Celebrating life or adversity? The redefinition of features in the Pictures of the Year International contest

Abstract

Photojournalism contests have been criticized for continually awarding top prizes in hard news categories to images that depict conflict, disaster, poverty, and other problems. Pictures like these, which have a social issues visual frame, usually focus on people from countries other than the United States and on minorities. Some photojournalism contests, like Pictures of the Year International (POYi), include a features category. Traditionally, the purpose of feature photographs is to celebrate the human condition; however, in recent years of the POYi contest the features category has been dominated by images that stress hardship. To investigate whether this represents an increasing trend in POYi of awarding prizes to pictures that focus on social issues, a content analysis of the winning photographs from the past 20 years was conducted. Understanding whether the feature category in Pictures of the Year International has evolved is important because when it comes to shaping discourses about social issues, national identities, ethnicity, and race, feature photos have the potential for emphasizing commonality. If the newsworthiness of feature photos starts to become tied to similar criteria as hard news photos, that potential will be diminished.