WEEk 8 - "Photography - Reconceptualising Culture, Memory and Space: Pictures that trigger forwarded e-mails"

Wright (1999) notes how photography can influence opinions to change social conditions (1999, p. 150). This is true especially in the case of poverty in Africa, where one picture sets of a train of actions taken by many governmental and international groups, and also in many other cases.
However, the notion of how pictures can influence opinions can also be applied to other cases and not just ‘to change social conditions’. In this week’s entry, we shall see how photographs can influence opinions in forwarded e-mails.

I believe many have received forwarded e-mails of different kinds almost all the times, at times endlessly – let it be jokes, news, religious or even spam.

What triggers a massive forwarding of e-mail?

We can look at it by considering the following example:


vs.


I believe some may have seen these particular e-mails before. These forwarded e-mails had been circulating ever since I was still in my Form 6, and one of them is still circulating now.

Now, what is the difference between these two e-mails?
The most noticeable feature is that: one carries with it pictures and the other does not.

Why is it a picture so important? It is amazing how one picture can trigger a dramatic action and create uproar throughout the continents.

(Bear in mind that we are not discussing whether the content of the e-mail or the pictures are true or not – rather we are discussing how the pictures can manipulate viewers into taking actions).


According to Batchen (2004), photographs are records and documents as it “validated our experience of ‘being there’” (p. 26). Now, in the first e-mail, upon seeing those set of pictures, readers feel like they are there and it evokes the feeling of sadness, heart-rending and moving feeling in the readers. Even though it is obvious the audiences do not know the person in the e-mail, they are still driven to do something. When we compare this to the second e-mail, the absence of a picture gives little impact to the audiences and they are therefore not as heavily-persuaded to act as the first e-mail.

You can see from the following evidences:
(Date: 8/29/08)

(Date: 4/13/09)

(Date: 2/23/09)

(Date: 5/23/09)

(Date: 5/30/09)


Vs.
(Date: 11/17/08)

The first e-mail occurs in five different occasions in the stretch of two years i.e. 2008-2009 as compared to the second e-mail where it occurs only in a single occasion in the same stretch of two years.

This shows that, however convincing the words are in the e-mail (in the case of the second e-mail: the testimonials attached at the end of the e-mail), it is still the photograph that prompts the viewers to take an action almost by an instinct.
The photographs convinced the viewers, in the way that words cannot.

This proves that a photograph has the power to influence opinions regardless of what the reason is.

References
Batchen, G. (2004). Forget me not: Photography and remembrance (pp. 6-16). New York: Princeton architectural press. Retrieved June 20, 2010, from UBD Ebrary Website.

Wright, T. (1999). Photography as a cultural critique. Photography handbook (pp. 135-151). London and New York: Rout;edge. Retrieved June 20, 2010, from UBD Ebrary Website.