This image arrived in the email the other day along with a good question
(bunch of questions, actually), thanks to Barbara Phillips Long:
Part
of the problem with the photo, I realized, is that I wondered who the
people in the photo were and whether it was a 'real' photo of something
actually taking place, or a posed photo of a doctor and a patient, or a
posed photo of people pretending to be a doctor and a patient. About the
only thing I could say for certain is that it wasn't two toddlers
playing doctor.
I
agree, and I also share Barbara's summary conclusion: "I'm just not
interested in seeing irrelevant photos any more" (discussed earlier in a
slightly different context here). Aside from the confusion, whether momentary or
not, about who's who, and the potentially more dangerous confusion about
whether any other images you see on a site are real or merely
illustrative, there's a mechanical question: Is the image worth the time
it takes to load on your tablet or other viewing platform of choice?
With
all that said, let's open the floor to discussion: Are we seeing more
cases of the stock photo used to illustrate the concrete story? Is there
a real difference between "a doctor, like the one shown here" and "an
Airbus A320, like the one shown here"? Are people hearing from the
traffic-counters if a story isn't illustrated? Is there too much of it,
or not enough? (Your Editor does admit to occasional bursts of
get-off-my-lawnism.) Is this something audiences expect (or that we
expect audiences to expect)? Are news sites assuming that such
illustrations make stories better liked or better remembered? Are there
other habits like this that might be getting routinized in online news
presentation?
Comments and thoughts encouraged. This would be a fun topic to look at empirically.
Labels: convergence, photos, research