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Abstract

In 2010, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) commemorated its 50th anniversary by launching an anniversary Web site, which includes links to a photographic timeline, videos, and documents that the agency views as important in telling its history. This article uses concepts from narrative theory and visual rhetoric to analyze the images used in the NASA History Timeline, paying special attention to why certain images were selected as historical markers over other photographs that are more widely published and televised. Specifically, the author uses arguments from Sontag’s On Photography and Barbatsis’s “Narrative Theory” to explain how NASA’s photographic narrative provides a story with a plot that spans from triumphs and tragedies in space exploration to pioneering efforts in racial, ethnic, and gender diversity.

Keywords

race ethnicity diversity NASA narrative theory technical communication visual rhetoric photography

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