<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This article investigates selected newspapers’ editorial mediations over contrasting perceptions regarding the significance of a controversial set of ‘iconic’ news photographs, namely images of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee, whose drowned corpse washed ashore in September, 2015. Specifically, this study examined individual editorial items, published by leading Danish, Canadian and British newspapers over a four-month period, engaging with and reflecting upon this imagery. Our analysis revealed several key deliberative features of editorial self-reflexivity, with three especially salient themes shown to be emergent across the coverage: a) instantaneousness and historical photographic precedents; b) social media’s perceived influence on photojournalism; and c) normative associations of affective qualities for this imagery. By elucidating these features of editorial self-reflexivity within a convergent digital media ecology, this article offers original insights into how and why the epistemic values governing visual communication are being reconsidered and redrawn under pressure from institutional imperatives.</p></abstract>

This article investigates selected newspapers’ editorial mediations over contrasting perceptions regarding the significance of a controversial set of ‘iconic’ news photographs, namely images of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee, whose drowned corpse washed ashore in September, 2015. Specifically, this study examined individual editorial items, published by leading Danish, Canadian and British newspapers over a four-month period, engaging with and reflecting upon this imagery. Our analysis revealed several key deliberative features of editorial self-reflexivity, with three especially salient themes shown to be emergent across the coverage: a) instantaneousness and historical photographic precedents; b) social media’s perceived influence on photojournalism; and c) normative associations of affective qualities for this imagery. By elucidating these features of editorial self-reflexivity within a convergent digital media ecology, this article offers original insights into how and why the epistemic values governing visual communication are being reconsidered and redrawn under pressure from institutional imperatives.

The Iconic Image in a Digital Age

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Editorial Mediations over the Alan Kurdi Photographs

This article investigates selected newspapers’ editorial mediations over contrasting perceptions regarding the significance of a controversial set of ‘iconic’...

	Denmark	Canada	United Kingdom
Editorial leaders	7	21	11
Staff opinion columns	10	59	37
Guest columns	14	27	24
Letters to the editor	4	9	4
Total	35	116	76

The Iconic Image in a Digital Age

Published Online: Nov 28, 2017

Page range: 71 - 86

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0415

Keywords
editorials, photojournalism, refugee crisis, social media, iconic images

© 2017 Mette Mortensen et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Editorial content

The Iconic Image in a Digital Age

Published Online: Nov 28, 2017

Page range: 71 - 86

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0415

Keywordseditorials, photojournalism, refugee crisis, social media, iconic images

© 2017 Mette Mortensen et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Editorial content

Keywords
editorials, photojournalism, refugee crisis, social media, iconic images