Overview

David Perlmutter examines concerns over the interplay of pictures in the press, elite decision-making and public opinion on foreign policy. His focus is on certain celebrated, indelible images that, it is said, sum up famous events, provoke moral outrage, mobilize public opinion, and spur government action: the icons of outrage. Discourse elites thrust greatness upon such images as well as frame their meaning and interpretation. The public only plays a marginal role in making icons; ordinary readers and viewers are, however, often resistant or indifferent to elite interpretation and pretensions of outrage. To explore these ideas, Professor Perlmutter offers a series of case studies in crises in American foreign policy and the images that came to define and affect them: the Tet offensive in 1968, the Tiananmen events of 1989, and the Somalia intervention of 1992-1994. In each case, icons became sites of political struggle and argumentation, tools of policy rather than masters of it. Actual effects on public opinion are rarely found. Presidents, diplomats, pundits, and journalists, when confronting news images, apply a first person effect, projecting onto all of America or even the whole world their personal reaction to an icon. As Perlmutter shows, the influence of icons of outrage lies in their ability to focus debate, not in any power of visual determinism. He concludes that rather than worrying about how pictures affect policy, more attention should be paid to how politicians manage, frame, and spin images to win support for policies. A provocative study for students, scholars, and the public concerned with visual communication, the mass media, and current international affairs.

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You may get mad at his central thesis, but you should read this book and applaud the author because it will cause more people to seriously think about the power of photographs and video....By challengin commonly held assumptions, he has done photojournalism a service and created many research opportunities for communications scholars. -News Photographer This is an important fascinating book, and one that anybody concerned about media influences absolutely must read. -The Key Reporter David Perlmutter has written a fine book about the impact of powerful photographs, and he comes away with some not-so-obvious conclusions....It is clear, simple and direct, a model for scholarly work. His solid writing and his clear sense of subordinate demonstrate that academic work need not be stuffy or pretentious. -ICB ?This is an important fascinating book, and one that anybody concerned about media influences absolutely must read.?-The Key Reporter ?David Perlmutter has written a fine book about the impact of powerful photographs, and he comes away with some not-so-obvious conclusions....It is clear, simple and direct, a model for scholarly work. His solid writing and his clear sense of subordinate demonstrate that academic work need not be stuffy or pretentious.?-ICB ?You may get mad at his central thesis, but you should read this book and applaud the author because it will cause more people to seriously think about the power of photographs and video....By challengin commonly held assumptions, he has done photojournalism a service and created many research opportunities for communications scholars.?-News Photographer Photojournalism and Foreign Policy is as emotionally gripping as it is intellectually enlightening. David Perlmutter's exploration of the social discourse about journalistic photographs sheds a new light on the institutional considerations which surround the news that people talk about most. It powerfully underscores the importance of taking pictures as well as words seriously when we try to understand the forces shaping the news. -Joseph Turow Professor Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania To bring in pictures into foreign policy consideration in international crises is to add a powerful dimension to the often neglected interplay between news and decision making at the national level. Perlmutter's work is original, penetrating, and to some extent provocative. -Tsan-Kuo Chang Associate Professor School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Minnesota--Twin Cities We all remember those special images that change our perceptions of the world--a small child watched by a vulture--and how those pictures affect our public decisions. But do they really change anything? Professor Perlmutter has written a fascinating book that dares to challenge what we think we know about the power of pictures. It's must reading for any serious student of public policy. -Mickey Edwards Lecturer in Public Policy Harvard University If a writer's greatest goal is to elicit thought, David Perlmutter has captured Everest. Before reading this book, I smugly thought that to see was to understand. Though it has always astonished me that an organized series of thoughts or lines interpreted through the mind's eye could evoke such passion, now I know that icons are not quite as obvious and definitely not as simple as I assumed. Professor Perlmutter has forced me to reexamine not only what I do for a living but also the narrow reference framework of my own vision. -Raymond D. Strother President American Association of Political Consultants

If a writer's greatest goal is to elicit thought, David Perlmutter has captured Everest. Before reading this book, I smugly thought that to see was to understand. Though it has always astonished me that an organized series of thoughts or lines interpreted through the mind's eye could evoke such passion, now I know that icons are not quite as obvious and definitely not as simple as I assumed. Professor Perlmutter has forced me to reexamine not only what I do for a living but also the narrow reference framework of my own vision. -Raymond D. Strother President American Association of Political Consultants

Author Information

DAVID D. PERLMUTTER is Associate Professor at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication and Senior Associate for Research and Grants at the Kevin P. Reilly, Sr. Center for Media and Public Affairs. He serves on the board of directors of the American Association of Political Consultants. He has previously written for the Journal of Communication, Visual Comunication Quarterly, Visual Anthropology, and other academic and popular publications.

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