Projecting Citizenship: Photography and Belonging in the British Empire, by Gabrielle Moser

Abstract

national ideals”; “forced a psychic transformation of the citizenry”; and made “it impossible for white moderates to ‘sit on the fence’ and forced viewers to choose either ‘for’ or ‘against’ the moral alternatives set out by the civil rights movement” (244–49).5 The “power” described is always top-down, with photographers, negative editors, picture editors, and managing editors shifting the beliefs of (implicitly) white readers. For such claims of power to stand as more than the hopes of an elite (whether Life employees or contemporary scholars), analysis is required of the psychological and social processes through which the photographs were made meaningful by the millions of Americans who read the periodical each week.