The Visual Representation of the US/Mexico Border Wall in the Media
Highlight clip: Honduran migrants caravan to the U.S.
A year ago, Reading the Pictures won the Howard Chapnick Grant from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund to do a Salon looking at the media framing of the US/Mexico border wall. With new developments in the story, our focus expanded to include the “zero tolerance” policy, the family separation crisis, and “the caravan.”
This project consisted of four parts: extensive photo research, a live panel discussion, a live audience discussion, and additional imagery and analysis posted on Instagram. In our online discussion, co-produced with the Magnum Foundation, an expert panel examined the visual depiction of the wall, and how photographers and the news media use imagery to frame the politics and the human rights issues surrounding the wall.
In this highlight clip, panelists Erin Siegal McIntyre, Michael Shaw, Teddy Cruz, and Fonna Forman discuss the visual politics of this photograph of Honduran migrants in southern Mexico heading in a caravan to the United States. This image, and others like it, have been heavily leveraged in the US immigration debate.
The Reading the Pictures Salon is an on-line, real-time discussion between photojournalists, visual scholars and other visual or subject experts. Each salon examines a set of images relevant to the visual stories of the day with a focus on the media and social media framing of a significant social issue. The photo edit is the key element and driver of each Salon discussion. These 9 photos are derived from an extensive review of the content and themes of published photos representing the depth and breadth of media representation.
See the full post, including the replay, audience chat, Instagram analysis, and other highlight clips here.
Follow Reading The Pictures on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and sign up for the RTP Week in Re-View email.
