The Screen, Financial Information and Market Locale

Two kinds of screen have played a paramount role in informing the general public about a financial crisis. The first kind of screen is the trading screen; the second kind of screen belongs to a device from which the viewers learn about the crisis. The screen device can be a computer screen, a handheld screen, a television screen, or a cinema screen. In other words, the trading screen that reflects a crisis is mediated through another screen that informs a popular understanding of the crisis. Media studies scholars have long been interested in understanding how television and films construct social relations, but they have paid little attention to how information on the trading screen constructs a relation between the screen and the viewers. This chapter aims to fill in the gap. To illustrate how the two kinds of screen constitute meanings of a financial crisis, consider how photojournalists choose to represent a financial crisis and how the viewers understand photojournalistic representations on a device screen. Googling ‘financial crisis’ images will yield many photos that show trading screens in the background and a trader in the foreground. Photojournalists use semiotic cues to visually communicate what a crisis looks like. First, the red tiny figures on the screen mean the market is in trouble because stock prices are falling (see also Ch. 4 about prices printed on ticker tape). Second, the posture of the male trader (head lowered; back leaning against the chair) shows his resignation. Third, the position of the screen in relation to both the trader and the photo viewers directly invites the audience to make meanings of the screen and the trader. Why is this image commonly used to represent a financial crisis? Unlike events such as natural and human-made disasters, a financial crisis is intangible: its damage can neither be seen nor touched. In addition, the causes of a crisis are too complicated to illustrate: while terrorists are blamed for