The main thesis of this essay is to critically analyse two images from the contemporary mass media, in this case both images have been taken from broadsheet newspapers. References to certain topics will also be included, such as power, representation and ideology. Each image will be analysed in terms of the content, the qualities used, the composition and structure, the relationships between image and accompanying text as well as the relationship between image and current, recent and historical events. ‘A single image can serve a multitude of purposes, appear in a range of settings and mean different things to different people.’ The role of society connected with mass media will also be considered. ‘Through looking we negotiate social relationships and meanings.’

Image one is a black and white photograph that has a clear focused foreground and blurred background, (see appendix 1). The photograph was taken on the first of November 2003. The content of this photograph includes a coffin being carried down the street passing an example of graffiti with the letters ‘IRA’. It has an emotive and subjective moral high ground.

· On Photography, Sontag, Susan (1973) London

Image two (see appendix 2) is also a black and white photograph with a clearly defined foreground and blurry background, however the background is only misty due to it being set on a dusty road where as image one had a blurred background due to camera effects. Image two contains three very young Iraqi schoolgirls walking down a road with American troops and tanks in the background. The Pakistani flag on the children’s bags indicates the location, and, as a whole, the image represents normality nowadays for the children of Baghdad. The image provokes thoughts in the viewer for the safety of these children whose culture is trying to find stability for the future and struggling through an exclusive turmoil. There is an ironic parallel in the composition and structure of the image, in that the soldiers are talking amongst themselves in the tank in the background, as well as the children talking in the foreground. The photographer was standing behind the children facing the tanks. The image places the viewer in the middle of the road with the children in between the viewer and the tanks, almost like a shield of children which makes the viewer feel very uncomfortable, in additional to that is the fact that the children do not look very concerned with the presence of the American troops and their huge tanks (machines of death and destruction). The accompanying text states exactly what is shown in the picture, which was taken on the fifth of November 2003 ‘Six months after President George Bush declared an end to “major hostilities” in Iraq’. The rel

Some topics in this essay:
, Jean McConville, Middle East, St Paul’s, George Bush, Thomas Toner, Sinn Féin, Falls Road, Sontag Susan, Module Book, mass media, image current recent, recent historical, relationships image, current recent, composition structure, historical events, image represents, accompanying text, current recent historical, recent historical events, image current, historical events include, white photograph, st paul’s church,