Depending on who you ask, iPhone photography, viral videos, and massive amounts of citizen-generated content have either harkened a new Golden Age of visual culture, or distorted reality beyond recognition.
David Campbell, one of the world鈥檚 foremost authorities on visual culture and politics, says that the important thing to consider is context.
David Campbell (Hipstamatic image by Matt Hames)
鈥淏ecause of technology, the line between professional and amateur is blurred in these new times. What the professionals can achieve is a story, or a narrative 鈥 something that addresses the context 鈥 whereas鈥he function of taking the everyday picture in the street, that鈥檚 something that will spread beyond professional circles.鈥
Campbell鈥檚 many books and articles examine how atrocity, famine, war, and Africa are represented in the new media economy.
In his with President Jeffrey Herbst, Campbell covered much ground, from the controversy over Damon Winter鈥檚 Hipstamatic series of soldier photos published in the New York Times, to Kony 2012, the most viral video campaign in history.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no such thing as a 鈥榲iral video,'鈥 Campbell said. 鈥淲hat makes things viral is that you have networks which spread things鈥 The [simplistic] narrative structure鈥elped to an extent, but I don鈥檛 think that was the principal reason why it became viral.鈥
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Campbell spent the spring semester at 糖心视频 as the 2012 A. Lindsay O鈥機onnor Professor in the peace and conflict studies program, during which he taught two classes, Visual Geographies: Africa, and War and Photography and Media War: Peace and Conflict.
He also delivered the Gould Memorial Lecture in Geography, where he talked about how war photography has and has not changed, from Robert Capa to the iPhone.