The Rehabilitated Image in the Written Press in Cameroon and Its Mediation Challenges: The Example of <i>Cameroon Tribune</i>

Abstract

The Cameroonian daily press is now taking a new look at the use of photography in its columns. Photography is therefore at the heart of the new information system: the application of a new formula, a photographic formula, therefore visual, which is a novelty. The aim of our article is to highlight how the Cameroonian daily press constructs the discursive staging of this visual content. It proposes to examine the ways in which the news image in Cameroon Tribune is constituted in journalistic writing. In this article, we will analyse the photographic content of the daily newspaper Cameroon Tribune . The corpus consists of 1245 photographs from 25 issues published between 21 October and 22 November 2019. The technique used is media content analysis, which allows us to produce exhaustive descriptive statements that meet the criteria of scientific validity and reproducibility. Emancipated from its strict illustrative function, photography in the daily newspaper Cameroon Tribune then becomes fully a means of information and communication, in the same way as text. This translates into the construction of informative sets such as the importance of the surface area of the visual content which gives pride of place to the visual, giving an impression of abundance that is perceptible from the Front Page. One of the important features of the newspaper’s iconography is the great positivity of its images, which reinforces the closeness between the reader and the news. In total, the newspaper highlights photographs of limited informative interest: these are portraits that show the faces of the protagonists of the articles, to the detriment of current events.