เสียชีวิต [lose life - formal]
Part 2 Visual Key and Stance in Greek and Australian photos A
All Greek and Australian broadsheet photos examined here introduce written feature stories on the asylum seeker issue which all appeared between 2001and 2002. In both countries, the issue of increasing numbers of displaced people seeking asylum and residence has ignited local tensions and political debate, featured prominently in election campaigns and led to new legislation. In both countries, it has for over a decade been a regular topic of daily news stories, opinion pieces and, less regularly, long in-depth news features like those examined here. The six stories here appear in a similar context in both papers – as top story of the lift-out News Review section of the Saturday SMH, and as top and only story in the Ios (Virus) news review section in the E’s Kiriakatiki (Sunday paper). Both news review sections have a reputation for well-researched
analyses of serious political and social issues. Their top story is the longest in the paper,
the only news text on the section front page and continues on later pages. The Greek broadsheet is in a smaller tabloid format, but the story is the only text on Ios page, with no index and advertisements like the SMH page. All photos introducing all top stories are integrated into a very large image-headline unit, the most prominent part of a verbal- visual text I have referred to in earlier work (Economou, in preparation) as a ‘Standout’
text (Endnote 1) Whether read as introduction to the feature story, or as a text on its own by those readers who do not go to read the following story, the evaluative stance of the Standout is a powerful and significant orientation to the issue explored in the story.
Greek and Australian features stories: similar evaluative stance B
The authorial evaluative stance regarding government policy on illegal immigration is similar in all six of the feature stories examined here. All stories from each paper are similarly related to one issue as it unfolds in each country over that year, even though the specific issue explored and the political context in each country is different. The policies of the then Greek socialist government, criticised as discriminatory in these stories, are those offering permanent residency to certain illegal immigrant groups.
The policies of the conservative Australian government criticised in these stories are those that have made Australia’s border protection and detention system the toughest in the world.
Greek and Australian photos: same evaluative key B
All Greek and Australian naturalistic news photos are Visual Interpretation Key with the evaluative meaning potential of the original photo expanded and enhanced in the their re-instantiation into a weekly news review context. In all cases, the evaluative expansion does not reduce the ‘factual’ status of photos as depictions of some real, newsworthy event, person and/or place.
Greek and Australian feature story Standouts: different evaluative stance B There are significant differences between the Greek and Australian Standouts in the evaluative stance constructed towards the asylum seeker issue by their photo-headline units. This is despite the fact that all introduce feature stories that take a similar stance to the issue, as well as the fact that all photos are in the same evaluative key and use similar evaluative strategies. It is argued here that all the Greek Standouts, particularly through their photos, position the reader more positively and directly towards asylum seekers than the Australian Standouts.
Australian texts B
The three Australian texts each introducing a Sydney Morning Herald Saturday News review story are displayed visually below and analysed in detail. These are identified as Australian Text 1, story entitled ‘Between heaven and hell’ in Figure 6, Text 2,
‘They shall not land’ in Figure 7, and Text 3, ‘Wait in fright’ in Figure 8. The last
story is also discussed in Economou, 2006. Publication, dates, story and photo credits are displayed beside each reproduced page.
Figure 6 : Australian Text 1
A single photo here introduces a feature story entitled ‘Between heaven and hell’
which is critical of the Australian government’s extreme stand on keeping boat people out. One of the many factual photos that had appeared in news stories about the Tampa affair in previous weeks (some analysed in Macken-Horarick 2003a, 2003b) is cinematised here. The superimposition of a big bold headline ‘Between heaven and hell’ on the photo makes this a closely integrated verbal-visual unit. However,
analysing the photo as purely visual text, it is argued here that it displays visual cinematising on its own, even without the headline. The photo’s large size and position on the page contribute to the high force and focus graduation values infused in ideational and textual choices which intensify meanings in a way that cinematises the shot. The framing, cropping, high angle and great camera distance make this a visually dramatic composition - a very small boat right in the middle of an empty and seemingly endless blue sea.
The positioning of words both above and below the boat act as a visual reinforcement of the centralised focus given in this composition on the boat at sea. Focusing viewers on the boat reveals tiny human figures just visible on it, which adds to the
cinematising by suggesting a human drama. The content of the words in the headline also suggests a dramatic cinematic narrative. Each of the words ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’
are used in adventure film titles as common metaphors for real life extremes of
pleasure and pain. This headline is, in fact, the actual title of a 1950s American film, a war drama also set at sea in the South Pacific. Also, for readers familiar with recent events, ‘heaven’ here is a likely metaphor for entry to Australia, and ‘hell’ for staying on the boat on the high seas, or being kept out of Australia. A less common use of this phrase however, is one closer to the literal meaning, which has a religious provenance and so may suggest a morality tale. For those who know the events, and are critical of the government, it may suggest the government’s ethical dilemma over boat people.
For those who go to read the story, a detailed description given there of a religious belief held in Indonesia elaborates on this latter moral reference. It suggest that just as lost souls in purgatory are believed to haunt the living until given a place to rest, so may the boat people kept out of Australia haunt the Australian government.
Figure 7: Australian Text 2
Two news photos in Text 2 are used to introduce another story entitled ‘They shall not land’ also critical of the Australian government’s extreme stance on boat people.
Together the photos suggest a cinematic genre, either war documentary or
fictionalised war drama based on real events. The top photo is of a crowd of men, possibly refugees or prisoners from their clothing and features, walking towards camera, and the other photo is of two ships at sea. Again a bold, black, headline
overlaid onto the larger photo at the top makes it difficult to discuss it solely as visual text. The headline, ‘They shall not land’ is a direct verbal reference to war and
invasion and is also a possible war movie title. However, the two images alone create cinematising values through marked textual meanings and high force graduation values, and content specifically associated with war drama. These meanings are made both by the photos’ visual features and their layout as interacting images. Like most news review cover images, these two colour photos dominate the page by their size and position.
The cinematising here specifically suggests a war movie based on historical facts both by the content and features of each photo and by the contrast and interaction between the two. The combination of colour, focus framing and layout choices suggests both a movie shot sequence and the typical documentary use of still photo-documents. The first suggests an establishing opening shot of an ongoing situation fading out behind the title, and the superimposed highlighted shot following it suggests a critical event related to this situation. Each photo’s content and framing also suggest relationships between them. The less focused top shot may be either the ‘imagined’ or ‘soon to be past’ situation, and the closer, strongly-framed shot the ‘reality’ or ‘present’. The narrative suggested is that a stream (of foreigners) coming towards us (or wishing to do so), have been stopped at sea.
Though the photo of faces in a crowd is larger, in top position and has human subjects, it is not only written over by the headlines, but seems to fade as the
superimposed, sharper and brighter shot of two boats seems to be projected forward.
This almost kinetic, fading out effect is created by a steady diminishing from the front to the back, of colour differentiation and saturation, of focus on, as well as size of the subjects. Despite the clearer focus on people in the foreground, the whole of the top shot is less colour differentiated, saturated and focused than the sea and foregrounded ship in the smaller photo. In this way, the large photo is backgrounded in respect to the smaller, as well as being partially covered by it. The smaller brighter photo is made even more salient by being framed in black and positioned where readers end up when the headline is read.
The headline is very close to the famous words of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the Second World War, referring to the threatened invasion of England by Germany. Even for those who do not recognise the provenance of the words, the use of ‘shall’ suggests an earlier time in British history, the negative declarative the words of someone in power, and the verb, ‘land’ suggests invasion and war. The short, accessible but dramatic and allusive sentence also works well as a war movie title. In this way, for all readers, the headline reinforces the war drama
cinematising of the photo. As the words are also a close paraphrase of the Australian minister’s recent stand against boat people, the historical tone may add authority and status to it. However, for those who know the actual historical reference, it specifies a
speech that significantly marked the history of the western world and is particularly associated with British nationalism. For these readers and those following the Tampa affair, this echoes the Australian Prime Minister’s similar declaration comparing asylum seekers to invaders and may thus provoke negative judgement of him for misjudging and overreacting to the Tampa incident.
Figure 8 : Australian Text 3
Three linked photos introduce this story entitled ‘Wait in fright’, which is also highly critical of the Australian government in regard to both border protection policy and the detention system. The content, visual features, layout and interaction between the three photos together display cinematising as do Texts 1 and 2. They do so
particularly by recreating a common film shot sequence which suggests dramatic narrative, first through setting and mood in the top image, then character and dialogue in the other two. The most prominent and dramatic photo is a cropped shot of people with backs to camera behind cross wire. This is, like the top crowd shot in Text 2, an unconventional news photo, where the human subjects are not just faded and
backgrounded, but abstracted and reduced by cropping their heads. This top shot leads in the lower right corner to a small overlapping close up portrait of a serious young girl speaking ‘to camera’ and then, to the final, overlapping close up of a legible letter with childlike handwriting.
The headline, ‘Wait in fright’ is a similarly cinematising phrase as the other two texts, a typical horror movie title with inscribed negative affect in ‘fright’, which reinforces the visual cinematising and shifts it from a prison drama to horror. The distancing of readers from the asylum seekers here by the popular fictional cinema context is also combined here with the abstraction and reduction of people in the photos. Though strong empathy may be evoked it is not by involvement with the people but with the crossed hands behind the crosswire. Importantly, however, there is also a verbal intertextual reference in the headline, less accessible but reflecting the critical evaluative stance of the story more closely. This is a reference to a 1970s Australian arthouse film ‘Wake in fright’. This brings the film’s harsh critique of violence and intolerance in mainstream white Australia to bear here on the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia.
Australian photos : luring and positioning readers B
All Australian texts use photos that instantiate a popular commercial and fictional film genre, something also achieved bi-modally by the photos’ interaction with the
headline. The popular cinematising is used as the most immediately engaging ‘lure’
for a wide readership, but creates an alignment that may distance readers from reflecting on the local reality represented, and may also undermine the stance of the ensuing feature story. In all three stories, for example, writers argue that the
Australian government responses to asylum seekers are illegal, immoral or inhumane and all make the case that responses are determined more by election strategy than by
a real search for solutions to immigration concerns. Another distancing effect in the three Australian texts is created by the selection and intensification of visual
ideational meanings, which involve readers less with asylum seekers and more with their circumstances - boats on the open sea in Texts 1 and 2 and detention wire in Text 3. Whereas the ensuing stories analyse and make a case against government decisions about, and treatment of asylum seekers, referring to them as ‘barbaric’ in one case, the photo-headline units here do not. The popular fictional entertainment context distances readers from the text as a local reality, and the ideational focus of the factual news context distances readers from asylum seekers. However, in each case, for those readers who recognise it, a less popular intertextual reference in each headline allows a different interpretation of the photos that may override the initial cinematising stance and is consistent with the story’s critical reflective stance.
These three texts are thus, evaluatively complex and at first reading, successfully address and engage two very different target reader groups without alienating any reader, whatever their already held position on the issue. However, for a large group of readers, the three texts do not reflect and may even contradict the position on the issue carefully developed and supported in the long written story. Thus, for
‘peripheral’ viewers who do not get the less accessible, lexical intertextual reference of each headline, nor read the whole story, nor even the whole Standout text, the only orientation to the issue they get from the photo-headline unit is one that does not reflect the stance in the story. If editors and news designers are committed to
providing readers with a summary of significant aspects of the following story in introductory headlines and images, then all evaluative meanings created by re- instantiating the factual photo and by creating a cinematising ‘lure’ need to be considered.
Greek texts B
The three Greek texts each introducing a Sunday Kiriakatiki, Ios news review story are displayed visually below and analysed in detail. These are identified as Greek Text 1, story entitled (translations in italics) Immigrants ‘slightly legal’ in Figure 9 (also discussed in more detail in Economou, 2006) ; Text 2, Refugees? What refugees; in Figure 10 and Text 3, After the law, what then? in Figure 11. The translated section title and names of all Ios team (credited as a group for each story) are displayed above the first text. The translated headline, dates and photo credits for each story are displayed beside each reproduced page.
Figure 9: Greek Text 1
The news photo suggesting a fine art genre introduces a Ios story entitled Immigrants
“slightly legal” which critiques the Greek government’s new legislation on illegal immigrants as discriminatory. Though the photo is clearly captioned as factual, it has many ‘aesthetising’ features, including textual choices, which clearly present the
photo on the page as an aesthetic artefact. For readers familiar with fine art genres, the aestheticising presentation may also alert them to read other visual features as
suggesting the specific art genre of colonial paintings of indigenous people as exotic
‘other’. The instantiation of this fine art genre here expands the evaluative potential of the photo by introducing a potent compression of complex ideological and evaluative meanings associated with exploitation of indigenous peoples by the west through the ages. This seems to be the reference desired by the author as confirmed by the sub- headline, referred to as a ‘stand first’ (Keeble 2006) and ‘write off’ (SMH journalists, 2006 personal communication) Here, the new immigration law being critiqued in the story, is referred to as a law ‘drafted from the perspective of slave owners’
(translation).
The instantiation of this visual art genre and its content in a news context brings into this photo the tension between more and less benevolent imperialist stances to indigenous people. A view of such people as exotic and beautiful ‘other’ led to their images being used to decorate homes. This more benevolent view was a re-appraisal of earlier views of the same group as savage creatures to be hunted down or exploited.
The latter appraisal is suggested by the ‘factual’ meanings here of children with sad faces behind bars in the photo, and the former is suggested by the aestheticising of the photo. Though many readers may easily empathise with the factual content, they may be made uncomfortable by the aesthetic response the photo triggers if they are critical of objectifying indigenous people. This would be the case if they hold a postcolonial
stance on indigenous peoples - strong condemnation of any colonial relationship benevolent or not. This is, in fact, the most likely stance for many regular Ios readers.
The headline, unlike the three Australian texts, but like all three Greek texts, anchors this photo to a current local reality by clearly identifying the visually represented people as an actual social group in Greece. It does so here by acting as an identifying caption to the photo and referring to the current legal status of immigrants in Greece.
The word ‘slightly’ is used here to modify a classifying lexical item, ‘legal’ and thus invalidates it as a classifier. Both the grammatical contradiction and scare quotes used here ‘ventriloquise’ (Endnote 3) and mocks the Greek government’s position on immigrants.
Figure 10: Greek Text 2
The large Ios photo of a man and boy using a blanket to keep warm as snow falls introduces a story entitled Refugees? What refugees?, which is also critical of
government immigration policy. This photo displays many cinematising features, here specifically referring to ‘world’ movies. This genre of modern art-house films, though often about indigenous peoples of the world like a national geographic documentary, also has the dramatic narrative and high production values of a commercial fictional movie. The photo here introduces a feature story specifically critiquing the Greek