The six-volume Modern History of Chinese Photojournalism (1840-1919) explores the role of photojournalism in documenting Chinese history.

 

Photojournalism offers a valuable window into history. Supplemented by news articles, photojournalism documents history in the context of a particular era. Publication of the Modern History of Chinese Image Journalism (1840-1919) has put the spotlight on the history of photojournalism as discipline.

“In a broader sense, photojournalism history belongs to the research field of historiography proposed by American historian Hayden White in the late 1980s. A scholar from Chinese Taiwan extended the research subject to all images, including photos, sculptures, architecture and videos,” said Liu Zhongyu, an assistant research fellow at the Institute of History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“As a discipline, photojournalism history holds images as the primary research subject and texts as supplementary,” said Han Congyao, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Nanjing University.

However, photojournalism history studies are relatively weak in China. Most interviewed scholars said that this is due to two reasons: neglect of the role of photojournalism; and researchers’ unfamiliarity with photojournalism.

Since the late 1990s, photojournalism has become increasingly prominent in the news media. Achievements have been made by researchers, including the publication of related books and journals. “However, these achievements are still limited,” said Hu Zhengqiang, a professor at Nanjing University of Science and Technology.
 

Some scholars claimed that current studies fill an academic void. “Unlike written news, photojournalism can provide another channel for studying journalism history,” said Hu.
Han said texts can serve studies of the history of photojournalism, but noted that photos should be the main source.
 

Hu said more attention should be paid to the purpose of photojournalism to aid research. In addition, he said research of newspapers and news events is needed to strengthen the discipline.

Chen Manli, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University, said that photojournalism reflects the social development situation of an era. It has become a prevailing research priority to deeply interpret the relationship between news and society, said Chen.
 

“Analyzing history through photojournalism reveals the spirit of a nation,” said Han. He also noted the importance of respecting historical facts in choosing images and texts, and giving full play to past research to form new research methods of promoting photojournalism history studies.

 

Wu Nan, Hao Rihong are reporters from Chinese Social Sciences Today.