Photography and the Death of Media Literacy

In the shifting landscape of photography, something fundamental is being lost—not just in the way we engage with images, but in our ability to read and create them with depth. This isn’t just about influencers hijacking the medium or the dominance of algorithm-friendly aesthetics. It’s deeper than that. It’s about media literacy itself—an understanding of how images function, how they speak, and how they can tell a story beyond the confines of a single, eye-catching frame.

By supporting your local documentarists, me thinks

Whereas the documentary and street photography of thirty plus years ago often carried a social or cultural commentary, today’s visual culture feels notably less rugged, less investigative. It is as if photography’s journalistic instinct had been significantly atrophied. Instead of revealing dysfunction, documenting change, or capturing political turmoil, content now primarily serves to entice. Travel photography, for instance, has largely abandoned the notion of witnessing in favor of selling a dream—images that resemble glossy brochures rather than a critical look at place, culture, or society. The photographer has shifted from observer to lifestyle promoter, from documentarian to aspirational guide.

I recently bought Greg Girard’s JAL 76-88, a book documenting Tokyo in its transitional stage leading to Japan’s economic bubble. His work—deeply rooted in social commentary, the quiet poetry of transition, and the grit of real places—has been rediscovered in recent years, but not for its intent. Instead, it is his aesthetic that has driven his resurgence: neon-lit cityscapes, moody film textures, and an aura of urban nostalgia—all of it captured on real slide film, the ultimate fetish object for analog purists and hipsters alike. What those fixated on surface appeal seem to forget is that what made Girard’s work compelling in its time was not just its look, but its layered perspective—the way it captured an era and a sociopolitical shift. Yet, in today’s social media-fueled rediscovery, that context is often stripped away. The conversation is no longer about what the images say, but how they look.

That is a dangerous reduction.

I struggle to answer a question that seems essential:

How do we communicate the importance of narrative, of sequencing, of series-building to a generation fixated on the singular, high-impact shot? Many new photographers are slaves to the one-shot mentality, conditioned by the algorithm to focus on what garners the most engagement rather than what builds meaning over time. I can tell that some of them sense, without quite being able to articulate it, that there’s a call for something more—hence the occasional attempts at diptychs and triptychs. But beyond these isolated gestures, the concept of a body of work remains alien to them.

Not only do they fail to find series appealing—they fail to grasp their very function. The idea that photography is inherently narrative within a sequence of six, twelve, or more images is simply not part of their visual vocabulary. To them, a strong image stands alone, and anything that doesn’t immediately demand attention is discarded. They will look at a carefully crafted sequence and fail to connect the dots, blind to the dialogue between images, unmoved by the narrative unfolding before them. They will find entire projects “boring” because some images, when taken out of context, appear visually weaker—never considering that these quieter images serve a structural role, that they provide contrast, rhythm, and depth to the whole.

This lack of understanding is more than just a matter of taste; it signals a fundamental shift in the way photography is perceived. Where photographers once thought in terms of essays, books, and exhibitions, the new norm is the endless scroll—a flood of disjointed, high-impact visuals designed to capture attention in a fraction of a second. And as this model becomes dominant, the very idea of long-form photographic storytelling risks fading into obscurity.

But how do we bridge that gap? How do we teach the importance of visual storytelling when photography itself is shifting away from that model?

The skill of building a book, for instance, is extensive. It has its own rules of pacing, rhythm, and juxtaposition. The same goes for exhibitions—curation is an art in itself, where meaning is not just in individual images but in their interplay. Yet, to many younger photographers, these concepts are foreign, because their engagement with photography has been dictated by a medium that does not reward slowness or sequence. They are like the people in Plato’s cave, staring at shadows without ever seeing the fire that casts them. How do we lead them out?

This model of slow, deliberate photographic storytelling still exists—it survives in agencies (like Magnum, VII, Noor) and within certain photography schools—but these increasingly feel like a dying breed. In a world where images are consumed at the speed of a flickering screen, where does the long-form photographic essay belong? How do we ensure that photography retains its ability to document, to challenge, and to endure?

If we care about media literacy in photography, then our role is clear: we must push back against the tide. We must teach, write, and create work that demands to be read, not just glanced at. We must build and support platforms that prioritize substance over style. And above all, we must find ways to reach those young photographers staring at the shadows—because if we don’t, they may never even realize that there was more to see.