Heterotopias fotojornalísticas: os blogs de fotografia dos jornais impressos de maior circulação do Brasil como espaços de produção e reflexão dos saberes e das práticas fotojornalísticas na contemporaneidade

Abstract

Taken from the most widely circulated online newspapers in Brazil, the photography blogs from O Globo (FotoGlobo), O Estado de S. Paulo (Olhar sobre o Mundo), Zero Hora (FocoBlog), Diário Gaúcho (Diário da Foto) and Correio do Povo (FotoCorreio) stood out as places where the practice of photojournalism is commented on. When photojournalists post their blogs, they are simultaneously monitoring the routines of professionals and sharing knowledge among their peers. Foucault (1986, p.136) states that all practices are discursive and reflect a set of anonymous and historical rules which shape the actions of subjects while these subjects themselves create new rules in a constant state of self-reflection and reflective monitoring of different social actors. This leads us to the understanding that there is knowledge contained within these blogs, not a raw kind of knowledge, but one that is spread on a daily basis by current press photojournalists as they are practicing photojournalism. This material helped us to understand the practice and provided information about photojournalism as well as giving us some insight as to what photojournalist reporters think about their routines, the changes in the professions and their current role in society. And it is through these photographers’ constant discourse and writing on their blogs that has given us a better understanding of what the profession is, what its specific nature is and what the changes are that have affected it over time. Other forms of research like surveys and interviews as well as accompanying production routines in newsrooms from two main newspapers from Rio Grande do Sul has also brought us to this current understanding. This set of criteria has led us to think of blogs as a space for reflecting on the practice, observing the changes to the platform and its life cycle on the web from 2009 to 2015. This is a space dissimilar to both photography manuals and books (which are related to the praxis) and the newspapers themselves, which photographers view as places free from the chronospatial, thematic and esthetic suppression of printed press, thereby becoming heterotopical sites capable of supporting poetic narratives. It is within this bibliographic gap that the research proposal “Heteropia in photojournalism: photography blogs from the most widely circulated newspapers in Brazil as spaces for producing and reflecting on contemporary photojournalism practices” fits in. Ultimately, we intend to understand what photojournalists from these newspapers think about the profession as it is conducted within institutional photography blogs, thereby encouraging discourse on the activity and on how it is reflected on the disciplines of photojournalism.