Non-professional visuals framing the news coverage of the death of muammar gaddafi

Amateur footage of breaking news events published first on social media sites tends to be more graphic than other forms of visual and audio-visual journalism, thus pushing the limits of the amount and degree of mediated violence and death shown in the established news media. The mediation and remediation of graphic images from social media constitute a pronounced tendency which has rapidly gained ground since the turn of the century due to the emergence of digital communication technologies and the blurring of boundaries between media producers and media users. Taking our point of departure in a content analysis of the way selected newspapers used and framed the amateur pictures of the killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, this chapter investigates the following research question: What characterizes non-professional visuals of violence and death used as source material, and in which ways do they set and define the agenda of the established news media’s coverage of major news events?.