What is the role of photography as a form of social communication?

Despite this tradition of staged, altered photos real is seen as good: This photo was overwhelmingly picked out by the people who I showed it to as being a photo that should be used to communicate life in the town to outsiders. One respondent said that the juxtaposition of an older women knitting with the baby in the foreground shows the strong family structure and that the fat, healthy baby is the hope and future of the family.

However, the photo also aroused a conversation about the authenticity of photos. One viewer was concerned to establish that this was a photo I had taken myself rather than taking a photo of someone else's photo. After I emphasized that it was a photo I took myself, she said it was one of her favourites of my photos because it was a real rather than fake image. This conversation highlights the increasing awareness and worry among Internet users about their images being downloaded and used for other purposes, particularly images of their children that they have uploaded in their QQ space. Many people protect their online photo albums with passwords so that only friends and family can view their images.