Japan’s earthquake by Folha.com: trivialization and consumption of photographs on internet

Abstract

This work came from researches about photojournalistic image on internet. To the analysis, the topic was the photojournalistic coverage that Folha.com made about the earthquake – followed by the tsunami – occurred in Japan, in March 2011. The paper reflects about the first day of coverage and the general view, after the end of journalistic attendance of the tragedy. Using the study of case and content analysis as methodology, the research verified that online journalism doesn’t use the photograph as reflexive basis to the intelligibility of facts. By this point of view, journalistic photograph starts to be used as factual, or in ephemeral permanent state, for a society looking for images to decode facts, trivializing photographic image, that becomes an object of consumption.