Photojournalistic Capturing of Protests

Meet the Researcher

River Martinez

Class of 2025

river8sunshine@gmail.com

AP Capstone Diploma Candidate

Problem Statement

There is a problem in addressing the real-life implications of photojournalists' compositional choices and how those can perpetuate a bias and feelings toward the subjects in a photograph. Additionally, there is an increasing problem of rapid access to photography, through "point and click" photography utilizing smartphone technology creating an oversaturation of protest photographs. I want to find, by boiling down professional compositional choices to rule of thirds and angles, if photojournalism can still be proven significant in public opinion in the 21st century.

Research Question

How do the composition choices of documentary photojournalism of political protests in Seattle influence feelings and opinions on those issues and policy matters?
- - - How do the choices of rule of thirds, and angle elicit positive or negative feelings about the subject to the audience?

Image to left, Seattle Peoples March 01/18/2025 River Martinez

Image above We Will Rise Against Project 2025, 01/20/2025 River Martinez Image above Seattle Peoples March, 01/18/2025 River Martinez

Significant Sources

Time-Life Books. (1977). Photojournalism.

Guerrero García, V., & Palomo, B. (2015). The crisis of photojournalism: rethinking the profession in a participatory media ecosystem.

Kontos, I., & Galanopoulos-Papavasileiou, I. (2024). Photojournalism: Values and Constraints, Aestheticism, and Aftermath Photography.

Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography.

Hypothesis & Assumptions

I hypothesize that there will be more emotional responses and opinions to political issues through photography than factual statements showcasing these issues in both "negative" and "positive" emotions. My primary assumption is the effect that photography has on emotions and how, in the past, it has affected the American political sphere, so it should apply in the present day. Additionally, the assumption is that participants won't have overtly political opinions and skew the survey data.

GAP/ Significance

This study will help to address how much power there is in photography and how, even though modern photography has morphed into something so different because of the rampant use of the internet, photography in its purest form can still influence modern Americans' political opinions. If not proven, I hope my work can continue to pave the way for experts to expand in this field who have more time and means to develop my ideas further into the modern era and use my unique two-part methodology. Additionally, my work aims to fill a gap in the current academic discussion by analyzing protest photojournalism, and its composition, modernly in the specific area of Seattle.

Method

My research followed descriptive research and mixed methods, as my data and quantitative information from a survey are qualitative in nature. The research project has two components: first, collecting the qualitative protest imagery at Seattle protests and then applying it to an online survey, in which the information will be collected is qualitative (5 point Leichter Scale). There will be questions based on four emotions, one being the least and five being the most: sad, angry, happy, and hopeful. These questions will be applied to both statements and the photographs. The survey will be on a QR code on a flyer distrubuted in Seattle community centers and libraries. The data from the survey will be tested using the chi-square test of homogeneity, comparing positive (happy and hopeful) and negative (sad and angry) to analyze the difference in the distributions of photographs and statements.

Image to left is River Martinez in action at the We Will Rise Against Project 2025 protest on 01/20/2025

The five images above are from the six chosen photographs from the portfolio of the three Seattle protests, People's March 01/18/2025, We Will Rise Against Project 2025 01/20/2025, and TPUSA Transphobia March 01/21/2025, that were used in the online survey.

RESULTS/DATA ANALYSIS

The data sets below are from the online survey, and are set up to analyzed using the chi-square test of homogeneity as well as the statistical hypothesis. Attached below additionally are the agreement scales used for both the statements and photographs, which used angry and sad (negative) and happy and sad (positive).

"Negative" Distribution

Ho= The distribution of negative emotions (anger and sadness) is the same for the Statements and Photographs.

Ha= The distribution of negative emotions (anger and sadness) is not the same for the Statements and Photographs.

Positive Distribution

Ho= The distribution of positive emotions (happy and hopeful) is the same for the Statements and Photographs.

Ha= The distribution of positive emotions (happy and hopeful) is not the same for the Statements and Photographs.

BELOW ARE THE EXPECTED VALUES

To Run a Statistical Test These Three Conditions Must Be Met

Random Sample- Participants must be randomly selected (Not Met)
Independence Rule- Sample must be 10% or less than the population (Met)
Expected Counts- Expected Values must all be equal or more than 5 (Not Met)

Thus the tests could not be run, and therefore nothing could be concluded from the quantitative data collected, disproving my hypothesis based on inconclusive data.

Image above We Will Rise Against Project 2025, 01/20/2025 River Martinez

Adjustments/Next Steps

Based on my work in this study, there are other steps future researchers or myself could take in this field from my findings in this process.

Conduct Interviews Instead of a Survey- This should be done to see if the portfolio collected holds up to academic and professional standards instead of generalizing about the Seattle population
Longer Collection Time and Use of Social Media- These techniques would grant a larger survey sample, as two weeks was not long for the flyers in community centers and libraries. Additionally, though the researcher wanted to mitigate the impact of the internet, posting on social media may grant more respondents, as there has been a shift to online communities instead of in-person spaces.

Conclusion

This project combined qualitative and quantitative photojournalism assessments, presenting a new format for analyzing photojournalism. In collecting my portfolio of protest imagery, I was able to showcase photojournalism in the 21st century while minimizing pocket journalism. My study adds to the pool of academic photojournalism studies, which is slim after the impact of the internet and social media. Though my quantitative data faced limitations, it may present a shift of Seattle residents into online instead of in-person community spaces, highlighting an overwhelming trend of "positive" responses from the survey. My efforts have opened the door to new research, and from my achievements in this study and my limitations, I urge future researchers to expand this field further.

Report abuse