Week 8: Photography: Reconceptualising culture, memory and space.

Question 3: How do captions and cutlines re-frame the meaning of an image?

Especially in newspapers and magainzes, under the photographs, 'captions' and/or 'cut lines' are present. “A picture is worth a thousand words” - therefore, captions and cut lines helps to narrow the scope of interpretation of a picture. 

What exactly is the difference between captions and cut lines? They're actually almost similar as they are both used in the same place. The difference is, captions are the headlines of a cut line and a cut line is the description of an image (ku.edu, n.d.). This is similar to the concept of a newspaper, an essay, and even this blog post! The title precedes the content, however captions and cut lines are pertaining to a picture. 

The term 'captions' and 'cut lines' are used interchangeably as they are basically the same if you ignore the technicalities. The purpose of a caption is to gauge the intended reaction from an audience and in the brief description, the details that are supposed to be included are answers to the who, what, where, when, why and how questions (Aggarwal, 2006). So, how do captions and cut lines re-frame the meaning of an image?

Captions and cut lines work in the same manner “anchorage” does in semiotics. To recap, “anchorage” refers to a text or a caption which builds a bridge between a picture and its intended meaning (Sellers & Gonzales, 2002). However, it does not stop here. It goes one step further as it frames the interpretation of meanings to just one thing. With reference to the Agenda Setting Theory, the captions and cut lines tells readers how to think in relation to the image, not what to think about (Griffin, 2009). To reiterate the point I made before, captions and cut lines can alter the meaning of an image as it specifies the meaning through the text below a picture. 

How exactly does the agenda setting theory squeeze itself in, in this case? Agenda setting is defined as “the process where the mass media defines what we think and worry about” (Sanchez, 2002). This concept can be applied in the case of captions and cut lines because ones interpretation is reduced to something specific. One thing is highlighted from a wide array of interpretations and only one of the vast amounts of meanings become prominent. This is similar to how captions and cut lines re-frame meanings.

From a recent article, how captions and cut lines re-frame the meaning of an image:

Image taken from an article from the Borneo Bulletin on Friday 11th November, 2011

References:

Aggarwal, V. B. (2006). Essentials of practical journalism. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

ku.edu. (n.d.). Photo captions & cutlines. Retrieved from http://web.ku.edu/~edit/captions.html on 4th October, 2012

Sanchez, M. (2002). Agenda setting. Retrieved from http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~johnca/spch100/7-4-agenda.htm on 4th October, 2012

Sellers,P., & Gonzales, S. (2002). The language of advertising. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist34/Unit_03/anchor-relay.htm on 4th October, 2012