Photojournalism and the news …
Few days ago reading A Photo Editor I found a link to the new - and very promising- magazine “dispatches“. In the online section “on photography” there is a very interesting article on the future of Photojournalism by Stephen Mayes.
Stephen makes good points about the necessity to both find evolving ways to communicate with an audience eager of information but at the same time describes the challenges that are imposed by the very nature of the new audience. The current society is fast paced, saturated of visual information, information that is driven largely by commercial advertising, and very importantly I think, an audience that very much prefers to engage in the conversation rather than become a passive receiver of news.
Stephen raises very good points that should elicit an active conversation. The solutions are not simple, and require re-thinking without the baggage of how the news were [are] delivered in the past [present] …
Here it goes an idea that rarely is explored in the media … perhaps the audience gets tired of just simply “knowing” about the problems in the world, and would be much more engaged if they could become participants if they could learn about sensitive solutions to the problems and become part of the solutions.
It is about expanding the communication but simplifying the message with a better understanding of the context and solutions, it is about engaging the audience to become participants.
Convey the understanding of the context of the news, the understanding of sensitive solutions and provide the audience with new ways to become participants. These will addresses the appetite of the audience beyond being treated as passive receivers to become participants, to become contributors to solutions and to become invested in the very news they [we] receive.
The challenge is to break out, to find wider audiences and to connect meaningfully. And to do this, new languages must be learned. - Stephen Mayes
