“This photographic assignment requires you to consider the suffix ism celebrated as the word of 2015 by Merriam-Webster, the online American dictionary website.
An article written by Alison Flood for the Guardian newspaper on Wednesday 16th December 2015 reported on the most popular words searched for in 2015 using Merriam-Websterʼs site: “Socialism” was the most looked-up word on Merriam-Websterʼs site this year (2015), a change the American dictionary publisher attributes to US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has positioned of himself as a “democratic socialist”. Last year (2014), “culture” was the dictionaryʼs top word; this year, socialism sparked “intense” curiosity, with an increase of 169% in look-ups compared to 2014, according to the dictionary. “Socialism has been near the top of our online dictionary look-up list for several years,” said editor-at-large Peter Sokolowsk. “However, this year look-ups for socialism moved up even further, beginning with the July campaign events for Bernie Sanders, remaining high throughout the following months and spiking again after the first Democratic debate in October.”
Merriam-Webster said that the fact that Sanders has embraced socialism “shows the term has moved beyond its cold war associations”. It has now included new information in its dictionary entry for the term, writing: “In the modern era, ʻpureʼ socialism has been seen only rarely and usually briefly in a few communist regimes. Far more common are systems of social democracy, now often referred to as ʻdemocratic socialismʼ, in which extensive state regulation, with limited state ownership, has been employed by democratically elected governments (as in Sweden and Denmark) in the belief that it produces a fair distribution of income without impairing economic growth.”
Socialism is not the dictionaryʼs word of the year, though – that honour goes for the first time to a suffix, “ism”, reflecting the fact that many of Merriam-Websterʼs most looked-up words in 2015 ended in “ism”. These include “fascism” – which saw a spike in look-ups following Donald Trumpʼs remarks about banning Muslims from entering the US – and “terrorism”, looked up frequently following the Paris, Colorado Springs and San Bernardino attacks. “In November,” said the dictionary, “some conservatives began using ʻfascistʼ to describe Trumpʼs proposals and style, and at the beginning of December, writers for Slate and the New York Times and a commentator on CNN all referred to Trump as a fascist, sending many people to the dictionary.” “Racism” look-ups increased by 50% over last year, prompted by the South Carolina church shooting, the University of Missouri protests and incidents of police violence, while “feminism” also saw a spike in searches thanks to “Amy Schumerʼs success, Hillary Clintonʼs candidacy and coverage of Caitlyn Jennerʼs story”. Two more -isms – “communism” and “capitalism” – complete a list of seven words that represent “millions of individual look-ups” over the last year.
A suffix is a letter or group of letters added at the end of a word which makes a new word. The new word is most often a different word class from the original word. A suffix can change verbs to adjectives and change verbs to nouns. For example, the word social is an adjective (a word that describes a noun or pronoun), but socialism is a noun (a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance or quality).
We would like you to use the suffix of …ism using the article by Alison Flood as inspiration to develop an idea or set of ideas as a prompt for creating a new set of images. We expect you to conduct and record the development of your ideas in a visual research journal along with supplementary research relevant to your ideas and practice. Using any technologies associated with photography you are open to explore the assignment. The final results of the experiment are to be presented as a sequence of images in a publication this could take the form of a zine, self-made book or print-on demand book. Attention to layout and sequencing of images and complimentary text is paramount in how the idea(s) will be received. Careful consideration of sequencing images is equally important. Consider the various from of sequencing available i.e. linear/nonlinear narrative, sequential, serial and taxonomic. How might they enhance the idea(s) being enunciated?”