Cómo ha cambiado el papel del fotoperiodista a raíz de la irrupción del móvil

Abstract

Technological advances have changed the perception of photojournalism over the past 10 years and have meant a significant change in the way photos are taken. While the only way seemed to be through a professional lens, nowadays phones have changed and developed for the better, meaning that so have their cameras. In addition, the portrayal of these photos on the media has changed as well. There no longer is just one way of sharing photos. Apart from the traditional way -via newspapers and TV reports-, the rise of social media has completely transformed the game and made possible sharing photos of important events in a matter of seconds.

While some think that this new era is threatening and causes a negative impact on formal media, some others view these changing times as a something positive worth taking advantage of. We have chosen eleven articles from Google Scholar and Scopus. Most of them are related with the value of photojournalism and others talk about the new role of the journalist and new education system of communication degrees.

Nowadays many media sources have decreased their visual quality standards to accommodate images made by non-professional users which have the virtue of being free. The crisis in journalism together with this ease of obtaining material at no cost, has made many sources choose to fire their photographers, understanding that they are expendable,instead of equipping them with the right devices, smartphones.

Even though the smartphone revolution is seen as an advantage by some media sources, especially international, not everyone sees it the same. You’ll see how the British media have allowed their photojournalists to work with mobile phones. However, in other countries such as Spain the media has not opted for this new mode at least just yet.

Some researchers have strong opinions about the changes and point out that the work of the so-called citizen journalist cannot be compared to that of the professional photojournalist. Anyone can take a picture of an event and find a good snapshot, but quality cannot be guaranteed. For this reason, now more than ever the figure of photojournalists is necessary even if it means they use an iPhone.