The Visual Power of News Agencies

While staff photographers are losing their jobs, news agency networks have become main suppliers of visual content to the news media. A global news site such as the Guardian leans to news agencies for most of its selected visuals. In tandem with the expanding visual power of new agencies, the ethical standards of the wholesalers are challenged by increasing amounts of user generated content, distant editing, and the live-streaming of breaking news. This article discusses editorial dilemmas prompted by proliferate, high tech processing of visual content by the news agencies’ global networks, exemplified by the coverage of terrorism. The analysis is grounded in a variety of empirical data, and aspects of Manuel Castells’ theory on communication power provide a theorizing framework for the discussion. The study suggests that the visual power of today’s news agencies rests on three interconnected processes of handling imagery: agency infrastructuring, technological infrastructuring and global newsroom infrastructuring.