The democratization of the image: a dilemma for photojournalism

Abstract

Social networks and smartphones have become on ally for many disciplines, journalism, of course, is not the exception. News agency have found in digital media a source of information in constant updating and in mobile devices a tool that allows them to reduce production costs. However, for people working in these media, specifically for photographers, the situation has not been so favourable. The main thesis presented in this article is to show the democratization of the image and how the introduction of the web 2.0 has created a new paradigm in the photojournalism, nurturing the profession in some aspects and undermining it in others. Throughout this text will be present issues of debate like the multitask journalism, citizen journalism, and freelance photojournalism. It will be also sought answers to questions such as: what advantages and what problems does the digitalization of the information and its diffusion in the internet imply for the graphic journalism? what role does the citizen play in the production of the journalistic content at present and what benefits does it have? and how reliable are the journalistic images circulating on the network?