Date of Award
January 2017
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Communication and Rhetorical Studies
Advisor(s)
Rachel Hall
Subject Categories
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
ABSTRACT:
This thesis is interested in the ways that documentary photojournalism of economic hardship has changed in response to a neoliberal context. Analysis is centered on photographer Anthony Suau’s photo essay “Struggling Cleveland,” captured for TIME magazine in 2008. Suau’s photographs of economic hardship break from a tradition of photojournalism that focused on drama and emotion. I consider what appears and does not appear in the photographs, with particular attention to how the neoliberal context influences the content and mode of address of the photos. The photographs are analyzed independently for the ways that neoliberalism appears within each frame and collectively, allowing for a critical viewer to gain an understanding of how discrete events might be connected via an interactive reading practice. Suau’s sociological and narrative approach for covering the housing crisis allows the viewer to construct their own meaning and judgment of the event.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Barker, Pamela Ann, "Reading Between the Pictures: Documenting Economic Hardship in a Neoliberal Age" (2017). Theses - ALL. 136.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/136
