Part Two - Narrative: Project Two - Image and text: Exercise 1 - Newspaper articles

Exercise 1 of Project 2 (Image and Text) requires us to select some pictures from a newspaper and write some captions.  For my pictures, I have taken screen shots from the BBC News website, with links to the actual items below.

Image [1]

Possible captions:

• New waterways created
• Green space preserved as City expands

The article was in fact about Greater Manchester being made a "northern powerhouse".

Image [2]

Possible captions:

• Thousands attend Communist Party annual conference
• Chinese politicians sworn in for new term

The article was in fact about anti-corruption investigators in China confirming the reported seizure of the equivalent of $33m in cash at an official's home in May - the biggest such haul to date.

Image [3]

Possible captions:

• Free Sgt. Tahmooressi NOW!
• American people campaign for the release of Sgt. Tahmooressi.

The article was in fact about the campaign for the release of a US marine imprisoned in Mexico for driving a vehicle loaded with firearms across the border has been released.

In the first two examples, without the captions, you cannot tell what the article is going to be about.  In both cases, I found captions that were not representative of the real article.  The captions therefore in these cases would be anchor captions, i.e. they would control the meaning of the image and prevent it being interpreted. 

In the third example, even if you don't know what the article is about - it is pretty easy to work it out.  The picture already gives you most of the story.  The accompanying text would therefore provide more information to enable a full understanding. 

Links to news items:

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29459243 accessed 3 November 2014
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29845257 accessed 3 November 2014
[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29858652 accessed 3 November 2014