Università Roma Tre

The course aims to explore the history and present of journalistic photography, its role as a 'window on the world' in modern visual culture and in the formation of what can be considered a 'global consciousness'.

The work of the main personalities who have marked the history of photojournalism will be retraced, as well as the relationship between myth and reality of the profession, between the aspiration to objectivity and the compromises of the editorial chain, between denunciation and censorship, from its origins to the present day. From the golden age of magazines to war photography. The current crisis of the profession. The new challenges of information through images to the aestheticisation and decontextualisation of journalistic photography in the digital age.

Elements of knowledge will be provided on the themes of digital manipulation, debunking of 'hoaxes' in the age of fakenews, political storytelling and post-truth, with an emphasis on the ethics of photography, the main codes of ethics, the legal rules for the use of images and copyright.

The workshop will make students measure themselves directly with the analysis of the snapshots of the major photojournalists and the most significant magazines, enabling them to read them also in relation to the period, the economy, the figurative art and the history of the mentality of the societies in which they were taken, so as to contribute to consolidating their overall knowledge of the modern and contemporary age.

Dondero, Mario with Giordana, Emanuele. Lo scatto umano. Viaggio nel fotogiornalismo da Budapest a New York. Bari: Laterza, 2017

Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2004

Gunthert, André. L’image partagée. La photographie numérique. Paris: Textuel, 2015 (provided to students in pdf)

Pastoureau, Michel. Dizionario dei colori del nostro tempo. Milan: Ponte alle Grazie, 2018

Lucas, Uliano and Agliani, Tatiana. La realtà e lo sguardo. Storia del fotogiornalismo in Italia. Turin: Einaudi, 2016

Capa, Robert. Slightly Out of Focus. New York: Modern Library, 2001

Alabiso, Vincent, Chuck Zoeller and Kelly Smith Tunney, eds. Flash! The Associated Press Covers the World. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1998. (preface by Peter Arnett will be provided to students in pdf)