New podcast series examines images’ role in conflict

In November 2018, scholars, NGO workers, photo editors and activists joined at the conference ‘Visualising Conflict – Photojournalism and the politics of participation’ focusing on the role performed by images in contemporary conflicts.

The conference was organised by IMS (International Media Support), with funds from Danish Arab Partnership Programme and SIDA, and the research group Images of Conflict, Conflicting Images at University of Copenhagen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication.

IMS’ Jordanian partner, SOWT, has now released a podcast series that was recorded during the conference. Through three episodes, the series elaborates on the main messages brought up at the conference through interviews with speakers.

The episodes are available below or on our IMS Soundcloud.

First episode

Narrating Conflict: In search of “truth”

Examining the experience in Egypt of using images to fight for social justice, we talk to Aida El Kashef, co-founder of the Cairo-based, independent media collective Mosireen. Through her experience as an activist and a journalist, we learn about the important role of journalism in creating and affecting change in authoritarian environments. We also speak with Nagieb Khaja, who has been able to report on Islamist movements in Afghanistan and Syria and we dive deep into the world of visualizing conflict through the battle for “truth” as Nagieb narrates for us the importance of images to international journalists.

Second episode

Visualizing Conflict: The relationship between images and war

In this episode, we look at the importance of images in conflict zones and how news organisations work with images from social media, international and local journalists. We speak to the programme editor of Channel 4 news who produced the award winning reporting series ’Inside Aleppo’, Federico Escher, on how news organisations respond practically and policy-wise to the broad production of images. We also speak to Nina Grønlykke Mollerup, a postdoc at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen, on the relationship between local Syrian photographers, NGOs and international news organisations. We also hear from Zeynep Devrim Gursel, who is a media anthropologist and Associate Professor in the department of Anthropology at Rutgers University and has authored a book about visualizing news in the digital age, about how the digital revolution has changed journalists and consumers.

Third episode

On the Intersection of Politics and Visual Culture

In this episode, we hear from Sara Creta, a visual journalist and research fellow at the Institute of Future Media and Journalism at Dublin City University. We also speak to Nicholas Mirzoeff who is a writer, visual activist and Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU, working at the intersection of politics, race and global/visual culture, about why visibility matters and how the images influence the conflict.