Saumava Mitra
I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Communication at Dublin City University. Before this, I coordinated the MA program in Media and Peace at the University for Peace established by the United Nations. I research on various issues of media's -- particularly visual media's -- relationship with overt and social conflicts. I am also interested in issues surrounding journalists' safety. I completed my PhD at University of Western Ontario in Canada. My doctoral thesis was on Afghan photojournalists and the work they do and the images they produce for international media in today’s Afghanistan. I completed my MA in Journalism with a specialization in conflict reporting jointly from Aarhus University, Denmark and Swansea University, UK under the Erasmus Mundus program of the European Union. Prior to my academic career, I worked in international journalism and communications in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Supervisors: Dr Kevin Rafter
Address: School of Communications. Dublin City University, Glasnevin Campus. Dublin, Ireland
Supervisors: Dr Kevin Rafter
Address: School of Communications. Dublin City University, Glasnevin Campus. Dublin, Ireland
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Papers by Saumava Mitra
journalists. They also published a statistic showing that television
journalists were the most killed, followed by print media, radio
and online journalists. Hinted in this statistics is the need to
understand the relationship between the medium through which
and in which the journalists produce news and the threats and
dangers posed to them. In this article, we discuss this interlinkage
and call it medium-specific threats. As examples of this
interlinkage, we describe the cases of community radio journalists
in the Philippines, photojournalists in Afghanistan and online
journalists in Venezuela. Based on these examples from
independently conducted studies from very different parts of the
world, we make the broader case that while recognizing the
prevailing political-economic and socio-cultural factors and forces
at work in these media systems-in-flux, investigations of mediumspecific
threats to journalists are needed for more nuanced
understanding of and thus mitigation of journalists’ insecurities.
to influence within Afghanistan, concerns are rising regarding the future status of Afghan
women. In this background, this article returns to the much studied subject of the
portrayal of Afghan women in Western news media through Orientalist stereotypes.
Noting the lack of Afghan perspectives in previous research on this topic, the study
investigates the views and practices of Afghan photojournalists, who have today come
to replace international photojournalists in the country, when it comes to ‘picturing
Afghan women’ for Western audiences. It sheds light on the day-to-day professional
activities of these photojournalists when producing images of Afghan women for
Western audiences. It goes on to explore Afghan photojournalists’ perceptions about
how Afghan women have been and are being portrayed in Western news media.
Finally, it reports on how most of these Afghan photojournalists may perpetuate the
same stereotypes about Afghan women for Western audiences because hierarchies
in the international ‘visual gatekeeping chain’ supersede the Afghan photojournalists’
power to shape visual narratives and coupled with the need to earn an income as
precarious labor, their individual self-reflexivity regarding picturing Afghan women are
suppressed. The study also notes how photographing Afghan women causes risks for
Afghan photojournalists as well as the Afghan women who are photographed. Attention
is called to this hitherto invisible ethical concern that lives are jeopardized to validate
Western savior narratives regarding Afghan women through images.
journalists. They also published a statistic showing that television
journalists were the most killed, followed by print media, radio
and online journalists. Hinted in this statistics is the need to
understand the relationship between the medium through which
and in which the journalists produce news and the threats and
dangers posed to them. In this article, we discuss this interlinkage
and call it medium-specific threats. As examples of this
interlinkage, we describe the cases of community radio journalists
in the Philippines, photojournalists in Afghanistan and online
journalists in Venezuela. Based on these examples from
independently conducted studies from very different parts of the
world, we make the broader case that while recognizing the
prevailing political-economic and socio-cultural factors and forces
at work in these media systems-in-flux, investigations of mediumspecific
threats to journalists are needed for more nuanced
understanding of and thus mitigation of journalists’ insecurities.
to influence within Afghanistan, concerns are rising regarding the future status of Afghan
women. In this background, this article returns to the much studied subject of the
portrayal of Afghan women in Western news media through Orientalist stereotypes.
Noting the lack of Afghan perspectives in previous research on this topic, the study
investigates the views and practices of Afghan photojournalists, who have today come
to replace international photojournalists in the country, when it comes to ‘picturing
Afghan women’ for Western audiences. It sheds light on the day-to-day professional
activities of these photojournalists when producing images of Afghan women for
Western audiences. It goes on to explore Afghan photojournalists’ perceptions about
how Afghan women have been and are being portrayed in Western news media.
Finally, it reports on how most of these Afghan photojournalists may perpetuate the
same stereotypes about Afghan women for Western audiences because hierarchies
in the international ‘visual gatekeeping chain’ supersede the Afghan photojournalists’
power to shape visual narratives and coupled with the need to earn an income as
precarious labor, their individual self-reflexivity regarding picturing Afghan women are
suppressed. The study also notes how photographing Afghan women causes risks for
Afghan photojournalists as well as the Afghan women who are photographed. Attention
is called to this hitherto invisible ethical concern that lives are jeopardized to validate
Western savior narratives regarding Afghan women through images.