oa Een beeld zegt meer dan duizend woorden

Picturing parliament. Photojournalists in the Dutch parliament in the 1970s

This article aims to fill a gap in the historiography of parliamentary visual culture and specifically parliamentary photography in the Netherlands. While the 1970s are considered the heyday of parliamentary photography, historical research has mostly focused on the Interbellum and specifically the work of one photographer, Erich Salomon. Research on media in the 1970s concentrates on the impact of the growing popularity of television, when in fact parliamentary photography was also booming during this period. This article explores the impact of parliamentary photography on the Dutch parliament and its members in the 1970s. It makes a distinction between the impact of the presence of photographers in political spaces such as the plenary hall of parliament and the impact of the photographs themselves, their content, and their specific style.