Protest Photography and Consideration of Privacy

A qualitative analysis of BLM protest photos published by The Star Tribune, The Minnesota Daily, The Oregonian and the PSU Vanguard

By Ella Banken

Findings

The charts below represent a portion of the data I collected. Featured here are the most notable outcomes of this analysis.

Total Photo Type by Publication

 

Between all four publications, Individual (I) and Group (G) photos were the most common. This means photos that feature individual people prominently with no facial obscurity (other than a basic mask), and include several people where there is no focus on any individuals, respectively.

 

Percentages of Photo Types of all Publications

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56.7% of all photos that were analyzed were Group and Individual photos.

 

Percentages of Type of Events featured in Photos of all Publications

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March/Demonstration photos (M) were by far the most published images between the four publications. Photos of vigils (V) were the second most common type of photo. Business related (B), Event (E), and Graffiti/Property Damage (G) photos tied for third most common.

 

Percentage of Names included in Photo Captions in all Publications

Names were rarely included in captions, and if they were, the majority of the names were those of public figures featured. For the purpose of this analysis, I considered public figures to be politicians, celebrities and athletes, as well as family members of those killed by police who were speaking at events, since they have been in the public eye. Names were more likely to be included in captions at vigils or events, rather than marches or demonstrations.