Selectivity

It is interesting to look at the way in which selectivity occurs in photography. When one is trying to get the 'perfect shot' everything has to be 'perfect' and according to someone's specific ideals. It is here where preparation and planning is often undertaken to ensure that a photograph displays what the photographer had intended to photograph. However, that is looking at things in minimal perspective. Looking at the bigger picture, photographs that are put in newspapers have gone through a process of selectivity known as gatekeeping. This process is common all over the world through all most forms of media (even in extreme cases the internet: if you look at China for instance, where the word DEMOCRACY cannot even be found on google. Imagine that? I bet you this blog will not even be accessible in China due to the fact that I have used the word democracy). It is whereby people can view selected pictures so as to be influenced, in a way, by those pictures that generally promote a certain ideology. The globe is a big place with competing ideologies, where the competition can be seen in the media. Ideology has even been referred to as image manipulation. There is, in fact, a fascinating article put forward on: http://www.transparencynow.com/news/Ideol.htm . You should check it out just for curiosity's sake. But then, how much easier is it to manipulate someone other than by controlling the gatekeeping process? Where there is a war taking place, it is more common to show the destruction of buildings than the piles of corpses all over the place.