Social Commentary Through Photographic Representation in Malaysia

DOI

10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.88How to use a DOI?

Keywords

communication, message, photography, social commentary

Abstract

Up to this modern and advanced era of technology, photograph is considered as a medium to record moments and events. Through social commentary photography artists produced photography artworks to represent their ideas through expressing their opinion, emotions, and sentiments for the viewers. However, most people are not aware that photography is an alternative way to convey messages to change people’s attitude towards certain issues. In the Western countries, social commentary images have been accepted by their public since many years ago as a means of communication. Ideas and opinions were expressed through photographs for their public to create change and to trigger societal changes. Through social commentary, photography represents messages for the public to interpret the representation it contains as a conveyance from the photographic artists towards the public. However, some public in developing countries believe that, photography is not regarded as a means of communication but only consider it as a record and artwork. Hence, the message by fellow social commentary artists was not being acknowledged and understood by the public. As a consequence, a communication gap exists between the artist and the public in the form of acceptance and understanding. This study adapted qualitative method which revealed results from observations and interviews among social commentary photographic artists and the public. Since this study has not been conducted in Malaysia, hence, it was pertinent to understand the public’s perception on photographic representation through social commentary. This study benefits the Malaysian government to realize the usage of photography as an approach to promote change towards its societal issues.

Copyright

© 2013, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Husaini Yaacob
AU  - Mustaffa Halabi Hj. Azahari
AU  - Adzrool Idzwan Hj. Ismail
PY  - 2013/12
DA  - 2013/12
TI  - Social Commentary Through Photographic Representation in Malaysia
BT  - Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on the Modern Development of Humanities and Social Science
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 334
EP  - 336
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.88
DO  - 10.2991/mdhss-13.2013.88
ID  - Yaacob2013/12
ER  -