Photo of a Dying Man: All the Wrong Reasons

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/6670/photo_of_a_dying_man__all_the_wrong_reasons



December 7, 2012
By RACHEL WAGNER
Rachel Wagner is Associate Professor of Religion and Culture at Ithaca College. Her new book Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality will be published by Routledge on November 8, 2011.

It’s true that real images of death and loss are required sometimes for us to take death seriously. Images of war and the death associated with it are important for this reason, and the images of 9/11 victims falling to their deaths strikes a powerful and disturbing chord of recognition, humanity, and real loss.

The snapshot of Ki-Suk Han prompts us to ask again what is the most appropriate way in our digital age to remember those who have died. Let me be clear that I am referring here only to the controversial image taken of Han before he died by New York Post photographer R. Umar Abbasi, not to the event itself —which was horrific and heartbreaking.

The media work performed by the image, though, is a clear attempt at meaning-making, a prime example of the power of media to impose order on chaotic events—or at least to try.

The image is a ritual event all by itself, a statement that time is linear, that death is certain. It invites deep inquiry into issues relating to moral responsibility, journalistic ethics, and media consumption. Despite our fascination with all things virtual, digital, ephemeral, despite the numerous modes of media engagement that urge us we have nothing but freedom and endless choices, death, we are reminded, is inescapable.

more at link

[rug]

1. I'm glad they didn't reprint the photo.

That would have gutted the point of the article.

But I think the photo was newsworthy even though the Post ghoulishly exploited it on the front page.

[cbayer]

2. I found the photo very disturbing.

The photographer has said he did it so that his flash would get the attention of the train driver.

Perhaps that is true, but what I found most disturbing is that no one else is in the photo. No one was apparently trying to help at all.