Photojournalims and News Coverage during the Great War. The Battle of the Somme (1916) through the photographs of "ABC" Spanish Journal

Abstract

This work analyzes the twenty-two pictures published by the newspaper ABC during the month of July 1916 relating to the Battle of the Somme. The objective of this analysis is to assess the role played by the photojournalism during the First World War. It was the first time for civil society to know directly what was the true reality in the front and draw conclusions from the pictures and captions published. Photojournalism is used by ABC and newspapers of the same period as a great effectiveness element of persuasion in the population. This paper also reviews the role of the first war photographers and correspondents, its difficult to report from the front and the persuasiveness of his pictures to tilt public opinion toward specific political interests of the publication for which they worked.