The Security Guard and the Boy: Organisational Crisis Responses to Iconic Imagery

This paper examines organisational responses to eyewitness footage as a mediator in crisis communication. Eyewitness photographs and films is a growing genre of visuals that are difficult for organisations to respond to, because they are regarded as more authentic and true than other images of crisis events. In addition, it is here argued that widely circulated eyewitness imagery often involve iconic motifs with already established interpretation repertoires. The paper identifies and discusses three types of organisational response strategies to iconic imagery in eyewitness footage of a violent encounter between a boy and a security guard at a train station in Sweden, which raises questions of organisational responses to representations of power asymmetries.