Imagem, acontecimento jornalístico e símbolo: o caso Alan Kurdi

Abstract

There are images that are fixed in our mind as the maximum representation of an episode, becoming, itself, in its materiality and self-referentiality, an event, understood as a rupture with the conventional in the phenomenal space. It is from this spectrum of phenomena that journalists capture and interpret these ruptures and, finally, construct journalistic events. From this, the work focuses on the relationship of journalism with the image to the creation of symbols. From the concept defended by Ana Paula da Rosa (2012) image-totem, we draw a theoretical development to investigate how images constitute journalistic events and how they become a symbol of a greater situation. The case of the three photographs of Alan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy found dead on a beach in Turkey in 2015, is based on two central questions: How did Alan Kurdi's photograph become a symbol of the refugee struggle? And what is the role of journalism in the construction of this symbol? In order to elucidate such questions, we bring image theorists, such as Walter Benjamin (1987), Régis Debray (1993), Roland Barthes (1984), Susan Sontag (2003, 2004), WJT Mitchell (1994, 1996), Jacques Ranciere (2005), Márcia Benetti (2010), John Baptist (2010), Didi-Huberman (2013), Allied Media Studies by Patrick Charaudeau (2018) and Stuart Hall (1999) Natali (2004), Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva (2011), Diogo Schelp (2016). The idea of a symbol is understood based on the symbolic power of Pierre Bourdieu (2005). To analyze the photographs, we use the iconology of Aby Warburg. After framing analysis, to detect the frameworks suggested by Folha de S. Paulo for the photography of Alan Kurdi. Finally, we bring a thoroughness of artistic re-readings from the photograph that ratify the image as a world symbol.