Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography

This article examines the professional values of self-employed photographers and other communication professionals who have worked for both journalism and humanitarian nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). These professionals face the current changes in the media work environment and expand their re...

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Main Author: Mäenpää Jenni
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Sciendo 2023-02-01
Series:Nordicom Review
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0004
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author Mäenpää Jenni
author_facet Mäenpää Jenni
author_sort Mäenpää Jenni
collection DOAJ
description This article examines the professional values of self-employed photographers and other communication professionals who have worked for both journalism and humanitarian nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). These professionals face the current changes in the media work environment and expand their reach to different fields to find new work opportunities. The study focuses on the photographers’ motivations and professional values in addition to NGO–journalism relations. The findings show that pushing factors in the journalistic field, along with pulling factors in NGO work, motivate photographers to choose advocacy work. When photographers change from photojournalism to NGO photography, they must adhere to new professional values and ethics that mix with their existing values and which may occasionally contradict with photojournalistic working methods or the marketing and fundraising images at the NGOs, causing ethical dilemmas. Finally, photographers with a photojournalism background help NGOs gain news media publicity, yet they are rarely able to change the news agenda.
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spelling doaj.art-bc73d67917924be79a56f3926bcd477b2023-06-12T06:33:07ZengSciendoNordicom Review2001-51192023-02-01441658410.2478/nor-2023-0004Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photographyMäenpää Jenni0Tampere Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Communication (Comet), Tampere University, FinlandThis article examines the professional values of self-employed photographers and other communication professionals who have worked for both journalism and humanitarian nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). These professionals face the current changes in the media work environment and expand their reach to different fields to find new work opportunities. The study focuses on the photographers’ motivations and professional values in addition to NGO–journalism relations. The findings show that pushing factors in the journalistic field, along with pulling factors in NGO work, motivate photographers to choose advocacy work. When photographers change from photojournalism to NGO photography, they must adhere to new professional values and ethics that mix with their existing values and which may occasionally contradict with photojournalistic working methods or the marketing and fundraising images at the NGOs, causing ethical dilemmas. Finally, photographers with a photojournalism background help NGOs gain news media publicity, yet they are rarely able to change the news agenda.https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0004photographersphotojournalismhumanitarian photographyngoprofessional ethics
spellingShingle Mäenpää Jenni
Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography
Nordicom Review
photographers
photojournalism
humanitarian photography
ngo
professional ethics
title Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography
title_full Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography
title_fullStr Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography
title_full_unstemmed Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography
title_short Future directions of professional photographers: A case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography
title_sort future directions of professional photographers a case study of changing hats between journalism and humanitarian photography
topic photographers
photojournalism
humanitarian photography
ngo
professional ethics
url https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0004
work_keys_str_mv AT maenpaajenni futuredirectionsofprofessionalphotographersacasestudyofchanginghatsbetweenjournalismandhumanitarianphotography