Photography, Photojournalism, Visual arts, Autobiography, Illness Visual Narratives, Stigmatization, Autofiction, Medical humanities, Research Integrity, Ethics, Visual representation of pain, illness, death and grief.
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Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
Cut-Off Low (DANA) in Valencia: Visual Representation of Death and Grief in Photojournalism Montse Morcate, Rebeca Pardo Media and Communication, 2025 This article examines front-page images from a selection of newspapers portraying the loss of life, grief, and destruction caused by the cut-off low that hit the Valencian community, Spain, on 29 October 2024. This climate-related disaster was the first national catastrophe to take place since Covid-19 and resulted in at least 237 fatalities, leaving a devastated social and physical landscape. The research analyses images from a selection of regional, national, and international newspapers in the first few weeks following this disaster, examining graphic portrayals of the dead, the recovery of bodies, scenes of people in grief, and other unsettling images to explore possible underlying narratives, biases, and absences. The framework follows previous research on images of the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to ethics and the current context of instant image sharing, the effects of globalization, and the contemporary practices connected to the visibilization of death which vary depending on the nature of the crisis and the relationship to those affected. This article aims to contribute to broader discussions on the ethics of visual representation and the construction of meaning in times of crisis.
Photojournalism and Covid-19: Representation and invisibility during the first confinement in Spain Rebeca Pardo, Montse Morcate Profesional De La Informacion, 2022 The State of Alarm period declared by the Spanish Government due to the coronavirus crisis has had an exhaustive media coverage. However, it is observed how the visual story / narrative that has been published in the newspapers goes beyond the health field, focusing mainly on aspects of a social, political or economic nature. The types of images with the greatest presence in the representation of the harshest weeks of the pandemic determine the type of coverage, causing some relevant aspects to be minimized or invisibilized, and conditions the impact and the understanding of the severity of the disease in the society, in a particularly difficult and decisive moment such as the confinement of citizens. In the same way, the published images will have a later impact as a document by becoming part of the historical memory in the future. This article focuses on the analysis of the images published during the State of Alarm in three of the most relevant and broader scope national newspapers (El país, La vanguardia and El mundo), which is complemented by semi-directed interviews with several photojournalists who have covered Covid-19 during its first stage. The cataloging of the photographs in various categories is intended to observe the type of story that has been made visible of the Covid-19 (assessing the way in which this pandemic is being shown as an epidemic or syndemic), as well as to detect some of the most present and/or recurring visual representations and identify which are the most prominent absences.
Photographic narratives of Covid-19 during Spain’s state of emergency: images of death, dying and grief Montse Morcate, Rebeca Pardo Mortality, 2022 Covid-19 is the first pandemic to be broadcast and photographed as it happens worldwide. However, despite the plethora of images on countless aspects of the pandemic, few media images have covered its more sensitive issues, such as the collapse of the healthcare system, the process of dying alone, or the disruption to funeral rites and mourning. Consequently, the visual narratives of the pandemic are biased. They lack images that show its more dramatic aspects. This affects not only how the public perceives and reacts to Covid-19, but also the visual evidence that will remain for historical memory in the future. With one of the world's highest case rates and most stringent states of emergency, Spain offers an interesting case study to analyse the pandemic's photographic narratives and its missing images during lockdown. This paper focuses on the presence or absence of images dealing with illness, death, dying and grief, as well as their ways of representation. It delves into the framing of particular visual narratives through an analysis of the images that appeared in Spain's leading newspapers, together with semi-structured interviews conducted with renowned photojournalists who worked on the front line to document Covid-19 during lockdown.
Photography and Mental Illness: Feeding or Combating the Stigma of Invisible Pain Online and Offline Rebeca Pardo Painscapes Communicating Pain, 2017 Medical photographs and photojournalism have played a central role in creating a visual representation of illness since the nineteenth century. For some themes such as mental illness, photographs of a few exceptional cases have contributed to the stigmatization of a bigger group by depicting them as dangerous in a violent or depraved context. In the last years, digital photography and Internet have given patients and relatives the opportunity to represent themselves on a daily basis as normal people with an illness, fighting against stigmatization.This situation raises some interesting ethical questions about how images can feed or combat stigma, questioning if people behind the diseases have been ethically represented and showing the role of the photographer in the social perception of illness and pain.
Illness, death and grief: The daily experience of viewing and sharing digital images Rebeca Pardo, Montse Morcate Digital Photography and Everyday Life Empirical Studies on Material Visual Practices, 2016 This chapter explores some photography and sharing modalities related to illness, death and grief on Social Networking Sites (SNS), as a part of a long-standing and ongoing project about the online visual representation of these issues. The chapter analyses how domestic and intimate images of death, illness and grief are taken and/or shared by common users. The characteristics of day-to-day sharing through the internet have influenced the kind of images generated, turning them into a more quotidian practice. These photographs are closer to domestic or familiar photography than to the more formal or professional images that is prevalent in other media. The generalized use of text and tags with the images makes it possible to use search tools to facilitate searches and find mutual points of interest. The increasing sharing of images such as these palliates the feeling of stigmatization and solitude and amplifies the awareness of these subjects.
