ABSTRACT
While eyewitness images are proliferating, the eyewitness as a figure has subsided into the background. This development entails continuities as well as changes. Many of the qualities conventionally associated with the witness and witness testimonies are still vital to eyewitness pictures, including subjectivity, proximity, attributed authenticity, and lack of narrative unity. However, to define eyewitness images, a change of focus is required. Whereas the previous chapter perceived the witness as a privileged source of information, performing a ritualized role in the institutionalized media, this chapter theorizes witnessing as practices of creating and disseminating visual source materials by individuals with no or loose affiliation to media institutions.
