Photography in Mass Communication - a Shift or Decay? (PDF)

Scientific Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Communications - Mass Media, grade: --, University of Trnava (Mass Media Communication), course: Scientific Conference 2010, language: English, abstract: In a world saturated with images, recording remains the prime function of photography. Recording is informing, thus recording is news. The opposite of it, transforming, is creating new values, thus creating is art. There is adapting in between, which is marketing, i.e. commercial. News photography couples with the referential (informative) function, art photography with the poetic one, commercial with the conative (appellative).

Photography as ubiquity means immense growth of the referential function, which in form of an interpersonal snowball makes people socialise and create networks. The context of our lives becomes public, opening the doors for mass marketing. In advertising, applying its appellative function, photography affects our lives and, to meet the needs of the seller, adapts reality. Referential, too, is getting appellative, resulting in reliability decay. This is coupled with creativity plunder. Art photography in part goes public, in part gives up poetic for referential. Boundaries overlap, the wheel of functions is turning. Is it a shift or is it decay?