Using Carey's distinction between the transmission and ritual models of communication, analyse Bourdieu’s arguments on the social function of photography.
Within the last couple of decades, countless forms of communications graced us as technology continues to evolve at an increasingly rapid rate. Even so, all these forms of communications whether it be instant messaging or photography can be interpreted in either one of two models of communications which are the transmission and ritual models. The transmission model is defined by Carey (1989, pp. 15-18) as a transmission of signals across distances with the purpose of control over space and people. This would mean that communication is merely a means of imparting or giving information to others either by sending or transmitting (Carey 1989, pp. 15-18). This interpretation of communication sees it as a process in order to spread knowledge such as the use of the radio to transmit information such as the news and political affairs. In this case, the viewer is viewed more as an endpoint rather than part of the ongoing process (Ellis & McClintock 1990, pp. 71). Instead, the transmission model places and importance on the clarity and effectiveness of the message while also acknowledging the barriers present such as noise which can interfere with the receiving and understanding of the message (Ellis & McClintock 1990, pp. 71). Besides that, the ritual model focuses more on the sharing aspect of communication, emphasising on the participation and fellowship that can be gain through modes such as the sharing of photographs. The ritual model sees communication as a way to construct and even maintain order and the society in time because it is more of a representation of shared beliefs and a projection of ideals from the community rather than an extension of signals and messages through space (Carey 1989, pp. 18-20). A prime example of communication taking a ritual form is the advent of social media such as Facebook and Twitter (Humphrey et al 2016, pp. 1-5). This is because the messages won’t just end after it is received, rather functions as in the ways of community building. This can be seen through the various communities talking about movies to books on different platforms such as Reddit or Youtube, hence showing the ability of communication to build and maintain communities (Humphrey et al 2016, pp. 1-5). In Bourdieu’s article about the social role of photography, he emphasises on the ideas that a photographs contain “popular aesthetics” that would always be given a social function (Bourdieu 1990, pp. 80). Even though he claims that photographs does not have the merit as a painting, it can still serves the function of the classical artistic vision (Bourdieu 1990, pp. 73-75). These arguments made by Bourdieu (1990) seem to emulate the ritual model of communication and thus this paper would analyse his work to determine the ways in which it primarily represents the ritual more than transmission model of communication. The reasons this claim is made are because photographs encourage sharing and participation in a community, it is directed toward the maintenance of society and it is also a projection of the community’s ideals.
One of the reasons Bourdieu’s work on the social role of photography is a representation of ritual communication is because it encourages sharing and participation in a community. This is argued because photographs are often shared in a public space in hopes of generating a reaction or feeling towards it by the audience. In Bourdieu’s book (1990, pp. 88-89), he claims that photographs are taken with the purpose of being shown and looked at by others and thus forming a fellowship between sender and receiver as the audience would be free to scrutinize the photo. This causes photographers to feel compelled to take pictures that would capture the attention of as many people as possible even though the picture may be altered or interpreted differently from their unique vision (Bourdieu 1990, pp. 87-88). This becomes more evident with the rise of the internet and digital photography as pictures are now easier to manipulate and sent to the rest of the world for critique (Van Dijck 2008, 58-59). Having social media platforms allows this two way communication to be held and in turn building a virtual community of like minded people that gravitated toward that particular photo. With this, it can be seen that photographs would encourage a sense of participation and communication as it is a way for the photographers to share their point of view on the world while at the same time receiving feedback from the audience that they are showing it to. Hence, having a community sharing and responding to photos exhibits Bourdieu’s arguments as part of the ritual model more than the transmission model. This is because the transmission model mainly focuses on the sending of information and the idea that the audiences could respond and give their own interpretation on the photo would not be possible (Carey 1989, pp. 15-20). According to Carey (1989, pp. 15-18), the audience is the endpoint when it's viewed through the perspective of the transmission model. However, some may still argue that Bourdieu’s arguments were based on the transmission model because he was referring to the analogue era of photographs. During that era, photographs were not thrown into the world but rather it is kept in homes to be enjoyed by only the photographers and their inner circle as photos were more for the purpose of capturing milestones while now it is just to remind the world of our existence (Jerslev & Mortensen 2015). Even so, this argument may not be valid because Bourdieu (1990, pp. 94) stated quoted that photographs are “the aesthetic of communication with others and communion with the world”. Hence, Bourdieu’s points about the social role of photographs reflect the ritual model because it encourages sharing and participation in a community.
Another reason Bourdieu’s work represent the ritual model of communication is because he argues that the social role of photography is directed towards the maintenance of society. This is due to photographs having the ability to generate understanding, joy and empathy between the members of society (Slovic et al 2017, pp. 640-644). Photos are able to evoke positive emotions that promotes communion because it captures genuine moments and feelings as it provides an impartial view of the world by eliminating any impressions that challenges the real (Bourdieu 1990, pp. 76). By temporalizing moments in a picture, be it important or not, would show the most authentic feelings of that time such as the feelings during someone’s graduation day, wedding, or even feelings of someone having a nice meal (Bourdieu 1990, pp. 81). This is important in the maintenance of society because photographs are essentially a vessel to display genuine emotions can provoke empathy among the members of a community. Positive emotion manifest around photographs because they are naturally a form of phatic communication as a way to maintain order in society by acting as the ‘social glue’ between members of a community (Burnard 2003, pp. 678-679). Phatic communication can be defined as a category of messages that concerns itself more with the process of communication rather than the passing of information to the receiver and thus it is able to nurture bonds between photographer, subject in the photo and viewers (Jerslev & Mortensen 2015). For instance, many celebrities would post photos of their activities and various selfies on social media in order to generate a bond with their fans and in turn build a loyal community due to the connective presence and positive emotions formed from the pictures (Jerslev & Mortensen 2015). Therefore, photographs would be able to maintain society by allowing the viewers to connect with the genuine emotions of the photographers. Nevertheless, some would still argue from the standpoint of the transmission model that photos do not display emotion in order to maintain society but instead, it is just a process to spread ideas and information (Carey 1989, pp. 15-20). These counter arguments may be justified as Bourdieu (1990, pp. 76) claims that photography is a process of condensing reality by capturing the reciprocal situation of things, thus showing that it is just a means of information dissemination rather than an effort to foster a healthy community. With this understanding, photos are no more than a tool to display information such as advertisements in hopes of influencing the viewer to buy their product rather than building and maintaining a relationship with them. Despite that, Bourdieu’s arguments would still reflect the ritual model more than transmission because the social function of photographs don’t stop after it reaches the viewer but rather it fosters a relationship between photographer and viewer that could maintain society. Hence, Bourdieu’s perspectives about the social role of photographs reflects the ritual model because it is directed towards the maintenance of society.
In addition, Bourdieu’s views on the social role of photography represents the ritual model of communication because photographs are a projection of the communities’ ideals. Photographs are able to project the society's beliefs because it is an objective take on the photographer’s perspective. As stated by Bourdieu (1990, pp. 77-80), photographs are a reproduction of the real that depends on the perspective that the picture is taken, hence it reflects the way the photographers see the world and captures their ideals. Not just that, photographers also tend to eliminate pictures that does not equate to their view of the world or how the world should be and this in turn compels photographers to opt for a more universal point of view when taking photos rather than the traditional discipline of the craft (Bourdieu 1990, pp. 87). This shows that photographs are not just a reflection of the photographer’s views but the community as a whole because as Bourdieu (1990, pp. 90) quotes “the desire to take a beautiful photograph is insufficient reason for taking a photograph”, it needs to be accepted by the masses as well. The projection of ideals through photos are not to influence attitudes or minds but rather, it acts as an underlying representation of the order of things and maintain the fragile social structure of our community (Carey 1989, pp. 19). Even though Carey may claim that the ritual models does not aim to control the minds of the masses, many would still counter argue that Bourdieu’s arguments on the social role of photography still reflects the transmission model. This is because photographs have been used by various forms of media such as newspapers and billboards for the purpose of controlling the masses for either religious, political or business reasons (Van Dijck 2008, pp. 66). Photographs are used as belief influencing tools because it acts as a confirmation and evidence to the matter at hand (Poor, Duhachek, & Krishnan 2013, pp. 124-127). For instance, someone would be more likely to purchase and believe the food item is good based on the model in the advertisement enjoying the meal as well (Poor, Duhachek, & Krishnan 2013, pp. 124-127). This shows that pictures can provide justification to the community about their own ideals for the purpose of influencing them (Poor, Duhachek, & Krishnan 2013, pp. 124-127). Nevertheless, the counter argument proposed on photographs reflect technological determinism, which is the claim that technology changes human and not the other way around (Servaes ed 2014, pp 25-26). Therefore, it should not be accepted as Bourdieu’s arguments reflect the view of social determinism more, which is the view that humans change technology (Rangel & Keller 2011). Through the analysis of his arguments, it can be seen that analogue photography projects the ideals of the community in that era and digital photos are a mirror of contemporary ideals. For example, during the era of analogue photos, subjects would strike a dignified pose that matches their idealized self-image while contemporary subjects have more relaxed and casual poses due to the ability to manipulate and alter the image at will (Van Dijck 2008, pp. 59-63). This shows that the people of the analogue era preferred to hold a high image of themselves due to the nature of photography being eternal and only accessible to the elites of society whereas contemporary people have access to and take countless of pictures a day only to be discarded regularly (Van Dijck 2008, pp. 62-69). Hence Bourdieu’s arguments do reflect the ritual model as photographs has been a projection of the communities’ ideals since the analogue era.
In conclusion, using Carey’s distinction between the transmission and ritual models of communication, Bourdieu’s claims on the social role of photographs reflect the ritual model more than the transmission model. One of the reasons for this is that photographs encourage sharing and participation in a community as they are mainly taken with the purpose of being shown to others and generate conversations and reactions from it. Furthermore, photographs are also able carry out the maintenance of society by generating understanding and positive emotions through it. Another reason Bourdieu’s ideas of photographs reflect the ritual model is because it is a projection of the communities’ ideals by having an objective take on the photographer's point of view which tends to correspond with the ideals of the society. Hence Bourdieu’s arguments mainly represent the ritual form rather than the transmission model of communication.
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References
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