On balance, I think it is fair to say that photography by itself has rarely, if ever, moved the public to action. The Time article demonstrates this by showing how successive genocides have been documented and how the cry, “never again!” is more accurately “again and again.” Regimes have set up mini-bureaucracies to catalogue their victims, little realizing (or caring?) how these records will be used to convict the perpetrators of crimes against humanity once the inevitable change of fortunes occurs.
People who have participated in successive waves of mass murder and other crimes have had available to them the images of previous horrific acts, but it has not changed their behaviour. In some cases, photographs might have helped to motivate them and/or provide them with terrible trophies.
As for the viewing public, rather than the actors themselves, I think that photography can indeed distance us from, and inure us to, the horrific. Acts that could be called “unspeakable” are somehow viewable, and we can get used to it. Images that we might only have imagined imperfectly (mass murder, cruelty and abuse, violence) are now available to us at the press of a button — we no longer have to imagine them. Yesterday’s “unthinkable” can become today’s new baseline. And, as Rosler suggests, showing the disturbing in photojournalism can be passed off as altruistic and in the service of a higher good, while clearly benefiting (only?) the photographer. The danger is not just that photojournalism can feed voyeurism, but that it can make a commodity out of someone else’s suffering. Your pain becomes my art, becomes my reputation, my livelihood, my profit motive.
I wonder, too, if photography (including photojournalism) is more often a way to confirm opinions already held by viewers. The public does not feel compelled to change by the images it sees, but finds in them evidence for the views it already holds. We see what we want to see. And when the image in front of us is too challenging, we can always reinterpret it or reject it outright (“fake news”). In this way, the value of photojournalism may lie not so much in its ability to change opinion, but to galvanize and justify it once it has begun to form. So, should we stop producing photojournalism? I think the answer is clearly no, for there is a definite benefit to documenting happenings, even (and sometimes especially) those that are horrific. But we may want to think about how and where images are displayed — the context as well as the narrative — and be more honest as producers and consumers of images about their real and potential impacts.
References
Rosler, Martha (1993) ‘In, Around, and Afterthoughts: On Documentary Photography’ In: Bolton, Richard (ed.) The contest of meaning: critical histories of photography. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Time. 2019. Available at: http://time.com/3426427/syrian-torture-archive-when-photographs-of-atrocities-dont-shock
Context and Narrative 