Gestures of seeing: Amateur photographers in the news

Abstract

This article examines the amateur photographer as a common figure in contemporary news photographs, focusing on how the amateur’s gestures signify in journalism’s coverage of media events. Drawing on theories of photography as performance and ritual, I argue that the presence of the non-professional in the news photograph destabilizes journalistic discourse by challenging the role of the professional photographer and by redefining the event and its meanings. This is especially critical in coverage of catastrophic events, when the amateur’s gestures become a form of witnessing from a participant’s perspective, carrying both private and collective meanings for how the event will be understood in the future, and undermining the authority of journalism.