A qualitative analysis of the lived experiences of Colombian female photojournalist and their relationship with embodied visual activism in the context of feminist protests in Colombia

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores how gender inequality in the photographic staff of the main Colombian media outlets, has established a hegemonic view of representation and examines the way recent social outbursts in the country, have been the ideal setting for the rise of citizen journalism, visual activism, and new visual citizenships. It seeks to present how diverse individuals, including female photojournalists are producing alternative visual narratives and igniting a paradigm shift on traditional photojournalism. By embracing new digital visualities and depictions of the other, these individuals are confronting traditional media organizations, questioning their visual narratives, inclusion, and representation policies.   Positioned from a Phenomenological and Feminist Media Theory standpoint, this project aims to observe this phenomenon from the bottom up, building from the experiences of the subject’s study. This project will consider emotions, affections lived experiences of three Colombian female photojournalists in active exercise of their profession, who will take part of this study, and those experiences will be basic inputs of interpretation. I contend that not sufficient research has been done on this topic, and expose an evident research gap, existing in Latin-American and Colombian Media Studies, since it’s connected to new technologies, recent social change and in general, a phenomenon still developing. Drawing from a Phenomenological Psychology field methodology, data will be obtained through semi-structured interviews and examined with coding and interpretation tools provided by this discipline. This study concludes how the female body becomes a political and visual signifier exercising an embodied practice in photojournalism, but also by emotions connected to what they are seeing through their lenses, which in turn, produces affective visualities and narratives many times, opposed to the claims of objectivity, rationality and newsworthiness traditional journalism stands for.