Mistreatment of American Journalists in Saigon, South Vietnam”, 1963, in The Congressional Record : debates and proceedings of the U.S. Congress vol. 109 (9), 1963, p. 12253. 158 “Diem’s Secret Police Attack U.S. Newsmen”, New York Herald Tribune, 1963, in The Congressional Record: debates and proceedings of the U.S. Congress vol. 109 (9), 1963, pp. 12254-12255 45 they exposed the propaganda and false statements told by the different US presidents, their administrations, and their allies. In that sense, their content can also be understood as being “people oriented” – it showed both “evil-doers” and “suffering all over” by naming aggressors and victims alike when it was necessary and without regard of their nationality, age, religion or political status. The Peace Image samples 2 and 6, on the other hand, present a similarly controversial case. Their visual content does not contain any signs of violence and focuses apparently on “peace-makers” including interactions between politicians and civilians. With consideration of their historical, social and political context, however, it is likely that those images were staged by the political elite for their propaganda purposes in order to conceal unfavorable developments or their war crimes from the public. Thus, in order to conceptualize photojournalistic documents taken in a war, their historical background, the professional and political affiliation of their creators and publishers, and their ability to operate independently from external influences should also be taken into consideration.

This study has moreover found that all three War Photographs (1, 3, 5) had a much larger impact on the public than any of the Peace Images (2, 4, 6) as they sparked the growing anti-war movement in both the US as well as in other parts of the world. While the Peace Photographs, too, were taken during notable events, no indication about their publication and circulation by the media could be found. An explanation for this could be that all War Photographs were “reflexive shots”, as Adams (3) once described it, while all Peace Photographs had resulted from staged events. They were thus either considered not newsworthy at all or had to compete with similar pictures from the same event. The War Photographs in contrast stood out due to their uniqueness in terms of the events they portrayed as well as the shock and information value, they contained. In the case of AP, photojournalists usually sent their images to AP’s headquarters in New York City, where the images’ publication and global distribution was decided. Ut (5) recalls: “New York saw the power in the photo; [it] was immediately on the front page of every newspaper and on TVs. […] The next day, there were anti-war protests all over the world. […] Every day after that, people were protesting in Washington DC outside the White House”.159 Yet, all three War Photographers stated that they did not think their images would have such a profound impact at the time they shot them. The other two War samples followed paths similar to Ut’s. In addition to its global publication by newspapers, Browne’s photograph of the burning monk (1) was also distributed by the Buddhist underground

159 M. Zhang, “Interview with Nick Ut, the Photojournalist Who Shot the Iconic “Napalm Girl” Photo”, PetaPixel, 2012, https://petapixel.com/2012/09/19/interview-with-nick-ut-the-photojournalist-who-shot-the-iconic-photo-napalm- girl/, accessed May 2, 2020. 46 movement in Vietnam160 and had reportedly been on President Kennedy’s desk in the Oval Office. Kennedy commented on the photo: “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one”.161 Lastly, Adams’ image of a South Vietnamese policeman shooting a Viet Cong (3) was adopted by the American anti-war movement as a symbol for the horror of this war.162 This indicates that it was not as much about what the pictures showed but rather what they symbolized and what they stood for – a horrible war and the deception of the public by the US government. All of those images are hence credited for ʽopening the eyes’ of the American public as well as other nations, who were both watching the conflict unfold from afar. The American public in particular felt compelled to take action and express their growing dismay quite vocally. This did not come without political consequences. Adams’ image, for example, invalidated all efforts of President Johnson to calm the public at the time of a military operation in Vietnam known as “Tet Offensive” (1968), while in reality, the war was raging worse than ever. This sparked such outrage among Americans that Johnson eventually announced he would not run as a presidential candidate for a second term in the Oval Office.163 The New York Times concluded: “If the broader Tet Offensive revealed chaos where the government was trying to project control, Adams’s photo made people question whether the United States was fighting for a just cause”.164 The wife of the murdered man in Adam’s photograph once told the AP that she felt the picture helped turn Americans against the war.165 The global outcry following the publication of Ut’s image (5), too, is oftentimes credited with swaying the public opinion against the war to such an extent that “six months later, the war did stop”.166 Ut later remarked that it was his ultimate goal to one day “have a picture that would stop the war” and believed he had achieved it by taking his iconic photo: “That picture of [the girl] running did stop the war. Everybody was so happy”.167

160“Witness History: The Death of Thich Quang Duc”, BBC Sounds, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p01blrbl, accessed May 5, 2020, own transcription. 161 P. Witty, “Malcolm Browne: The Story Behind the Burning Monk”, TIME, 2012, https://time.com/3791176/malcolm-browne-the-story-behind-the-burning-monk/, accessed May 4, 2020. 162 “Digital Collections”, Briscoe Center for American History, 2020, https://www.cah.utexas.edu/db/dmr/image_lg.php?variable=di_05291, accessed May 5, 2020. 163 L.B. Johnson, “The President’s Address to the Nation Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not To Seek Reelection”, 1968, in G. Peters & J.T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, n.d., https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238065, accessed May 6, 2020. 164 M. Astor, “A Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War”, The New York Times, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html, accessed May 5, 2020. 165 J. Peltz, “In an instant, Vietnam execution photo framed a view of war”, AP, 2018, https://www.ap.org/ap-in-the- news/2018/in-an-instant-vietnam-execution-photo-framed-a-view-of-war, accessed May 5, 2020. 166 G. Alimurung, “Nick Ut’s Napalm Girl Helped End the Vietnam War. Today in L.A., He’s Still Shooting”, LA Weekly, 2017, https://www.laweekly.com/nick-uts-napalm-girl-helped-end-the-vietnam-war-today-in-l-a-hes-still- shooting/, accessed May 3, 2020. 167 Leica, “Nick Ut: The Amazing Saga And The Image That Helped End The Vietnam War”, Leica , 2012, https://www.leica-camera.blog/2012/09/18/nick-ut-the-amazing-saga-and-the-image-that-helped-end-the-vietnam-war/, accessed May 3, 2020. 47

Despite of the decisive roles their images played in swaying American public opinion against the war, War Photographers like Ut (5), Adams (3), and Browne (1) have often been criticized for observing rather than helping the suffering people they photograph. Indeed, Adams (3) and Browne (1) continued to shoot pictures when the events took their course, which they justified with their limited options for action as newsmen as well as having been prevented from intervening. Ut (5), on the other hand, put his camera on the ground when he saw that the girl running from her village had been critically injured by the napalm and drove her family to the hospital, which saved their lives. Since the image became famous, Phuc, the “Napalm girl”, did too – her recovery was funded by a private American foundation. At first, Phuc struggled with her consequences of being a living ʽsymbol of war’, but later realized that she could use the image in oder to advocate peace:

[People] expect me to be very angry. […] I say many times: I forgive, but I do not forget, in order to prevent the same thing happening again. […] Years ago I was a child of war who was given a future. […] People found ways to help one little girl and make a big difference. Now that little girl is ready to give back. My photograph was an accident of history. A photographer happened to be [there] that day, but I never forgot the thousands of innocent children who did not have their picture taken. [...] I realised [sic] that if I couldn’t escape that picture I could work with it for peace. And finally I accepted it as a powerful gift for me. […] Now I am working with my picture for good and it is my choice. As you know, my picture is a symbol of war but my life is a symbol of love, hope and forgiveness. […] I want to leave you a new way of looking at my picture here. When you see the little girl running up the road you can see her calling out and crying out. Don’t see her as crying out in pain and fear. See her as crying out for peace.168 Phuc is currently working as “UNESCO’s Ambassador for Peace” and runs an international charitable foundation dedicated to helping child victims of war. She and Ut have become close friends.169

All the observations made above align with Möller’s theory that the perception – and thus also the respective conceptualization of news photographs – can change over time, once the full extent of picture’s legacy becomes apparent. The three sampled War Images 1, 3 and 5 almost immediately triggered global protests and movements, which demanded the end of the war. And their legacy still continues to grow. Phuc’s case (5) is of course a ʽstorybook-style’ example which can certainly not apply to all cases of War Photojournalism. Nevertheless, Phuc’s case as well as the historical, social and political impact of the remaining two War Images demonstrate how a news photograph, regardless of its designation, undergoes a dynamic process from the moment it is taken. A picture’s visual content is only one of many influential factors contributing to its changing reception and value over time. While the lasting influence as well as the sustained impact of the media’s war

168 K. Phuc, “Public Lecture at Griffin University”, Kim Phuc Foundation International, n.d., http://www.kimfoundation.com/modules/contentpage/index.php?file=Griffith_speech.htm&ma=70&subid;subid=701, accessed May 2, 2020. 169 K. Phuc, “History”, Kim Phuc Foundation International, n.d., http://www.kimfoundation.com/modules/contentpage/index.php?file=story.htm&ma=20&subid=201#ambassadrice, accessed May 2, 2020. 48 reporting has greatly influenced the debates and definitions concerning War and Peace (Photo)Journalism, research concerning their long-term historical, political and social consequences has so far been left aside. This study thus intended to outline the importance of considering more than ʽjust the obvious’ when models such as War and Peace (Photo)Journalism are established, in order to assess and redefine media practices for the better.

However, though journalism has long been extensively researched by the academy, it is and always will first and foremost be a practical profession. The fact that this thesis could provide only a ʽsnapshot’ into the intricate theoretical explorations, influences, and consequences of the outputs of the (photo)journalism is already evidence of the profession’s highly dynamical character and – to a certain extent – its incomputability. Academic models, in contrast, have to depend on a certain degree of simplification and idealization – and will thus always leave out certain aspects of the broader reality of (photo)journalism. Put in figurative terms, while such concepts can fathom the ʽtip of an iceberg’, they will never be able to penetrate far enough below the ocean surface to encompass its real extent. The resulting – and inevitably omnipresent – degree of superficiality will always render academic models incapable to be fully integrated into journalistic practice. This needs to be considered by researchers, who work to redefine and/or propose new journalistic guidelines to practitioners, and by practitioners, who reevaluate their professional conduct by turning to theoretical approaches. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the many vivid studies concerned with war correspondence as well as the research contributions provided by both theorists and practitioners hint towards an awareness of potential flaws of existing practices and a growing need for improved (photo)journalistic conduct. By departing from the previous – somewhat restricting – establishment of dichotomies and instead defining a broader range of more flexible, value-free concepts, the academy might be able to recreate the dynamic of and consequently enrich (photo)journalism in much more constructive ways. This study intended to explore one aspect of such a possible approach by hinting at criteria that could be taken into consideration and by connecting a variety of study objects, such as visual, textual and documental material, by triangulating different methods of analysis.

9. Conclusion This thesis explored the development of photojournalism as an autonomous journalistic profession, its responsibilities, obligations and production processes, and its place in journalism studies. Special attention was payed to the role of photojournalism in war reporting and the academic concepts of War and Peace Journalism. These models assess and conceptualize reporting practices of war 49 correspondents as well as the resulting news coverage in the media. While most researchers have hitherto focused on the application of the models to text-based journalism, some scholars consider news photography to be a powerful medium of its own and have thus stressed the need to establish similar conceptualizations for photojournalistic documents. This thesis has found that photojournalism is commonly perceived as a more objective and trustworthy news medium than word-based journalism as it provides visible evidence from real events. However, critics argue that photographs are merely a ʽsnapshot’ of one brief moment of reality, which its creator had deemed ʽworthy’ of being captured. This means that every news photograph reflects a photographer’s take on the situation he has depicted and are thus a visualization of a photojournalist’s interpretation of reality. Depending on the way a news photograph is framed and published, it can potentially be used by the media to manipulate an audience for in its own interest and benefit. This concern is particularly true for war reporting, in which the media is commonly not only perceived as an informant of the public but also a political mediator. The establishment of academic concepts such as War and Peace Photojournalism is meant to outline such dangers and serve to enhance and ameliorate photojournalistic practices. First research approaches have focused predominately on a distinction between War and Peace Photography based on an image’s visual contents. However, such strategies have been criticized for being too superficial – for example by Mitra – as they consider neither the production process of a news photograph nor its long-term legacy, both of which are influenced by several different factors, depending on the larger situational context.

The existence of and lively debates concerned with concepts like War and Peace (Photo)Journalism already prove that both the theoretical and practical worlds are aware of the challenges journalists face when covering times of crisis. The concepts call existing practices of war reporting into question in order to propose more constructive ways of journalistic conduct. The study undertaken for this thesis was intended as a small contribution to this exploration by testing strengths and limitations of those models. The aim was to explore the notion that many different aspects need to be taken into account in order to offer a fair and productive categorization of photojournalistic documents originating from a war. In order to do so, six images taken by photojournalists during the Vietnam War were analyzed in terms of their visual identification as War or Peace Photograph and contrasted by their textual contents, the historical, political and social context of both the conflict and the images’ respective creators, their immediate impact and their legacy. This was done to challenge the sufficiency of already established models which rely mainly on the visual content of images (→ RQ1) and assess the necessity of an incorporation of their captions (→ RQ2) as well as more research concerned with their broader contextual background into the conceptualization of 50 photojournalistic materials (→ RQ3). It appears that a visual categorization of an image can be supported, but also compromised by captions as well as the respective surrounding historical, political and social circumstances. This suggests that the visuals are indeed only one of many factors which go into and influence the impact of an image sustainably. Thus, justifications and purposes of the publication of certain news photographs as well as their effect on an audience should be determined by considering the experiences, actions, professional values and intentions of photojournalists, governmental influences on the press, and the general prehistory and aftermath of the images’ publications. Such influences should thus also be acknowledged in the definitions, which conceptualize War and Peace Photojournalism.

At this point, it has become clear that conceptualizations like the War and Peace (Photo)Journalism models are intended to enrich practitioners by studying their profession and outlining the effects of their actions. The findings of this study can of course be objected due to its relatively narrow scope, which was restricted by constraints of the given time frame as well as in writing space and resources. The number of the chosen sample photographs might appear small; however, it should also be mentioned that the analysis of both photographs and captions, and the appurtenant documentary research and transcription required an extensive amount of time and effort. The limited sample size of six images thus reduces the general validity of this thesis, indicating a need for further research to confirm the conclusions drawn from this study. One more issue to be raised would be, for example, whether aspects of practical (photo)journalism – such as war correspondence – can and should be confined to such rigid dichotomies as War and Peace (Photo)Journalism, or whether more flexible approaches are needed to replicate the profession’s real-life dynamic accurately. This could be done, for instance, by establishing concepts which comprise a greater variety of nuances, are based on different forms of data, and hence enable researchers to apply multimodal research approaches. 51

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Zhang, M., “Interview with Nick Ut, the Photojournalist Who Shot the Iconic “Napalm Girl” Photo”, PetaPixel, 2012, https://petapixel.com/2012/09/19/interview-with-nick-ut-the- photojournalist-who-shot-the-iconic-photo-napalm-girl/, accessed May 2, 2020. Catalog of additional sources in alphabetical order (sorted by type of resource: “title”, finding place)

Image (1), primary sources: 1. Article: “A struggle to contextualizephotographic images: American print media and the ʻBurning Monkʼ”, Communication Quarterly ( pp. 393-409). 2. Article: “Vietnamʼs Faiths Underlie Rising; Buddhist‐Catholic Disputes Sharpened Under Diem”, https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/14/archives/vietnams-faiths-underlie-rising-buddhistcatholic-disputes- sharpened.html. 3. Book: “The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era”. 4. Interview (audio): “The Burning Monk” http://100photos.time.com/photos/malcolm-browne-burning-monk. 5. Interview (written): “Malcolm Browne: The Story Behind the Burning Monk”, https://time.com/3791176/malcolm-browne-the-story-behind-the-burning-monk/. 6. Letter: “A Letter to Friends About Our Lineage”, http://orderofinterbeing.org/docs/TNH-Tradition- Lineage.pdf. 7. Letter: “In Search of the Enemy of Man (addressed to (the Rev.) Martin Luther King)”, Dialogue (pp. 11-20). 8. Photograph: “Vietnam Monk Protest”, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM- aphs019555-VIETNAM-MONK-PROTEST/a344206cdb5a490e9fceb1e1c2ebbefc. 9. Podcast: “Witness History: The Death of Thich Quang Duc”, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p01blrbl. 10. Telegram: “164. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State”, Foreign Relations of the United States,1961-1963, Vol. 3, Vietnam, January-August, 1963 , (pp. 375-376). 11. Telegram: “181. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963 , (pp. 372-380). 12. Timeline: “The Burning Monk: A defining moment photographed by AP’s Malcolm Browne”, https://www.ap.org/explore/the-burning-monk/.

Image (1), secondary sources: 13. Article: “The Definitive Guide to Reading Microexpressions (Facial Expressions)”, https://www.scienceofpeople.com/microexpressions/. 14. Book: “Joyful Human Rights”. 15. Book: “Overthrow: Americaʼs Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq”. 16. Presidential Library: “Vietnam, Diem, the Buddhist Crisis”, https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in- history/vietnam-diem-the-buddhist-crisis. 17. Video: “AP ShortDocs: The Burning Monk (2013)”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTqjn__onL4.

Image (2), primary sources: 18. Article: “The Man Who Shot Vietnam”, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/the-man-who-shot- vietnam.html. 19. Book: “The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era”. 20. Congressional record: “Diemʼs Secret Police Attack U.S. Newsmen”, The Congressional Record (pp. 12254- 12255). 21. Congressional record: “Mistreatment of American Journalists in Saigon, South Vietnam”, The Congressional Record (p. 12253). 22. Interview (written): “Malcolm Browne: The Story Behind the Burning Monk”, https://time.com/3791176/malcolm-browne-the-story-behind-the-burning-monk/. 23. Letter: “A Letter to Friends About Our Lineage”, http://orderofinterbeing.org/docs/TNH-Tradition- Lineage.pdf. 24. Letter: “In Search of the Enemy of Man (addressed to (the Rev.) Martin Luther King)”, Dialogue (pp. 11-20). 25. Memorandum: “304. Memorandum for the Record by the Secretary of Defense’s Assistant for Special Operations”, Washington, August 27, 1963”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963 (pp. 665-666). 26. National Security record/Audio tapes: “Kennedy Considered Supporting Coup in South Vietnam, August 1963”, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB302/index.htm. 27. Photograph: “President Ngo Dinh Diem with Buddhist monks”, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-APHS311049-President-Ngo-Dinh- D-/2c64708d60774313864b0c4ff12c290a/1/0. 28. Telegram: “181. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963 , (pp. 372-380). 29. Telegram: “281. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume III, Vietnam, January-August 1963 (pp. 628-629). Image (2), secondary sources: 30. Article: “Hand Positions – Part 2”, http://www.study-body-language.com/Hand-positions.html. 31. Article: “In Vietnam, Turning a Camera on the War”, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/opinion/horst-faas- photography-vietnam-war.html. 32. Article: “Mudra: What Do Buddhist Hand Gestures Mean?”, https://tricycle.org/magazine/mudra/. 33. Article: “The Man Who Shot Vietnam”, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/the-man-who-shot- vietnam.html. 34. Article: “The Six Most Common Types Of Smiles And Their Hidden Meaning”, http://bodylanguageproject.com/tiny-book-of-body-language/the-six-most-common-types-of-smiles-and-their- hidden-meaning/. 35. Article: “Worry Beads”, https://tricycle.org/magazine/worry-beads/. 36. Book: “In the Jaws of History”. 37. Book: “Joyful Human Rights”.

Image (3), primary sources: 38. Article: “A Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War”, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html. 39. Article: “Eddie Adams”, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/sep/22/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries. 40. Article: “Eddie Adamsʼ iconic Vietnam War photo: What happened next”, https://www.bbc.com/news/world- us-canada-42864421. 41. Article: “In an instant, Vietnam execution photo framed a view of war”, https://apnews.com/63cb7a881716452091e837a34b277ea8/In-an-instant,-Vietnam-execution-photo-framed-a- view-of-war. 42. CIA record: “CIA Analysis of the Tet Offensive”, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/cia- analysis-of-the-tet-offensive. 43. Governmental records: “Vietnam’s Tet Offensive: 50 Years Later”, https://www.archives.gov/news/topics/vietnams-tet-offensive-50-years-later. 44. Interview (audio): “Saigon Execution”, http://100photos.time.com/photos/eddie-adams-saigon-execution. 45. Interview (video): “Pulitzer prize 1968 commented by its photographer, Eddie Adams”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf5pJXr3gWQ. 46. Interview (video): “Pulitzer Prize Photographers Events”, http://www.eddieadamsworkshop.com/pulitzer- celebrationafter. 47. Obituary: “Eulogy”, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,139659,00.html. 48. Photograph: “Digital Collections”, https://www.cah.utexas.edu/db/dmr/image_lg.php?variable=di_05291. 49. Photograph: “Vietnam War Saigon Execution”, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press- International-News-Vietnam-VIE-/156535629de5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/25/1. 50. Presidential speech: “April 1, 1968: Address to the National Association of Broadcasters”, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/april-1-1968-address-national-association- broadcasters. 51. Presidential speech: “The Presidentʼs Address to the Nation Announcing Steps To Limit the War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not To Seek Reelection”, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238065.

Image (3), secondary sources: 52. Article: “A Photo That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War”, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html. 53. Article: “Eddie Adams”, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/sep/22/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries. 54. Article: “Eddie Adamsʼ iconic Vietnam War photo: What happened next”, https://www.bbc.com/news/world- us-canada-42864421. 55. Article: “Eddie Adams, Journalist Who Showed Violence of Vietnam, Dies at 71”, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/arts/eddie-adams-journalist-who-showed-violence-of-vietnam-dies-at- 71.html. 56. Article: “In an instant, Vietnam execution photo framed a view of war”, https://apnews.com/63cb7a881716452091e837a34b277ea8/In-an-instant,-Vietnam-execution-photo-framed-a- view-of-war. 57. Article: “Lyndon B. Johnson and the Vietnam War”, https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/content/Vietnam. 58. Article: “Nguyen Ngoc Loan, 67, Dies; Executed Viet Cong Prisoner”, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/16/world/nguyen-ngoc-loan-67-dies-executed-viet-cong-prisoner.html. 59. Book: “Encyclopedia of the Kennedys: The People and Events That Shaped America”. 60. Book: “The Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology”. 61. Obituary: “The Pulitzer Eddie Adams Didn’t Want”, https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/the-pulitzer- eddie-adams-didnt-want/?src=tptw . Image (4), primary sources: 62. Article: “Fifty Years Ago Today, US Soldiers Joined the Vietnam Moratorium Protests in Mass Numbers”, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/10/vietnam-war-moratorium-protest-gi-movement. 63. Book: “The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left”. 64. National Security records: “Nixonʼs Nuclear Ploy: The Vietnam Negotiations and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test, October 1969”, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB81/. 65. Photograph: “Demonstration Anti Vietnam Moratorium 1969”, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-DC-USA-APHS247721-Demonstration- Ant-/2265cc46890f402d82cacc15ff33d44a/92/0. 66. Poll: “The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison”, https://news.gallup.com/poll/11998/iraqvietnam-comparison.aspx. 67. Presidential speech (transcript): “Vietnamization”, https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/2018- 08/silentmajority_transcript.pdf. 68. Presidential speech (video): “Vietnamization”, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational- resources/vietnamization. 69. Radio show: “War Protests”, https://www.upi.com/Archives/Audio/Events-of-1969/War-Protests/.

Image (4), secondary sources: 70. Article: “1969: Millions march in US Vietnam Moratorium”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/15/newsid_2533000/2533131.stm. 71. Article: “Fifty Years Ago Today, US Soldiers Joined the Vietnam Moratorium Protests in Mass Numbers”, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/10/vietnam-war-moratorium-protest-gi-movement. 72. Book: “The Dark Side: Immigrants, Racism, and the American Way”.

Image (5), primary sources: 73. Article: “How the Picture reached the world”, http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng4.htm. 74. Article: “Nick Ut’s Napalm Girl Helped End the Vietnam War. Today in L.A., He’s Still Shooting”, https://www.laweekly.com/nick-uts-napalm-girl-helped-end-the-vietnam-war-today-in-l-a-hes-still-shooting/. 75. Biography: “History”, http://www.kimfoundation.com/modules/contentpage/index.php? file=story.htm&ma=10&subid=101. 76. Book: “Vietnam Báo Chí: Warriors of Word and Film”. 77. Interview (video): “How Nick Ut’s Photo ‘Napalm Girl’ Changed The Vietnam War”, https://www.nbcnews.com/video/how-nick-ut-s-photo-napalm-girl-changed-the-vietnam-war-908256835749. 78. Interview (written): “Interview with Nick Ut, the Photojournalist Who Shot the Iconic ʼNapalm Girlʼ Photo”, https://petapixel.com/2012/09/19/interview-with-nick-ut-the-photojournalist-who-shot-the-iconic-photo- napalm-girl/. 79. Lecture: “Public Lecture at Griffin University”, http://www.kimfoundation.com/modules/contentpage/index.php? file=Griffith_speech.htm&ma=70&subid;subid=701. 80. Photograph: “Vietnam Napalm 1972”, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM- APHS021000-Vietnam-Napalm-1972/e674e44489a54fbca89b41a7d821b89e/168/0. 81. Poll: “The Iraq-Vietnam Comparison”, https://news.gallup.com/poll/11998/iraqvietnam-comparison.aspx. 82. Protocol: “Vietnam survivor creates legacy after famous photograph”, https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/vietnam- survivor-creates-legacy-after-famous-photograph/.

Image (5), secondary sources: 83. Article: “Starving Child and Vulture”, http://100photos.time.com/photos/kevin-carter-starving-child-vulture. 84. Article: “The Meaning Of Compressed Lips, Down-turned Smile And Lip Pursing Body Language”, http://bodylanguageproject.com/tiny-book-of-body-language/the-meaning-of-compressed-lips-down-turned- smile-and-lip-pursing-body-language/. 85. Article: “Vietnam War Photos That Made a Difference”, https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/vietnam- war-photos-that-made-a-difference/. 86. Book: “Icons of War and Terror: Media Images in an Age of International Risk”. 87. Book: “On Photography”.

Image (6), primary sources: 88. Article: “North Vietnam, 1972: The Christmas bombing of Hanoi”, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine- 20719382. 89. Governmental document: “167. Message From the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) in Paris”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973 ( pp. 612-613). 90. Governmental document: “169. Message From the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) in Paris”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973 ( pp. 616-617). 91. Governmental document: “171. Message From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig)”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973 ( pp. 620-625). 92. Governmental document: “172. Message From the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973 (pp. 626-627). 93. Memorandum: “173. Memorandum From the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972–January 1973 ( pp. 627-630). 94. Memorandum: “180. Memorandum From President Nixon to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)”, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume IX, Vietnam, October 1972– January 1973 (pp. 687-691). 95. Photograph: “Le Duc Tho Shakes Hands with Henry Kissinger”, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-FRA-APHS308568-Le-Duc-Tho-Shakes- Ha-/0d21855472904440acc699dd6a31b524/3/0. 96. Press conference: “Press Conference De. 16, 1972”, https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/press_conference_held_by_henry_kissinger_16_december_1972-en-e461bf60- 3012-4086-a914-b8e08b31d97b.html.

Image (6), secondary sources: 97. Article: “ʽNo Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnamʼ”, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/books/chapters/no-peace-no-honor-nixon-kissinger-and-betrayal-in- vietnam.html. 98. Article: “Why a Nobel Peace Prize Was Once Rejected”, https://time.com/4061794/nobel-peace-prize-winner- history/. Image:

1. Visual analysis and caption War indicators, Peace indicators, Unclear/interpretations Visual War Peace criteria1 Suffering Emotions Roles Age Result

Caption What does it add to the visuals? Result

1 S. Fahmy & R. Neumann, “Shooting War or Peace Photographs? An Examination of Newswires’ Coverage of the Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009)”, American Behavioral Scientist vol. 56 (2), 2011, pp. 1-26. 2. Behind the visuals Human(itarian) aspects indicative for peaceful elements (e.g. emotions, thoughts, actions) Ascribed War Photojournalism aspects (e.g. depiction of suffering, “negativity makes news”, propaganda/hyperreality, negative impact) News value/gut feeling/intuition Professionalism (e.g. codes, values) Legacy/transformative process (e.g. positive impact and possible peace aspects)

Historical context Photographer and subjects: Image reception & legacy memories/recollection

Protagonist 1

Protagonist 2 Other sources/quoted by other sources

Findings Results

The design of the operational spreadsheets used for the study Image 1: “The Ultimate Protest” (1963) by Malcolm Browne 1. Visual analysis and caption War indicators, Peace indicators, Unclear/interpretations Visual War Peace criteria1 Suffering - Raging flames are consuming the man in the middle of the photograph, - It seems like the man is sitting there with patience and purpose while he lets the insinuating the agony of what it must feel like to burn alive; flames consume him; - they are very focused in the specific area surrounding the man and appear - he is not trying to escape or resist the flames, instead he is allowing them to kill him to almost “devour” his head and chest and “rip him apart”; and seems at peace with it. - dark, heavy smoke rises off of the soaring flames, which appear out of control/unmanageable; - the gas can on the left as well as the moist spot on the right indicate that the flames are burning on gasoline which might have been poured on the man; - The picture is a snapshot of someone in the process of dying a violent death; - Very graphic/uncensored depiction of human being set on fire. → “Most severe” Emotions The right side of the burning man is clearly visible, as are his facial - the man is sitting straight up, with his legs crossed, has his eyes closed and seems to expression and posture: be concentrating on something – his posture and expression could indicate that he is - facial expression does indicate pain but not to the excruciating extent not scared or stressed; which would be expected from a self-immolation, rather, it is overridden by the monk's concentration and self-containment; - the man's expression of concentration and his almost “meditative” posture stand in - though the posture appears calm, it hints at the still unimaginable contrast to the depicted events. cause of his situation: it might be an act of suicide, not of murder.

The many people surrounding the burning man all appear to experience the same range of emotion: - all are very serious and sad, according to their facial expressions; - the two people on the right exhibit micro-expressions such as raised eyebrows, which are drawn together in a flat line, wrinkles in the forehead in the center between the eyebrows, tensed up lips. Those are expressions of surprise and fear, which, together could be interpreted as shock; - the people on the far right seem to be sad and crying – the inner corners of their eyebrows are drawn in and go up at the inner corner, the corner of the lips are drawn down while the jaw comes up and the lower lip pouts out,2

1 S. Fahmy & R. Neumann, “Shooting War or Peace Photographs? An Examination of Newswires’ Coverage of the Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009)”, American Behavioral Scientist vol. 56 (2), 2011, pp. 1-26. - many have their hands folded as if they were praying. → “Negative emotions” particularly from the bystanders → Pain as “negative emotion” from the center-man but his expression of concentration and his almost “meditative” posture stand in contrast to the depicted events Roles - The gas can helps to tell the story of the photograph: the immolation is - no belligerents are present in the frame; self-imposed; thus, it must have had a significant trigger - background is lined with people wearing the same white robes as the burning man: → Man as victim of political circumstances? → robes indicate that a religious, or group affiliation, - background is lined with people wearing the same white robes as the → white indicates neutrality and/or peace; burning man: - purpose of the the car with the open hood is not clear but it seems to be a civilian → robes indicate that a religious, or group affiliation; and non-military car. → a cult/extremists demonstrating by taking drastic means? - purpose of the the car with the open hood is not clear – was the gas can taken from the car in a spontaneous act/hold-up? - the people are watching/observing the act that is occurring in front of them, but do nothing to stop it, - man on the left is holding a camera/seems to be rushing around the main subject while covering the event. Age - While people of all age groups are visible in the image, the majority appears to be young adults, - children witnessing such a cruel event is questionable (hints at the inevitability of war, which affects even young, innocent children). Result Though the image contains not only traits associated with War Journalism, the portrayed events and the emotion it draws from the audience identify it as “War Photograph” according to the visual criteria established by Fahmy & Neumann.

Caption “Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, burns himself to death on a Saigon street June 11, 1963 to protest alleged persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government. (AP Photo/Malcolm Browne)”3 What 1. Additional information: does it - title, date of origin, location, news agency/photographer; add to the - name and affiliation of the burning man (Buddhist monk), which was revealing at the time of the picture's publication in terms of the historical background: visuals? → 90 % of the Vietnamese nation was Buddhist but was under the rule of Roman Catholic president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, who suppressed and persecuted Buddhists (“Buddhist crisis”); → the US had inserted Ngo Dinh Diem as Vietnamese president in their quest to put together a pro‐West, anti‐French and anti‐Communist government in South Vietnam and supported his regime in order to defeat the North Vietnamese communist-movement (Viet Cong)4;

2 V. Van Edwards, “The Definitive Guide to Reading Microexpressions (Facial Expressions)”, Science of People, n.d., https://www.scienceofpeople.com/microexpressions/, accessed March 4, 2020. 3 M. Browne, “Vietnam Monk Protest”, AP Images, 1963, http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-VNM-aphs019555-VIETNAM-MONK- PROTEST/a344206cdb5a490e9fceb1e1c2ebbefc/1/1, accessed May 4, 2020. → Buddhists had been protesting throughout the year 1963; → the self-immolation happened as part of the monks' protest and was indeed a “voluntary” sacrifice. - “Buddhist monk”: → Buddhists are considered phlegmatic, relaxed and peaceful, especially monks, who, depending on clan and affiliation, engaged in “mindfulness trainings”/mediation to discover truth, wisdom, “precepts, concentration and insights”, promised to respect the law “maintain and transmit the wonderful principle, In order to reveal the true teaching” of their ancestors;5 - reveals the outcome of the ordeal: the man died. 2. Possible interpretations are provided (potentially for both editors and audiences): - “alleged” persecution: → the monks' accusations might have not been verifiable at that point? → to downgrade both the monks' accusations and actions? → calm a potentially upset audience and reassure them that the US government is assessing the situation (opinion-shaping, propagandistic)? - “by the South Vietnamese government”: → explicit naming of the persecutor to draw attention to the US-South Vietnamese alliance (blaming of the own government)? → dismissal of US liability (“foreign government, not ours” → “us vs them”, propagandistic)? Result The caption has three main functions: 1. it adds invisible context and information needed to make the image fully understandable, 2. it both verifies and amplifies the visual impression of the image by revealing that it was a suicidal act by a monk (religious affiliation), who did in fact die. 3. it explains/justifies the image's news value and publication despite its graphic content by adding certain connotations. Further findings: - The captions contain assertions which are not needed for an interpretation, but their intention is not clear: → either the captions intend to stir the audience into certain beliefs (such as the innocence of the American government despite its involvement); → or the captions emphasize a cautious attitude/observing role of the news agency (the claims made by either side were not verifiable at this time; therefore, the agency as objective, non-political institution is careful to assign guilt to/spread accusations made by either side).

4 “Vietnam's Faiths Underlie Rising; Buddhist‐Catholic Disputes Sharpened Under Diem”, The New York Times Archives, 1964, https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/14/archives/vietnams-faiths-underlie-rising-buddhistcatholic-disputes-sharpened.html, accessed May 4, 2020; “Vietnam, Diem, the Buddhist Crisis”, JFKLibrary, n.d., https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/vietnam-diem-the-buddhist-crisis, accessed May 4, 2020. 5 T. Phap Dung, “A Letter to Friends About Our Lineage”, 2006, http://orderofinterbeing.org/docs/TNH-Tradition-Lineage.pdf, accessed May 4, 2020. 2. Behind the visuals Human(itarian) aspects indicative for peaceful elements (e.g. emotions, thoughts, actions) Ascribed War Photojournalism aspects (e.g. depiction of suffering, “negativity makes news”, propaganda/hyperreality, negative impact) News value/gut feeling/intuition Professionalism (e.g. codes, values) Legacy/transformative process (e.g. positive impact and possible peace aspects)

Historical context Photographer and subjects: Image reception & legacy memories/recollection Malcolm Browne “I had been in Vietnam at that point for a “The monks were telephoning our foreign Editing: “The main thing on my mind was getting the pictures couple of years when things began to correspondents in Saigon to warn them that out. I realized this is something of unusual importance and that look ugly in central Vietnam. I took a something big was gonna happen, that they were I'd have to get them to the AP in one of its far flung octopus much greater interest in the Buddhists of gonna pull off something spectacular [at a] protest. tentacles as soon as possible. And I also knew this was a very Vietnam than I had before, because it By the time I got to the pagoda where all of this difficult thing to do in Saigon on short notice. […] The whole seemed to me they were likely to be was being organized, it was already under way... trick was to get it to some transmission point. We had to get the movers and shakers in whatever turned so [after a signal] they all started out onto the raw film shipped by air freight, or some way. It was not subject up next. I came to be on friendly terms street and headed toward the central part of to censorship at that point. We used a [passenger on a regular with quite a lot of the monks who were Saigon. [inaudible]. And when we reached there commercial flight whom we persuaded to carry a little package leaders of this movement that was taking the monks quickly formed a circle around the for him] to get it as far as Manila. And in Manila they had the shape. Along about springtime (1963), precise intersection of two main streets of Saigon. apparatus to send it by radio. […] Speed was of the essence the monks began to hint that they were A car drove up, two young monks got out of it, and obviously. So we had to get it to the airport. It got aboard a flight going to pull off something spectacular an older monk leaning a little bit onto one of the leaving very soon for Manila. [I] didn't know [what happened by way of protest – and that would most younger ones also got out – he headed right to the with the picture after we got it out], it was like shooting into a likely be a disembowelment of one of center of the intersection. The two young monks, black hole. We learned that it had arrived only after messages the monks or an immolation. And either uh, brought up a plastic [inaudible] can – which began to come through congratulating us for sending such a way, it was something we had to pay proved to be gasoline – and, uh, they... as soon as picture. It was not run by everybody. The New York Times did not attention to.”1 he'd seated himself, they... they poured the liquid run it. They felt it was too grisly a picture that wasn't suitable for all over him. He got out a matchbox, lighted it and a breakfast newspaper. […] Timeline: dropped it into his lap and was immediately It attracted a lot of attention, I'll say that for it. It was not June 10, 9pm: Monk calls Browne: engulfed in flames. Everybody who witnessed it necessarily the hardest story I've ever had to cover, but it was “Mr. Browne, I strongly advise you to was horrified and... it... it was every bit as bad as I certainly an important part of my career.” come. I expect something very important could have expected it.”3 (He would also call it a On Kennedy's remark on the picture (“No news picture in will happen, but I cannot tell you what.” “horrible recollection”. [A firetruck arrived and history has generated so much emotion around the world as June 11, 7.50am: Browne and his tried to get through the circle but a couple of the that one.”): Yeah, that could be, that sounds like an honest quote assistant arrive at the designated monks dashed under the front wheels [as in a sit- from the White House.”7 location, 10 minutes prior to the in] and laid down on the pavement so they couldn't scheduled start of the service. Besides advance without rolling over them. And all this the AP team of Browne and Van Tran, while I was taking pictures of course. The one

1 P. Witty, “Malcolm Browne: The Story Behind the Burning Monk”, TIME, 2012, https://time.com/3791176/malcolm-browne-the-story-behind-the-burning-monk/, accessed May 4, 2020. correspondents from Agence France thing that sorta keeps you going in war in times of Presse and UPI were present; however, crises like that is having something to do.4) only Browne and Van Tran had thought to bring cameras. - “At that point the monks were telephoning the 8am: Service begins. foreign correspondents in Saigon to warn them 9am: Monks embark on their that something big was going to happen. Most of procession. the correspondents were kind of bored with that 9.17am: Monks arrive at the threat after a while and tended to ignore it. I felt intersection. A gray sedan, which had that they were certainly going to do something, been leading the procession, stops in the that they were not just bluffing, so it came to be intersection and the congregation that I was really the only Western correspondent encircles it. Three monks emerge and that covered the fatal day. [The monks] were remove a 5-gallon jerry can full of perfectly serious about doing something pretty aviation fuel from under the hood. violent. In another civilization it might have taken Aviation fuel burns more slowly than the form of a bomb or something like that. The gasoline. “I realized at that moment monks were very much aware of the result that an exactly what was happening, and began immolation was likely to have. So by the time I to take pictures a few seconds apart.” got to the pagoda where all of this was being 9.17am: Gasoline is poured: “He sat organized, it was already underway – the monks down, pulled his feet over his thighs and nuns were chanting a type of chant that's very cross-legged in the traditional Buddhist common at funerals and so forth. At a signal from position, and waited, his head slightly the leader, they all started out into the street and bowed, while the two other monks headed toward the central part of Saigon on foot. brought the gasoline over and poured all When we reached there, the monks quickly formed but about one liter of it over his head.” a circle around a precise intersection of two main 9.22am: Match is lighted: “I was streets in Saigon. A car drove up. Two young standing about 20 feet to the right and a monks got out of it. An older monk, leaning a little little in front of Quang Duc. I clearly bit on one of the younger ones, also got out. He saw him strike a match in his lap, and headed right for the center of the intersection. The with a slight movement, touch the robes two young monks brought up a plastic jerry can, at lap level.” which proved to be gasoline. As soon as he seated 9.35am: Monk collapses dead: “By 9:35, himself, they poured the liquid all over him. He Quang Duc had fallen over backwards, got out a matchbook, lighted it, and dropped it in and after a few convulsive kicks, was his lap and was immediately engulfed in flames. clearly dead and charred, although he Everybody that witnessed this was horrified. It was was still burning.” every bit as bad as I could have expected. I don't 9.35am: Assistant moves to get the films know exactly when he died because you couldn't on the way: “I sent Tran back to the tell from his features or voice or anything. He office with all our film and instructions never yelled out in pain. His face seemed to to set up airfreight shipments and to remain fairly calm until it was so blackened by the book a telephone call to Tokyo, in that flames that you couldn't make it out anymore. order.” Finally the monks decided he was dead and they 10am: Body is wrapped up and the brought up a coffin, an improvised wooden coffin. procession continues while other It turns out that there were some Vietnamese that correspondents arrive: “Just as the new took some pictures but they didn't go out – they're procession was getting under way, lots of not on the wires or anything like that. [As far as I other correspondents began arriving. ... could tell, I was the only photographer there]. I All of us accompanied the procession to was thinking only about the fact it was a self- Xa Loi Pagoda, a walk of about 10 illuminated subject that required an exposure of minutes.” about, oh say, f10 or whatever it was, I don't really 10.45am: Browne heads back to AP remember. I was using a cheap Japanese camera, bureau: “I was back in our office by by the name of Petri. I was very familiar with it, 10:45. The film already had been but I wanted to make sure that I not only got the shipped out. I got through to Tokyo by settings right on the camera each time and focused phone at about 11:15. We were doing it properly, but that also I was reloading fast nothing more nor less than our jobs as enough to keep up with action. I took about ten newsmen.”2 rolls of film because I was shooting constantly. [“I just kept shooting and shooting and shooting and that protected me from the horror of the scene […]”5 [When I look at the picture I smell] the overwhelming smell of joss sticks. They do make a very strong smell, […] it's meant to appease the ancestors […]. That was the overwhelming smell except for the smell of burning gasoline and diesel and the smell of burning flesh, I must say. The main sound was the wailing and misery of the monks, who had known this guy for many years before and were feeling for him. Then there was shouting over loudspeakers between the fire department people, trying to figure out a way to put him out, put out the flames around him without actually killing him or something. So it was a jumble of confusion.”6 Monks [Duc] was at least partly inspired by Eyewitness (nun): “And the huge flames around “The self-burning of Vietnamese Buddhist monks in 1963 is Buddhist history. 'There was a long him but he sits so [calmly?]. And so tears drop out somehow difficult for the Western Christian conscience to tradition going back to the 4th century of of my eyes and I look, I look and I was immobile understand. The Press spoke then of suicide, but in the essence, it monks choosing to renounce their [sic.] like a statue. And I [looked] around and is not. It is not even a protest. What the monks said in the letters physical existence by killing themselves, everyone was crying and I saw the monk and the they left before burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at usually by fire. So this is an act that we nun was chanting with their yellow dress. […] [He moving the hearts of the oppressors and at calling the attention of might say is a religious act to left behind] a very short letter: 'Please listen to the the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese. To

2 “The Burning Monk: A defining moment photographed by AP’s Malcolm Browne”, AP, https://www.ap.org/explore/the-burning-monk/, accessed May 5, 2020. demonstrate transcendence over what's voice of Buddhists that we want to have more burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the material existence.'”8 liberty of practicing our spiritual faith. […] In the utmost importance. There is nothing more painful than burning West, people cannot understand but I think that oneself. To say something while experiencing this kind of pain is that is also new in Vietnam. [After he'd collapsed] to say it with the utmost of courage, frankness, determination and the police tried to take [his body] but Buddhists sincerity. During the ceremony of ordination, as practiced in the did not allow. […] [Yet the regime] continued to Mahayana tradition, the monk-candidate is required to burn one, arrest monks and we [our underground movement] or more, small spots on his body in taking the vow to […] live had some kind of underground press, news of the life of a monk, to attain enlightenment and to devote his life BBC, Voice of America, we tried to reprint in to the salvation of all beings. One can, of course, say these things Vietnamese – translated – and we distributed and I while sitting in a comfortable armchair; but when the words are had a big network of poor people because I uttered while kneeling before the community […] and worked for [a] slum. So everywhere I go, through experiencing this kind of pain, they will express all the slum and the market I distributed the news. Many seriousness of one's heart and mind, and carry much greater times [I was almost arrested] by the police and I weight. The Vietnamese monk, by burning himself, say with all breathed in and breathed out and sent my loving his strengh [sic] and determination that he can endure the energy to the policemen and they tried to hide my greatest of sufferings to protect his people. But why does he have documents. They didn't put me in jail. [After to burn himself to death? The difference between burning oneself witnessing the death of Duc, the sister devoted and burning oneself to death is only a difference in degree, not in herself to a life of social and political activism. nature. A man who burns himself too much must die. The She teaches and gives Buddhist retreats all over importance is not to take one's life, but to burn. What he really the world.]”9 aims at is the expression of his will and determination, not death. In the Buddhist belief, life is not confined to a period of 60 or 80 or 100 years: life is eternal. Life is not confined to this body: life is universal. To express will by burning oneself, therefore, is not to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, i.e., to suffer and to die for the sake of one's people. This is not suicide. Suicide is an act of self-destruction, having as causes the following: - lack of courage to live and to cope with difficulties - defeat by life and loss of all hope - desire for non-existence […] This self-destruction is considered by Buddhism as one of the most serious crimes. The monk who burns himself has lost

4 “AP ShortDocs: The Burning Monk (2013)”, AP, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTqjn__onL4, accessed May 5, 2020, own transcription. 7 Witty, op. cit. 3 M. Browne, “The Burning Monk”, TIME 100Photos, n.d., http://100photos.time.com/photos/malcolm-browne-burning-monk, accessed May 4, 2020, own transcription. 5 “Witness History: The Death of Thich Quang Duc”, BBC Sounds, 2013, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p01blrbl, accessed May 5, 2020, own transcription. 6 Witty, op. cit. 8 BBC, op. cit. 9 BBC, op. cit. neither courage nor hope; nor does he desire non-existence. On the contrary, he is very courageous and hopeful and aspires for something good in the future. He does not think that he is destroying himself; he believes in the good fruition of his act of self-sacrifice for the sake of others. [...] the monk believes he is practicing the doctrine of highest compassion by sacrificing himself in order to call the attention of, and to seek help from, the people of the world. I believe with all my heart that the monks who burned themselves did not aim at the death of the oppressors but only at a change in their policy. Their enemies are not man. They are intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred and discrimination which lie within the heart of man. I also believe with all my being that the struggle for equality and freedom […] is [aimed] at intolerance, hatred and discrimination. These are real enemies of man – not man himself. In our unfortunate father land we are trying to yield desperately: do not kill man, even in man's name. Please kill the real enemies of man which are present everywhere, in our very hearts and minds. Now in the confrontation of the big powers occurring in our country, hundreds and perhaps thousands of Vietnamese peasants and children lose their lives every day, and our land is unmercifully and tragically torn by a war which is already twenty years old [causing] indescribable suffering of the Vietnamese people. The world's greatest humanists would not remain silent. You yourself can not remain silent. America is said to have a strong religious foundation and spiritual leaders would not allow American political and economic doctrines to be deprived of the spiritual element. You cannot be silent since you have already been in action and you are in action because, in you, God is in action, too – to use Karl Barth's expression. And Albert Schweitzer, with his stress on the reverence for life and Paul Tillich with his courage to be, and thus, to love. And Niebuhr. And Mackay. And Fletcher. And Donald Harrington. All these religious humanists, and many more, are not going to favour the existence of a shame such as the one mankind has to endure in Vietnam. Recently [another] young Buddhist monk named Thich Giac Thanh burned himself [April 20, 1965, in Saigon] to call the attention of the world to the suffering endured by the Vietnamese, the suffering caused by this unnecessary war – and you know that war is never necessary. Another young Buddhist, a nun named Hue Thien was about to sacrifice herself in the same way and with the same intent, but her will was not fulfilled because she did not have the time to strike a match before people saw and interfered. Nobody here wants the war. What is the war for, then? And whose is the war? Yesterday in a class meeting, a student of mine prayed: “Lord Buddha, help us to be alert to realize that we are not victims of each other. We are victims of our own ignorance and the ignorance of others. Help us to avoid engaging ourselves more in mutual slaughter because of the will of others to power and to predominance.” In writing to you, as a Buddhist, I profess my faith in Love, in Communion and in the World's Humanists whose thoughts and attitude should be the guide for all human kind in finding who is the real enemy of Man.”10 Other - Malcolm Wilde Browne was 30 years - „It had become clear to me very soon after my Transmission process: In a pre-digital world, it took 15 hours sources/quoted old when he arrived in Saigon [in] 1961, arrival in Saigon that the relationship between the over 9,000 miles of AP Wirephoto cable for Malcolm Browne's by other sources as AP's first permanent correspondent American mission and the American press in Burning Monk to become breaking news. [10 hours after the there. From the start, Browne was filing Vietnam was quite different from any other in the incident] images arrive in San Francisco and are relayed onward the kind of big stories that would win rest of the world. In Vietnam there was a sharp and to AP headquarters in New York [where] the chosen image is him the Pulitzer Prize for reporting in unfortunate polarization of the press reporting on edited, captioned and sent by Wirephoto from New York to AP 1964. But today, he is primarily one hand, and the official position on the other.[...] member newspapers worldwide. [After 15 hours and 20 minutes] remembered for a photograph taken […] The existing dichotomy had been a long time in the image is carried by the morning papers and is seen by the on June 11, 1963, depicting the dignified developing [in the late 40s] when American world for the first time.16 yet horrific death by fiery suicide of officials, spoke optimistically about the war […] Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc. and the reporters reserved their judgment. Indeed, - On June 27, 1963, The New York Times, which had not Following years of growing tension, the one of the first shots was fired by Robert published Browne's photograph, ran a full-page paid Buddhist majority in South Vietnam Trumbull, the New York Times correspondent in advertisement featuring the image. The ad, protesting the U.S. reached its breaking point under the Indochina at the time, who wrote an exceedingly support of the Diem regime, was signed by 12 clergymen repressive regime of Catholic Ngo Dinh pessimistic and stunningly prophetic story from including some of the county's well-known religious leaders. The Diem. On May 8, 1963, in the ancient Saigon in early 1947, just a few weeks after the clergymen also protested the “immoral spraying of parts of South imperial capital of Hue, South war had begun […]. [It] immediately aroused the Vietnam with crop-destroying chemicals and the herding of many Vietnamese soldiers opened fire on a ire of French officials, who felt Trumbull was of its people into concentration camps called 'strategic hamlets' group of Buddhists who were flying the trying to sabotage them.”14 and “the fiction that this is 'fighting for freedom.'”17 Buddhist flag in direct violation of a government ban. Nine were killed. In - “While [the Buddhist movement's] leaders had - Thich Quang Duc's 1963 self-immolation […] is instructive, late May and early June, the Saigon talked to reporters about the possibility of such especially in the careful attention to details to maximize the Buddhists staged street demonstrations dramatic protests as a monk burning himself to affect and stir a social movement [...]. [He] left a carefully and memorial services for the victims of death; none of us, however, took such threats drafted letter that lays out his political motives: 'Before closing the May 8 incident. On June 1, two seriously. On the morning of June 11, I was my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I

10 T. Nhat Nanh, “In Search of the Enemy of Man (addressed to (the Rev.) Martin Luther King)”, Dialogue (Saigon: La Boi, 1965), pp. 11-20. monks informed AP Saigon sleeping late when I got a panicky call from [a respectfully plead to President [Diem] to take mind of correspondent Malcolm Browne, along Vietnamese reporter]. His voice was almost out of compassion towards the the people of the nation and implement with other foreign correspondents, that control; all I could understand was that I should religious equality to maintain strength of the homeland eternally. two elderly monks planned to commit get to [a Saigon intersection] as quickly as I call the venerables, reverends, [and Buddhist members] to ritual suicide in protest against the Diem possible. I grabbed [a colleague] and we dashed organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.' regime.”11 for the corner [where] we saw a crowd of chanting The media were encouraged to attend the self-immolation Buddhists in their orange robes. Just another leading to the infamous photo of which John F. Kennedy said 'No - “[The Buddhists] did not understand demonstration, I thought; we had become so used news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the function of a free press [such as the to these […]. But at that moment I looked into the the world as that one.' During the immolation, a monk with a American], but they quickly sensed that center of the circle and saw a man burning himself megaphone explained: 'A Buddhist priest burns himself to death. it could be used and that it gave them to death. I was to see that sight again, but once was A Buddhist priest becomes a martyr'. His action was followed by some protection. Early in the crisis enough. Flames were coming from a human being; a series of other protest events including several other self- reporters received an anonymous tip that his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, immolations. [It] had its intended effect as President [Diem] was Buddhists distributing literature had his head blackening and charring. In the air was overthrown five months later and killed.”18 been arrested by the police. When the smell of burning human flesh; human beings newsmen arrived on scene they found burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear - “recognized as some of the most powerful visual images to only a few monks. Where were the the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now have come out of this period of history – it became a frame police, the reporters asked. “Oh, we told gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused through which many Americans perceived the events unfolding them that we had called the foreign to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to in South Vietnam during the Summer and Fall of 1963”19 press, and so they let us go,” one of the even think. Later we learned that the man was a monks said. […] On another occasion priest […] who had come to the square as part of - Browne's photo of the burning monk stunned people around the during the middle of the crisis we all the Buddhist procession, had been doused with world. The day after they were taken, a visitor to the Oval Office gathered at [a] pagoda because we'd gasoline by two other priests, had then assumed noticed that President John F. Kennedy had a set of them on his heard that something was going to the cross-legged “lotus” position and had set a desk. They seemed to symbolize the unraveling of South happen. [A monk] walked up and match to himself. As he burned he never moved a Vietnam and the importance of its president […]. Over the next suggested that we go home. […] Half an muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward few months, these images helped push the Kennedy hour after we had departed, the composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people administration toward a momentous decision [to withdraw Buddhists charged out [and] held a large around him. I had never felt such conflicting support of Diem's government]. demonstration […]. [When asked] why emotions: one part of me wanted to extinguish the he sent us away, [he responded:] fire, another warned me that I had no right to Impact and Legacy: The image we conjure up when we think of “because when you left, the secret police interfere, another told me that it was too late, Browne’s picture is not the one that was published in American left too, and when they were gone we another asked whether I was a reporter or a human newspapers on June 12, 1963. The one the papers chose shows could leave the pagoda and being.”15 Thich Quang Duc as a black mass surrounded by flames. It had demonstrate.”12 been sent by radio from Manila to New York. It was used widely, but not universally. And when it was used, it did not always - “[...] The caller was [a Buddhist monk] appear on Page One. Nevertheless, it was that picture which Browne had come to know while shocked President John F. Kennedy, who immediately ordered a

11 “The Burning Monk: A defining moment photographed by AP’s Malcolm Browne”, op. cit. 12 D. Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 124. 15 Halberstam, op. cit., pp. 127-128. covering the escalating conflict between review of his administration’s Vietnam policy. The review led to Buddhists and the Catholic-dominated more troops, not fewer. As more pictures came into New York in government of South Vietnam. He told succeeding days, the complete sequence became available. The Browne that anyone who appeared at [a picture that we now refer to as “The Ultimate Protest” was one of designated place] the next morning these. It shows Thich Quang Duc’s face and the fine drapery of would witness an 'important event.' That his garments as he is engulfed in silvery tongues of flame. It is a evening, the monk called several other shockingly beautiful image that immediately took on a life of its foreign correspondents with the same own, so that we no longer recall the first published image. In message. Only Browne took him many ways, “The Ultimate Protest” paved the way for the other seriously. He had written extensively iconic image of the war, taken by AP photographer Nick Ut in about the spreading Buddhist rebellion 1972, of a young girl wounded by a napalm strike and running in and sensed that it would shape Vietnam's agony toward the photographer, her clothes burned off. By then, future.13 the world was used to this visual assault. It was also growing tired of the long war.20

- “Malcolm Browne's photograph […] became one of the most famous images of the 19th century. […] Oxford sociologist Michael Bings explains: '[The clash in May 1963] precipitated the clash between the Buddhist movement and the government. And in this context, the monk says that he wants to make a donation to the struggle, the donation of course being his own life.' [His] initial request to the Buddhist hierarchy to set himself on fire was refused on the grounds that it violated Buddhist principles of non-violence. '[Some] monks thought that this was terrible, this is a horrible thing to do, there is no way that we can do this. But there was some other monks who understood the potential impact that it would have on the Western media to win global public opinion. […] What made [Duc's] case different was that he was also using his death to make a political point. […] Police tried to get to the burning [Duc] but were held back by other monks. […] Malcolm Browne's picture of the event went on to win a Pulitzer Price. It was even reported that [JFK] had had the photograph on his desk while discussing US policy towards Diem's government in South Vietnam. 'The effect was profound. It was profound in South Vietnam where, for the first

13 S. Kinzer, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006), p. 148. 17 “The Burning Monk: A defining moment photographed by AP’s Malcolm Browne”, op. cit. 16 “The Burning Monk: A defining moment photographed by AP’s Malcolm Browne”, op. cit.

14 Halberstam, op. cit., p. 5 time, it brought lay people – ordinary Buddhists – came onto the streets, incredibly stood by his sacrifice and even the government – the government was really insensitive to public opinion – even the Diem regime understood this was a major problem […] and they gave the Buddhist movement some concessions in order to NOT have a public funeral. It also had a big impact on the American public and the American government because the American government was worried about their own public opinion. Remember that the United States is engaged in a [global] struggle with communism and of course Saigon was an important site and it was very bad to see that example of [somebody who saw his religion so persecuted that he wanted to kill himself].'”21

“1147. CINCPAC for POLAD. Procession of approximately 400 bonzes carried body of dead bonze to Xa Loi Pagoda near USOM. At about 0130 an estimated 800-1000 bonzes now inside pagoda. Large group of pro-Buddhist students have now formed cordon around pagoda and refusing admission to anyone. Students have raised crude banner in English stating “This Buddhist priest cremated himself for five items demanded of the government.” Meeting at pagoda broke up at 1200 and bonzes quickly dispersed, leaving approximately 100 bonzes inside. Very few spectators in evidence; however large group of bonzes and lay persons estimated at 2000 now gathering at site of cremation. Crowd orderly. Large number of police (estimated at 1000) in area. Police have allowed bonzes to proceed at will within area which is cordoned off and have attempted keep bonzes and spectators separate. Banners in English and Vietnamese carried by bonzes read as follows: “A Buddhist priest burns himself for our five requests,” and “Do not deceive us and the people in any way.” Dead bonze identified as Thich Quang Duc, […]. He arrived on scene of his death in a vehicle with central Viet Nam license plates and carrying his own can of gasoline. Burning took place in front of Cambodian

19 L.M. Skow & G.N. Dionisopoulos, “A struggle to contextualize photographic images: American print media and the ʻBurning Monkʼ”, Communication Quarterly vol 45 (4), 1997, p. 393. 18 W.P. Simmons, Joyful Human Rights (Philadelphia: PENN – University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), p. 173. 20 “The Burning Monk: A defining moment photographed by AP’s Malcolm Browne”, op. cit. 21 BBC, op. cit. representation residence, apparently for purpose obtaining Cambodian attention. […] Colonel Tung stated that he expects further trouble today. […] Reports persist that other bonzes may sacrifice themselves in front of public buildings.”22

- “1. Following is overall instruction resulting from NSC consideration of McNamara/Taylor report and recommendations […]. These instructions have the President’s personal approval. […] 2. Actions are designed to indicate to Diem Government our displeasure at its political policies and activities and to create significant uncertainty in that government and in key Vietnamese groups as to future intentions of United States. At same time, actions are designed to have at most slight impact on military or counterinsurgency effort against Viet Cong, at least in short term. 3. The recommendations on negotiations are concerned with what US is after, i.e., […] action to increase effectiveness of its military effort; to ensure popular support to win war; and to eliminate strains on US Government and public confidence. The negotiating posture is designed not to lay down specific hard and fast demands or to set a deadline, but to produce movement in Vietnamese Government along these lines. In this way we can test and probe effectiveness of any actions the GVN actually takes and, at same time, maintain sufficient flexibility to permit US to resume full support of Diem regime at any time US Government deems it appropriate. 4. We recognize that recommended actions cannot be continued more than a limited period – tentatively estimated at two to four months – before they begin to have substantial impact on counterinsurgency effort. Even within this period, they will require careful and constant evaluation. As they begin to have substantial impact on war effort, further major decisions will be needed. 5. It is not possible to specify with precision the criteria that we should use in determining whether this proposed course of action has brought about adequate changes in performance of Diem Government and should, therefore, be modified or withdrawn, or whether on contrary response of the Diem Government is clearly

22 W. Trueheart, “164. Telegram From the Embassy in Vietnam to the Department of State”, in eds. J.P Glennon, E.C. Keefer & L.J. Smith Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Vol. 3, Vietnam, January-August, 1963 (Washington D.C.: United States Govt Printing Office, 1991), pp. 375-376. inadequate so that more drastic action should be considered. The desired […] measures in this report are grouped under three headings: (1) military actions, (2) political actions, and (3) actions with respect to US itself. […] A. Actions: 6. AID Commodity Import Program. Existing suspension of new commitments will be maintained, and under this policy the presently due second-quarter allocation of $20-25 million will be withheld. You should make this continued suspension clear in an appropriate manner to the GVN. No public announcement will be made. In addition, US working levels should inform Vietnamese military that commodity import assumptions being used for budget planning purposes must now be considered uncertain not only from previously stated standpoint of Congressional uncertainty, but because of executive review of program. […] 8. AID Project Loans. Presently pending balance of loan projects for Saigon-Cholon Waterworks ($10 million) and Saigon electric power project ($4 million) will be “suspended for review,” and you should inform GVN in appropriate manner to this effect without making public announcement. If this becomes publicly known here or in field, explanation will be limited strictly to bare statement of suspension for review. 9. Assistance to Forces Commanded by Colonel Tung in or near Saigon. You should inform GVN, through whatever channel you deem appropriate, that US can no longer furnish support to these forces unless they are placed under effective operational control of Joint General Staff and committed to field operations. […] Again no public announcement will be made, but if action becomes known explanation here and in field will be that we cannot assist forces that are not contributing to the war effort. […] B. Negotiating Tactics: Your policy toward the GVN of cool correctness in order to make Diem come to you is correct. You should continue it. However, we realize it may not work and that at some later time you may have to go to Diem to ensure he understands overall US policy. Decision of when this becomes imperative rests with you, in light of your assessment of situation. 12. If, as we hope, Diem seeks clarification of US policies and actions, you should present an exposition of how our actions are related to our fundamental objective of victory. There are three issues at root of strained relations between GVN and US and of our judgment that victory may be jeopardized. The first concerns military effort; GVN must take steps to make this more effective. The second is crisis of confidence among Vietnamese people which is eroding popular support for GVN that is vital for victory. The third is crisis of confidence on the part of the American public and Government. Heart of problem is form of government that has been evolving in Viet-Nam. Diem’s regime has trappings of democracy, but in reality it has been evolving into authoritarian government maintained by police terrorist methods. What GVN must do is to reverse this process of evolution. […] 14. Purpose of all actions listed below is to increase effectiveness of war effort, to ensure popular support, and to relieve strains in GVN/US relations. 15. Specific military actions listed below are probably most acceptable to Diem, but serve as a test of his commitment to furthering war effort. They should increase effectiveness of war effort and this in turn should feed back to improve political climate. […] discussion on relation between improvements by GVN and resumption of full US support. 16. Political actions are not arranged in order of importance. First of political actions, i.e., entering into negotiations to normalize university life, etc., should set stage for later political actions, such as broadening government. 17. If, in fact, GVN does begin to move along lines we desire, an opportunity will be provided to test and probe effectiveness of the actions in improving war effort, ensuring popular support, and easing strain in GVN/US relations. Paramount need, however, is for GVN to set a psychological tone and image that will make specific actions both real and credible. […] As practical matter, we would expect that Diem would not take such action at outset, but only after he had proceeded a considerable distance down the path we desire. 18. Military a. Further shift of military emphasis and strength to Delta (IV Corps). b. Increase in military tempo in all corps areas, so that all combat troops are in field an average of 20 days out of 30 and static missions are ended. c. Emphasis on “clear and hold operations” instead of terrain sweeps which have little permanent value. d. Expansion of personnel in combat units to full authorized strength. e. Training and arming of hamlet militia at accelerated rate, especially in the Delta. f. Consolidation of strategic hamlet program, especially in the Delta, and action to insure that future strategic hamlets are not built until they can be protected, and until civil action programs can be introduced. 19. Political a. Resumption of normal university life. Detained students should be released; school and university classes should be universally resumed. Diem should sit down with rector and faculty of Saigon University to work out conditions of normalization of university life. Since students are fearful of arrests and inclined to riots, this will involve significant negotiations on a variety of police-terrorist techniques, including secret arrests, torture, beatings, etc. For this reason, it is an excellent technique to get Diem to focus on the core issues. Similar action should be taken in regard to Hue University, including reinstatement of ax-rector. In both universities, at least some faculty members who have resigned, been fired or jailed should be reinstated. b. Specific concessions should be made to Buddhists. Those still jailed should be processed for release with all possible speed. Repair of pagodas should be facilitated with government sponsorship. GVN-sponsored “Union Committee for Pure Buddhism” should be expanded and genuinely representative Buddhist leaders given responsible positions. Assembly action should eliminate laws which deny equal status to Buddhism. c. Renewed activity in land reform program. This was an early Diem achievement but stopped short of completion. It could be revitalized and attract rural support for the GVN and improve its international image. d. Joint re-emphasis on political aspects of strategic hamlet program. […] Following is concerned with aspects of strategic hamlet program affecting popular attitudes. This would require an effort to gain more support from peasants through increasing payments to them for their labor and other services and through weeding out graft by local officials. In addition, particularly in Delta, redesigning the program to avoid unnecessary relocation of population and increased emphasis on social and economic programs that are likely to elicit peasant support. e. Police techniques. GVN should abandon its present practices of controlling populace by instilling fear through night-time arrests, brutal interrogation (including women) and other police- terrorist methods which contribute to growing resentment and unrest and diminishing acceptance of regime. f. Civil liberties should be restored. Arbitrary arrests should cease and those arrested speedily released or given fair public trial. Religious freedom should be implemented as guaranteed by constitution. Public gatherings should be permitted and controlled only to insure safety of life and property. g. Refurbishing GVN image. Government should be broadened so as to include respected individuals, including some within Viet-Nam who have not participated in government and some, such as Vu Van Mau, who have departed. It should be pointed out that these respected individuals are not likely to participate in government or return to Viet-Nam until changes such as those described above convince them that GVN has in fact reversed trend towards authoritarian government. Their willingness to accept posts in government or return to Viet-Nam will in turn be convincing evidence to mass of population that changes are, in fact, meaningful. h. “Changes in personnel.” Specific “reforms” described above are apt to have little impact without dramatic symbolic move which convinces Vietnamese that reforms are real. As practical matter this can only be achieved by some feasible reduction in influence of [symbols] of authoritarianism. […] i. Public and official statement by Diem before National Assembly which would set new tone for government by pointing to steps being taken to respond to popular sentiment, and by making a call for total mobilization of effort on part of officials and people equally.

20. US/GVN Relations a. Avoid divisive press attacks, e.g. Times of Viet-Nam story attacking CIA, etc. b. Cease public statements slandering the US effort and the role of US military and civilian personnel. c. Cease undercover efforts to discredit the US and weaken the will of US individuals to give their full support to programs, e.g. “mendacious briefings” of GVN troops and rumors of physical danger to US families and other personnel. d. Re-cast GVN propaganda in such a way as to gain foreign support of its socio-economic program.

C. Congress, Press, and Public: 21. No public statement will be issued here for the present. 22. At President’s next press conference, he expects to repeat his basic statement that what furthers the war effort we support, and what interferes with the war effort we oppose. If questioned on actions US may take, he expects to say only that US programs are being reviewed to insure consistency with this policy. 23. Similar responses will be given if information about any US actions leads to detailed inquiries. If detailed inquiries pinpointing specific actions are made, they will be dealt with as indicated in each paragraph of A., above. 24. [In] meetings with Congressional committees in executive session, Rusk, McNamara and Bell will follow same line. They […] will avoid as you should any listing of desired actions which could be construed as a package of US demands. We believe it of great importance that there should be no public impression of a package of sanctions and a package of demands. We are seeking necessary but limited improvements from a government very difficult to move, and we do not wish to encourage unjustified sense of optimism or of triumph from those who wish this situation was easier than it is. In particular, we would prefer press to consider us inactive than to trumpet a posture of “major sanctions” and “sweeping demands. [...]”23

23 D. Rusk, “181. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam”, 1963, in eds. E.C. Keefer & J.P. Glennon, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961– 1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1991), pp. 372-380. Findings - The image has become a globally known icon of the Vietnam War as it was published in almost every medium available at the time (with exception for the New York Times, which had objections to the graphic content at first but then printed it in an advertisement for peace) - The image lead to well-known preachers, religious leaders and even Martin Luther King demanding the end of US involvement in the war and its cruetlies - Matching descriptions of all eyewitnesses, regardless of nationality, role and affiliation → Buddhist monks and nun describe the event just like reporters - The act is universally defined as particularly cruel for all witnesses though they all express their astonishment for the monk, especially how he kept his composure - The photograph is universally perceived as a defining document from that stage of the Vietnam War, as it outlined discrepancies between official versions and the actual situation in Vietnam for the first time → it had both a national and international impact and was published almost everywhere → it had an impact on the US government's opinion concerning their own policy in Vietnam → it caused global outrage, and did not only “stay” in the US and Vietnam - the 181. telegram tells much about the concerns of the US government in the months after the picture was published: → Diem was out of control and had left the democratic path preferred by the US, which affected public opinion in both countries (especially the Buddhist majority in Vietnam) → the American press was starting to “undermine” and uncover the government's untrue statements, which affected public support for the war efforts in Vietnam → the US military was apparently struggling in Vietnam → the US government specifically called for propaganda statements to calm both the press and the public and justify further war efforts → the US government forbade to give details to the press → the US government ordered a re-evaluation of its policies, froze financial assets and demanded concessions for Buddhists as well as the general public in Vietnam (university life, democratic regime, acknowledgment of constitutional rights) in order to improve US-Vietnamese relations - Malcolm Browne was not a “parachute” reporter but was permanent stationed and had been covering the monks' struggle for freedom for years - Browne had been on good terms with the monks - Neither Browne nor other journalists did not interfere/help because the monks did obstruct any effort to save their burning priest → in a way they were used and forced to become voyeurs; had Browne been too shocked to cover the event, it would have lost its purpose - The monks did know how to call attention to their issues by strategically “using” the Western correspondents in their own interest - The reactions of the coverage had been anticipated by the monks in order to call for peace and gain global recognition - The act was not intended as a suicide (as it is understood by Western audiences) but as sacrifice to achieve greater good for the future generations → it is understood as a non-violent act by the Buddhist monks, which aligns with their non-violent values and their traditions. Result Though the image contains the most possible graphic content and resulted from events of violence, struggle and suffering, it had almost the opposite impact: it drew attention to the real situation in Vietnam for the first time, thereby uncovering discrepancies between the official/government versions and the actual situation. Furthermore, the image is the result of a “PR strategy” carefully planned by the monks to draw attention to their suffering and the injustice they experienced by Diem's government (and therefore indirectly by the US). It could be viewed as the first icon in a timeline of gradual news exposure of the US government and the resulting drop in public support of the war, which led eventually to pro-peace/anti-war movements. Thus, in that sense, it is part of the transformative process from war to peace, and could therefore, in the long-run, considered to contain traits of a Peace Photograph. References

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