MESA Banner
Through the Lens of David Douglas Duncan: Picturing the Palestine Territories of 1946
Abstract by Dr. Defne Bilir
Coauthors: Eugene Crook
On Session 200  (Identity and Discourse in the Development of Nationalism)

On Tuesday, November 24 at 11:00 am

2015 Annual Meeting

Abstract
This paper compares and contrasts photojournalistic discourses in the image-word representations of David Douglas Duncan and editorial coverage of Life on the Palestine Territories of 1946. As Life magazine’s correspondent to the Middle East, Duncan photographed the British mandate of Palestine between June and October 1946. Duncan compiled his coverage in seven files; five of them include images and caption books, from which Life issued the following editorial stories, respectively: “Blood runs in Palestine violence,” “Civil war threatens in Palestine as British start ‘Operation Igloo,’” “Life photographer gets into Jaffa street battle” (alternatively “Shooting in Jaffa”) and “Palestine: new type of peasant Jew fights for a homeland.” Through critical discourse analysis of these editorials and Duncan’s own image-word representations, we examine components of each text. In this, we seek to identify intended meanings, locate messages these meanings generate, reveal imposed ideologies in the text, and uncover linkages between power, context, and reproduction. This paper relies heavily on unpublished materials collated from the David Douglas Duncan Archive at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas, representing a myriad of photographs and their associated captions. Captions in photo essays and written stories alongside news photographs inform audiences on how the image “ought to be read” (Brennan & Hardt 1-10). News photos present themselves as objective actualities; however, editorial curation is non-objective, it presents ideological themes. Selected photographs inflect the message editors wish to impose on audiences (Hall 242 & Messaris, 181-195). We used critical discourse analysis as discourse is studied not only as “form, meaning and mental process, but also as a complex, hierarchical structure of interaction, as social practice and their functions in context, society and culture” (van Dijk, 6). In this qualitative study, we employ critical discourse analysis as our methodology and use Nvivo-10 to answer research questions dealing with the editorial intent within the magazine’s reproductions, Life’s mediation of Duncan’s intents, and narratives of power and public perception on the British mandate of Palestine. Works Cited Brennen, Bonnie, and Hanno Hardt, eds. Picturing the past: Media, history, and photography. University of Illinois Press, 1999. Hall, Stuart. "The determinations of news photographs." The manufacture of news: Social problems, deviance and the mass media, Communication and society. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications (1973): 176-190. Messaris, Paul. "Visual" manipulation": Visual means of affecting responses to images." Communication (1992). van Dijk, Teun Adrianus, ed. Discourse as social interaction. Vol. 2. Sage, 1997.
Discipline
Journalism
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
Middle East/Near East Studies