Photography and the Languages of Reconstruction after the Second World War

Last month, CGHH’s Deputy Director Dr Alexander Medcalf spoke on the WHO’s public information strategies at the ‘Photography and the Languages of Reconstruction after the Second World War’ conference at Cardiff University (www.cardiff.ac.uk/events/view/photography-and-the-languages-of-reconstruction-after-the-second-world-war,-1944-49). Drawing on his articles on the WHO in the Journal of Global History and Medical History, Dr Medcalf gives us a brief introduction to how the WHO used photographs as part of its public information activities.

"The WHO created a public information office (PIO) to address the section of its Constitution which specified that education and information for the public was necessary for the WHO to achieve its goals. For health measures to have lasting value, people of all ages needed to be persuaded to take an interest and responsibility for solving their health problems and those affecting their community. However, the WHO recognised that in order for this to be effective it needed to find ways to balance information that was timely, accurate and informative, but also interesting and engaging.

The WHO developed an array of means of inciting interest in the agency and the health situation around the world: exhibitions, publications and films. But photographs were especially useful and helped to construct a pervasive vision about what it meant to be healthy or suffer disease. The WHO disseminated photographic work through its own public-oriented magazine, the WHO Newsletter. Photos took pride of place in Newsletter, on the front cover and features inside. Through it the WHO sought to reach out to as many people as possible and encourage them to see the world ‘through the eyes of the WHO’.

Initially photographs were contributed by WHO staff working in the field, but these were deemed to lack professional quality. In May 1950 a visual media expert was assigned to arrange photographic missions on the WHO’s worldwide activities and the agency came to rely on well-regarded photographic agencies such as Magnum, and eminent photojournalists who were seen to provide better, hard-hitting and captivating imagery. That said, the appearance of individual photographs was the result of input from many individuals. Once each photo mission was authorized, photographers were supplied with background information on the countries and the topics in question. Sometimes we see very specific instructions and lists of preferred shots and topics provided to photographers. When the photographic material was returned to the WHO, PIO officials selected the shots for publication. This process wasn’t simply about gathering evidence or being an eyewitness, but about constructing a particular narratives.

We can conclude that the WHO's efforts to construct and disseminate visual messages were successful. Newsletter had a good reach, appearing the in tens of thousands and in multiple languages. Articles and photographs printed in Newsletter were made freely available for reproduction enabling the WHO to feature in many external publications. A report on public information projects undertaken between November 1953 and June 1954 recorded that several popular magazines had devoted long stories to the WHO. Regional offices worked to inspire international coverage by arranging for material to be placed in local picture magazines. But judging the effect of public information work on the intended audience was harder. The records do not suggest that a comprehensive answer was ever obtained. It remained difficult to estimate the size of the audience reached by WHO information, and even harder to assess the extent to which public attitudes were changed.

Thus the WHO was able to put its work and vision in front of millions. But that was not the end of the story. In the 1970s the WHO began to look more closely at the effects of this imagery and, as Joao Nunes and I explore in our article 'Visualising Primary Health Care: World Health Organization Representations of Community Health Workers' , there were many challenges in picturing certain topics."

Further reading:

Alexander Medcalf, ‘Between Art and Information: Communicating World Health, 1948-1970’, Journal of Global History 13, 1 (2018), 94-120.

Alexander Medcalf and Joao Nunes, 'Visualising primary health care: World Health Organization representations of community health workers, 1970-1989’, Medical History 62, 4 (2018), 401-24.