num_pages: 328
description: For millions of readers, Nat'l Geographic has long been a window to the world of exotic peoples &amp; places. This account of an American institution explores the possibility that the magazine, in purporting to teach about distant cultures, actually tells us much more about our own. Lutz &amp; Collins go inside the Nat'l Geographic Society to investigate how its photographers, editors &amp; designers select images &amp; text to produce representations of 3rd World cultures. Thru interviews with editors, they describe the process as one of negotiating standards of balance, objectivity, informational content &amp; visual beauty. Then, in a close reading of some 600 photos, they examine issues of race, gender, privilege, progress &amp; modernity thru an analysis of the way such things as color, pose, framing &amp; vantage point are used in representations of non-Western peoples. Finally, interviewing readers, they assess how the magazine's cultural narratives are received &amp; interpreted, &amp; identify a tension between the desire to know about other peoples' ways &amp; the wish to validate middle-class American values. The result is a complex portrait of an institution &amp; its role in promoting a kind of conservative humanism that acknowledges universal values &amp; celebrates diversity while allowing readers to relegate non-Western peoples to earlier stages of progress. We see the magazine &amp; the Society as a middlebrow arbiter of taste, wealth &amp; power. We get a telling glimpse into middle-class culture &amp; all the wishes, assumptions &amp; fears it brings to bear on armchair explorations of the world.
language: English
title: Reading National Geographic
titlecomplete: Reading National Geographic
genres: Cultural, Anthropology, Photography, History, Cultural Studies, Theory, Nonfiction, College, School
ratings_count: 165
publisher: University of Chicago Press (IL)