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1981
Volume 18, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 1751-9411
  • E-ISSN: 1751-942X

Abstract

Over the past decades, the rapid and extensive dissemination of images from conflicts accompanied by a decline in control over global circulations have changed the way wars are being fought, covered and mediated. As conflicts increasingly unfold as struggles for public visibility, the choices made by established media outlets regarding which images to show – and which not to show – are as important as ever. Building on interviews with photo editors from the six Danish national newspapers, this article investigates their editorials, communicative and ethical considerations regarding graphic imagery of the war on Gaza during the first three months after 7 October 2023. First, to ensure credibility and impartiality, the editors aspired to symmetrically cover the escalating war. Yet, the conflict is, by its nature, asymmetrical. Second, to keep the attention of their readers, they often selected images that told stories of hope and enabled a feeling of identification. Yet, the situation in Gaza is largely hopeless and unrelatable to the Danish public. Third, as the photo editors struggled to comply with their own ethical guidelines for showing (or not showing) graphic images, they were hesitant to publish images of dead bodies, particularly those of children. Yet, a large number of the victims in Gaza are children. This article argues that the photo editors’ selection and deselection of images were most often motivated by professional ambitions ‘to show reality as it is’, however, these practices made certain perspectives of the Gaza war visible while obscuring others.

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2025-03-18
2025-06-21
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