Abstract

The paper analyses the photojournalistic representations of immigration in Italy over the last three decades. By looking both at long-time thematic visual coverage and more recent news events, it develops the analytical concept of visual news frame in order to understand both professional constraints and wider cultural factors effecting the production (i.e. gathering, selection, framing, diffusion) of news photographs of immigration in Italy, particularly on weekly news magazines. The paper proposes and problematizes the ideas of "photojournalistic styles" and "photojournalistic sets" as useful concepts to highlight the process of journalistic construction and reification of visual stereotypes.