Topical Seminar on The Freedom of Speech And Social Power of Photojournalism
02.02.2022
The start of the spring semester was marked by new topical seminar featuring Professor Hannu Nieminen (University of Helsinki) and Dr. Oleg Bukoulin (Lomonosov Moscow State University). In the beginning of his talk on the freedom of speech, Professor Hannu Nieminen noted that freedom of speech is a cornerstone of Western democracy and outlined the legal base for ensuring that these rights. are upheld. He then shifted his focus to the modern day, and reflected on the state of the freedom of speech in the times of globalisation, highlighting certain challenges, such as the problem of jurisdiction. Member states are supposed to adjust to the norms of their unions; however, all countries have different laws and interpretations of the freedom of speech.
The spread of the internet further complicated the problem of monitoring the implementation of freedoms, and created additional problems and dilemmas, such as hate speech on social media. Professor Hannu Niemen noted that a crucial obstacle in fighting hate speech is the absence of global regulatory control over its use, which would determine a general hate speech policy, applicable on the transnational level. Interestingly, the professor also drew a line of distinction between the freedom of speech and the press freedom. While the first notion indicates the universal human right, the second concept denotes the right that belongs to the owner of media and gives them the power to control other people’s freedom of speech through selecting and framing information.
Professor Hannu Niemen concluded his talk by outlining a core problem arising from the spread of hate speech on social media – two sets of rights should be balanced: the freedom of speech as a sine qua non condition for open public debate, and the minority rights protecting vulnerable social groups. This calls for substantial changes at the legislative level, such as development of transnational legislation, which would monitor digital platforms and provide effective sanction mechanism.
Dr. Oleg Bukoulin talked about photojournalism as an instrument for social transformations in the analogue and digital epoch. He started by giving a historical account of photojournalism, which from the very birth of this form of journalism was used primarily to draw people’s attention and influence their worldview on the emotional level. For instance, thanks to the photography, people witnessed the horrors of the Vietnam war and early 1980s Hunger; photojournalism influenced the governments’ actions in the Gulf war.
For the first time, photojournalism sparked public outcry in the second half of the 19 th century, when an American photographer Mathew Brady exhibited a series of photographs of the Battle of Antienam. The exhibition featured photos of a battlefield before the dead had been removed, which had a major impact on public opinion and deromanticized the war.
Other pioneers of the 19th century documentary photography were Oscar Rejlander, John Thomson, and naturally Jacob Riis, who exposed living conditions of the poor, thus attempting to induce social transformations. Lewis Hine dedicated his work to exposing child labour exploitation, and was the first photographer to influence the government’s actions.
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the spread of tabloids, and a full-fledged birth of photojournalism, associated with the name of Erich Salomon. He made numerous pictures of politicians and political events, facilitating the transparency of political processes and greater authorities’ accountability to society.
Closer to the second half of the 20th century, American photojournalist Eugene Smith created the genre of photo essay. In particular, his essay ‘Nurse Midwife’ featured African American woman as a main character, thus giving rise to important topics. Photojournalism is a unique genre, which goes beyond traditional journalistic norms, since it is frequently subjective and appeals directly to people’s emotions. It forms the audience’s vision and offers interpretation of social reality. Today digital journalism creates unprecedented technical opportunities for this genre. New prospects are also determined by the fact that TV is gradually losing its audience, which may signify the rebirth of photography.
Dr. Bukoulin concluded his talk by outlining certain challenges for the genre: frequent absence of original ideas, time- and resource-intensiveness of creating a high-quality photo project, as well as difficulties in cooperating with media outlets. Among the means to support and develop this genre, Dr. Bukoulin mentioned development of high-quality multimedia technologies, and grant support for photojournalists.
Topical seminar is a project launched by the Faculty of Journalism in the spring semester of 2021, which has already garnered attention of Russian and international researchers in media, communications and journalism. The idea behind is to organize a platform for sharing valuable insights and results of the latest research in this sphere of studies. The event is of utmost importance both for the integration of national research studies into international academic environment, and for the conceptualization of distinctive features of Russian media studies. Topical seminars are held online on the first Tuesday of every month and are available for any listener registered in advance.
The start of the spring semester was marked by new topical seminar featuring Professor Hannu Nieminen (University of Helsinki) and Dr. Oleg Bukoulin (Lomonosov Moscow State University). In the beginning of his talk on the freedom of speech, Professor Hannu Nieminen noted that freedom of speech is a cornerstone of Western democracy and outlined the legal base for ensuring that these rights. are upheld. He then shifted his focus to the modern day, and reflected on the state of the freedom of speech in the times of globalisation, highlighting certain challenges, such as the problem of jurisdiction. Member states are supposed to adjust to the norms of their unions; however, all countries have different laws and interpretations of the freedom of speech.The spread of the internet further complicated the problem of monitoring the implementation of freedoms, and created additional problems and dilemmas, such as hate speech on social media. Professor Hannu Niemen noted that a crucial obstacle in fighting hate speech is the absence of global regulatory control over its use, which would determine a general hate speech policy, applicable on the transnational level. Interestingly, the professor also drew a line of distinction between the freedom of speech and the press freedom. While the first notion indicates the universal human right, the second concept denotes the right that belongs to the owner of media and gives them the power to control other people’s freedom of speech through selecting and framing information.
Professor Hannu Niemen concluded his talk by outlining a core problem arising from the spread of hate speech on social media – two sets of rights should be balanced: the freedom of speech as a sine qua non condition for open public debate, and the minority rights protecting vulnerable social groups. This calls for substantial changes at the legislative level, such as development of transnational legislation, which would monitor digital platforms and provide effective sanction mechanism.
Dr. Oleg Bukoulin talked about photojournalism as an instrument for social transformations in the analogue and digital epoch. He started by giving a historical account of photojournalism, which from the very birth of this form of journalism was used primarily to draw people’s attention and influence their worldview on the emotional level. For instance, thanks to the photography, people witnessed the horrors of the Vietnam war and early 1980s Hunger; photojournalism influenced the governments’ actions in the Gulf war.
For the first time, photojournalism sparked public outcry in the second half of the 19 th century, when an American photographer Mathew Brady exhibited a series of photographs of the Battle of Antienam. The exhibition featured photos of a battlefield before the dead had been removed, which had a major impact on public opinion and deromanticized the war.
Other pioneers of the 19th century documentary photography were Oscar Rejlander, John Thomson, and naturally Jacob Riis, who exposed living conditions of the poor, thus attempting to induce social transformations. Lewis Hine dedicated his work to exposing child labour exploitation, and was the first photographer to influence the government’s actions.
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the spread of tabloids, and a full-fledged birth of photojournalism, associated with the name of Erich Salomon. He made numerous pictures of politicians and political events, facilitating the transparency of political processes and greater authorities’ accountability to society.
Closer to the second half of the 20th century, American photojournalist Eugene Smith created the genre of photo essay. In particular, his essay ‘Nurse Midwife’ featured African American woman as a main character, thus giving rise to important topics. Photojournalism is a unique genre, which goes beyond traditional journalistic norms, since it is frequently subjective and appeals directly to people’s emotions. It forms the audience’s vision and offers interpretation of social reality. Today digital journalism creates unprecedented technical opportunities for this genre. New prospects are also determined by the fact that TV is gradually losing its audience, which may signify the rebirth of photography.
Dr. Bukoulin concluded his talk by outlining certain challenges for the genre: frequent absence of original ideas, time- and resource-intensiveness of creating a high-quality photo project, as well as difficulties in cooperating with media outlets. Among the means to support and develop this genre, Dr. Bukoulin mentioned development of high-quality multimedia technologies, and grant support for photojournalists.
Topical seminar is a project launched by the Faculty of Journalism in the spring semester of 2021, which has already garnered attention of Russian and international researchers in media, communications and journalism. The idea behind is to organize a platform for sharing valuable insights and results of the latest research in this sphere of studies. The event is of utmost importance both for the integration of national research studies into international academic environment, and for the conceptualization of distinctive features of Russian media studies. Topical seminars are held online on the first Tuesday of every month and are available for any listener registered in advance.