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Communicating Through Photojournalism in Conflict Zones



Author(s)

Zaira Saif, Swapna Koshy

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DOI:10.17265/2160-6579/2025.06.002

University of Wollongong, Dubai, UAE

Photographs are effective tools for communication and photojournalism has helped communicate to a distant audience through agenda-setting. Over the past century, the agenda-setting role of photojournalism in conflict zones has been varied. Visuals reduce the distance between home audiences and the conflict zones. If news images led to public opposition of the U.S. government’s role in the Vietnam war, photographs strengthened biases and prejudices in the minds of the public as was seen in the one-sided representation of the Kosovo tragedy and 1991 Gulf war. The agenda-setting role of news photographs emerges from the strong emotional appeal a visual can have. Also, photojournalists work within an organizational framework which often results in an incomplete and biased portrayal of the truth. This paper explores the various aspects of how photojournalism helps assist agenda-setting in conflict zones and argues that visuals have a strong role to play in forming public perception about an event. The paper also examines the increasing role of citizen photojournalism and contends that citizen images are redefining mainstream news.

photojournalism, conflict, agenda-setting, communication, citizen journalism