A dialética da objetividade do fotojornalismo: uma análise cultural da produção de sentido da foto "O Abutre e a Menina", por Kevin Carter

Abstract

This monograph analyzes the photograph “The Vulture and the Little Girl”, by Kevin Carter, through a cultural analysis approach to understand how the dialectic of objectivity produces meaning regarding ethical dilemmas in war photojournalism. Initially, it examines the materiality of the image, demonstrating how its rhetorical effectiveness denounced the crisis in Sudan while also marginalizing the victim’s identity, reducing her to a universal symbol of hunger. It then explores the tension between documentary record and public reception, highlighting the paradox between the photograph’s institutional recognition through the Pulitzer Prize and the severe moral judgment directed at the photographer for his alleged inaction. Finally, it investigates the psychological consequences of the demand for distance and objectivity. Carter’s tragic suicide illustrates the burden of alienated labor and the limits of the witnessing gaze, concluding that photojournalism operates on a conflicted boundary between the professional duty to inform and the human imperative to intervene.