ABSTRACT
Images play an increasingly important role in global politics, so much so that some speak of a ‘pictorial turn’ (Mitchell, 1995). Our understanding of terrorism, for instance, is inevitably intertwined with how images dramatically depict the events and actors in question and with how politicians and the public respond to these depictions. Images are, of course, not new, nor have they necessarily replaced words as the main means of communication. But images are now produced and circulated in ever faster and more complex ways and in the context of a rapidly changing global media economy. Understanding the political nature and impact of images has thus become more challenging too. Several methodological problems stand out.
