Suchergebnisse

The microblogging service Twitter has gained importance as an exchange platform for news photos that, in collaboration with renowned media, trigger immediate reactions from photo editors. Uploaded eyewit-ness material from terrorist attacks such as in Brussels (2016), Nice (2016), and Munich (2016), as well as from natural disasters such as the fires in Australia (2020), were the starting-point for my investigati-on: Twitter conversations show that photo editors from all over the world turn to (amateur) photogra-phers (hence, citizen- or para-photojournalists) to request permission to use the pictures in journalistic publications. Some even send a special "social media release form" in which they declare that they recog-nize the copyright holder, but will not pay for the use of the images – although they want to reserve the full rights to further distribution of the respective images over time, space and medium. One of my goals is to investigate the extent to which copyright and terms of use are shaped by social-me-dia companies and journalistic needs, as well as by the ignorance of 'produsers' (which is the term coi-ned by Axel Bruns to denote the hybridization of producer and user). My hypothesis is that the distinction between professionals and amateurs in the photojournalism industry is declining. The normalization of unpaid work carried out by produsers in journalism and the creative industries also affects professional standards and ethics. My CAIS working paper shows the preliminary results of my ongoing project.

My project "Behind the Digital Image: Public Photographs on Community Platforms and Twitter as Repositories for Machine Learning and Journalistic Publications" investigates the specificities of social media and photo-sharing platforms as public image repositories, daily media practices and legal practices, and considers ethical questions relating to the digital image as both a research tool and a research object. I pursue two sub-projects, both of which are relevant to understanding the commodification and monetization of vernacular digital images. Nuclear investigations of these projects refer to the relationship of amateur photographers, also referred to as citizen photojournalists, para photojournalists or accidental journalists, and professional stakeholders within the global image market. Since the digital world is quickly changing, field work is needed to understand processes and procedures as they happen. Therefore, I use multidimensional methods, including media ethnography; digital methods; qualitative approaches, such as in-depths interviews and participatory observation, and social media analytic tools. This paper presents an overview of the proposed project and sheds light on both the preliminary results and possible areas of future research.

The microblogging service Twitter has gained importance as an exchange platform for news photos that, in collaboration with renowned media, might trigger immediate reactions from photo editors. Twitter conversations among photo editors and photo creators – produsers, citizen photojournalists, para-photojournalists – show that photo editors turn to (amateur) photographers to request permission to use their eyewitness material in journalistic publications. Reviewing the contested space of digital visual journalism between produsers, photo editors, and the commodification of networked images, I present three scenarios which exhibit how terms of use are negotiated online – hence publicly visible – between creators of Twitpics and editors of newspapers or photo agencies. The paper concludes with five results of the relation between photo editors and para-photojournalists on Twitter: fairness, efficiency, the value of digital images, effects of image sharing practices on visual journalism, and produsers' daily media practices.