The industrialization of photojournalism as a qualitative historical difference

Abstract

This article aims to propose a historical division of photojournalism into three basic phases, as outlined by Fabris (1998) and Jorge and Monteiro (2024). This demarcation arises from debates on historiography, which can draw new boundaries that delimit and define photojournalism (Sousa, 2004, p. 34). This demarcation is drawn on historical facts collected primarily by Freund (1995) and Sousa (2000), which establishes: the first phase, in which the physical and chemical development of photography in 1839 served the rising bourgeoisie’s interests in producing images of themselves through science; the second phase, in which photography responds to the economic interests of private commercialization beginning in 1850; and, in the third phase, when photography addresses the social needs to visualize the world as it becomes industrialized in journalistic publications from 1880 onward.