On Iconicity and Invisibility

On Iconicity and Invisibility

Barbie Zelizer (University of Pennsylvania)

This talk addresses the role that invisibility plays in today’s extremist political environment. It traces the entrenchment of invisibility as a long-relevant trope for news depiction and shows how that early resonance has proven instrumental for today’s predilection toward post truth, alternative facts and fake news. Though the talk argues that images constitute a bellwether indicator of how well (or badly) the news is functioning and that paying fuller attention to images might generate a more productive understanding of the news discourses in which they travel, it also raises questions about the contemporary relevance of iconicity, asking whether the current political climate reduces the relevance of iconicity in the news.