ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that photographic images also produce afterimages on the metaphoric mind's eye, and thus that afterimages also belong to the domain of visuality, sight as a social fact, and have historical and political dimensions. It focuses on news images, for such images inform political opinion long after they are no longer immediately before viewers' eyes. Certain photographs become news images, acquiring and occasionally losing value and credibility through their circulation. Even in a digital age, their production and circulation is far from automatic; it is determined by image brokers. In order to illustrate the visual battlefield that is integral to the War on Terror, the also chapter focuses on to a case study that illustrates how news images get deployed for particular political and military narrative functions and pay close attention to the medium specificity of these images.
