"Images and visual artefacts shape international events and our understanding of them. Photographs, film and television influence how we view and approach phenomena as diverse as war, diplomacy, financial crises and election campaigns. Other visual fields, from art and cartoons to maps, monuments an
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d videogames, frame how politics is perceived and enacted. Drones, satellites and surveillance cameras watch us around the clock and deliver images that are then put to political use. Add to this that new technologies now allow for a rapid distribution of still and moving images around the world. Digital media platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, play an important role across the political spectrum, from terrorist recruitment drives to social justice campaigns. This book offers the first comprehensive engagement with visual global politics. Written by leading experts in numerous scholarly disciplines and presented in accessible and engaging language, Visual Global Politics is a one-stop source for students, scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the crucial and persistent role of images in today’s world." (Publisher description)
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"This paper asks how images of children are used by prominent signatories to NGO codes of conduct. The answer is that images of childhood and shared codes of conduct are both means through which development and relief NGOs produce themselves as rights-based organisations. The iconography of childhoo
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d expresses institutional ideals and the key humanitarian values of humanity, neutrality and impartiality, and solidarity. Images of children are useful for NGOs in reinforcing the legitimacy of their ‘emergency’ interventions as well as the very idea of development itself. But the dominant iconography is also inherently paradoxical, as the child image can be read as both a colonial metaphor for the majority world and as a signifier of humanitarian identity. The question then for NGOs using this image in social justice campaigns is whether overtly political accompanying texts can nullify the contradictory subliminal messages that emanate from the iconography of childhood." (Abstract)
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