Issue: Commercial and State Interests

Otto Bettmann, the man responsible for assembling the Bettmann Archive, one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind (the electronic rights to which are owned by Bill Gates), once described his task as analogous to that of a butcher, selecting the "pictorial meat" for his holdings. Although he was joking, Bettmann's offhand remark holds serious implications for the relationship between commerce and the selection of images. For example, the dialogue between news reporting and the photographic image (beginning with Brady, but only developing on a mass scale in World War II) shapes the ways in which events are presented to a mass audience. Images reduce the complexity and ambiguity of an event, providing an abbreviated narrative suitable for conveying information rapidly; this is especially true of attempts to convey "history" through pictorial narrative.

In turn, this results in news coverage which eschews subtle distinctions in favor of contrasting binaries. For example, Life magazine ran many pictures of Axis casualties during the Second World War (particularly in the Pacific theater), but avoided comparable shots of American deaths.While images cannot lie, their apparent "naturalness" can obscure a deeper level of meaning.

Such images can help create either consensus or division, depending on how they are presented. Decontextualized images (such as Steichen's) ignore differences and help bring people together by emphasizing unison; other images, like those of Frank or Meyer, emphasize contradictions, paradox. Riefenstahl appears to reinforce the state ideology, but Evans undermines it, even while employed by the state. These divergent positions suggest that "framing" plays a huge role in determining how an image will be read.