Jane Lydon, The University of Western Australia e Donna Oxenham, The University of Western Australia
Noel Pearson has accused the ABC of racism in dwelling on indigenous alienation. But many advances in the status of Aboriginal Australians have been prompted by revealing ill-treatment, which is why Ms Dhu’s family want footage of her last hours made public.
Selfies are blamed for encouraging everything from risky behaviour to rampant narcissism. But selfies can be potent acts of self-communication – and anyway, is self-regard a bad thing?
People visit the Uppatasanti Pagoda in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.
Reuters/Damir Sagolj
Social media is changing the way we travel, with people increasingly eager to visit Instagram-worthy destinations. Has a place’s visual appeal become more important than its history and authenticity?
Westminster Abbey doesn’t want you to take any selfies.
Jay Zagorsky
It’s easier than ever to visually record our lives thanks to the smartphone and now Snapchat glasses, but many museums and other places are fighting a losing and misguided battle against the trend.
The ruins of the city Cyrene, an ancient Greek and Roman city near present-day Shahhat in Libya.
Mahir Alawami/Shutterstock
There’s a concern that images posted on social media run the risk of disrupting the accurate identification of people allegedly involved in a crime.
‘Everything is sharply defined; we can even count his freckles.’
Detail of Diane Arbus, Boy with a straw hat waiting to march in a pro-war parade, N.Y.C., 1967. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia
In 1967, as flower children across America marched against the Vietnam war, Diane Arbus chose to photograph a young man wearing a ‘Bomb Hanoi’ badge. What did she capture, about the boy and the time?
BBC One’s The Living and the Dead revels in the Victorians’ obsession with the supernatural and the limits of science.
Photos of beaming young asylum-seekers with their families aboard HMAS Adelaide in October 2001 told a completely different story to the government’s spurious ‘children overboard’ claims.
Courtesy Project SafeCom, Jack H Smit.
Images move us to act – as last week’s episode of Four Corners has shown. Our government has gone to great lengths to suppress photos that humanise asylum seekers – but when they seep out, empathy is aroused.
Jupiter and its moon Io really do look like they do in this latest image by NASA’s Juno probe.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
Whether it’s through Facebook or Snapchat, images and videos are changing how we communicate. But as words become more trivial, our attention, our creativity, and even our empathy may be at stake.
Researchers in Maine pose with terns after measuring, weighing and banding the birds. But what if they weren’t scientists?
Amanda Boyd, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service/Flickr
Why do so many people take safety risks or abuse wild animals for the sake of a photo with them? In one researcher’s view, scientists may encourage this trend by sharing their own wildlife selfies.
Cindy Sherman was the subject, costume designer, make-up artist and photographer for the large-scale images showcased in a new retrospective.
Detail: Untitled #466. Image courtesy of Cindy Sherman and Metro Pictures, New York
Migrant children may feel uncomfortable or shy trying to verbally explain their experiences. Photography is a powerful medium through which to make their voices heard.
Some selfies are more dangerous than others…
'Selfie' via www.shutterstock.com
After a selfie-snapping man was mauled to death by a bear, a psychologist wonders why people feel so compelled to capture and share images of themselves.
Hoping to avoid the pitfalls and tropes of drug genre photography, documentary photographer Aaron Goodman spent a year following three addicts enrolled in a heroin-assisted treatment program.
Street photographer, c. 1930, part of the NMeM collection.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
