This contextualization of imagery would work to the disadvantage of powerful people who set up flattering photo-opportunities because it is difficult to deceive when there is a context provided. For example, providing other images from the situation which show the fake backdrop, the huge numbers of press recording an “intimate” moment, interviews with other eyewitnesses, or linking to other sites that do, would help demystify the photo-opportunity. Similarly, the person who is the subject of the photograph should, when possible, be provided access on the “World Wide” Web to refute, repudiate, or question the ways in which they are being portrayed. Then the photographer becomes a discussant, not the authority, explaining and even defending the basis for the interpretations.

Previously “local” media on the Web can be seen by very distant subjects (I look at an Argentinean newspaper from my computer in New York, for example) which will obviously further empower the middle-class subjects of media coverage somewhat as the upper classes, with their agents, have previously been advantaged. Publications from throughout the world are now available and stories can be cross-referenced. Those without home access to the Internet will be able in some cases to go to a local library or school, but a huge question still remains as to what extent the poor will become part of this information network. Will Africa be left out? At least in more affluent countries the slowly growing presence of computers in schools should help. And the ability of non-journalists to create their own Web sites that represent situations differently, circumventing the need for journalists, should also be palliative. But whether or not there will be universal access, which is highly doubtful, the possibility of one’s work being seen by those in the pictures is certainly greater, encouraging greater responsibility in the depictions.