In the “the Civil Contract of Photography”, Azoulay discussed the ethic issue of photography through the political perspective. How is power relation revealed through photography? How is the photography involved with the responsibility of citizenship? The resistance of social injustice are established though the civil contract of photography. The spectator is called to take part in this contract, their position is the photography can be seen as a political action, Azoulay uses the definition of Arendt to demonstrate it: “ This is the precise definition of action that Arendt gives in order to distinguish it from work and labor. Even when a spectator merely glances at a photograph without paying special attention to what appears in it, the photo rarely appears to the gaze as a mere object”. (Azoulay, P129) Photo can invoke others’ action but the result is not predictable: “The photo acts, thus making others act. The ways in which its action yields others’ action, however, is unpredictable. In addition to noting this indeterminacy, which is oriented toward the future, Arendt describes action in terms of overdetermination when she contends that action is irreversible. The deed cannot be undone. Photography is bound to this description: The image inscribed within it cannot be undone. (Azoulay, P129)
To be more specific, In the “Undocumented, unafraid, and unapologetic”, Beltran describe the performativity of image (social media), which is a good example of Azoulay’s statement. Protests create political conversations through popular social media platform, which broke the traditional discussion methods in the serious institutions. The way people reacting may reform our impression of political participation as a citizenship. In the case study of the DREAM act, the power relation of being photographed is already changed from passive to positive. People want to “be photographed” to share their voice online, they want to change from objects to subjects: “The creation of such publics and counterpublics has allowed DREAMers to challenge older forms of authority and representative speech, creating new spaces in which the undocumented are not objectified members of a criminalized population who are simply spoken about but instead are speaking subjects and agents of change”.(Beltran, P81)
Similarly, Ranciere deepens the power relation between spectator and photo more profound. In The Emancipated Spectator, The spectator is no longer in the passive position, but rather in an active presence. Furthermore, Ranciere raised the ethic issue of photography also by mentioning “Intolerant image”—”Is it reasonable to present an image that invokes the feeling of suffering to people?” (P82, Ranciere) It`s a possible way to let unpolitical people to engage in political event: “it was supposed to open the eyes of those who enjoy this happiness to the intolerability of that reality and to their own complicity, in order to engage them in the struggle.” (P85, Ranciere) People tried to ignore the suffering of real-world to relief their responsibility. However, images forced them face to the injustice again: “People feel guilty for doing nothing, who lives in the wealth a and imperialism will be noticing what happens in the REAL world. People realized they have the responsibility of social struggling” (P85, Ranciere) . The relations between said and unsaid, visible and invisible, are paradoxical.
Therefore we need photos, as a spectator, the tolerance and empathy is the basic quality of being a citizenship— “we need images of action, images of the true reality or images that can immediately be inverted into their true reality. In order to show us that the mere fact of being a spectator, the mere fact of viewing images, is a bad thing.” (P87, Ranciere)