Journal of Literature and Art Studies, June 2017, Vol. 7, No. 6, 722-747 doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2017.06.010 Is Seeing Believing? A Critical Analysis of Japanese Colonial Photographs of Korea  Sunglim Kim Dartmouth College, Hanover, United States In order to assess Roland Barthes’ argument that interpretation of photography depends on cultural codes embedded therein, a collection of photos from the Japanese Government-General of Chōsen (GGC), which controlled Korea 1910-1945, were examined. These colonial images and associated text, commonly in English, were aimed primarily at the West, with which the Japanese sought alignment. Of the three common categories of GGC photos, “scientific” or “anthropological” images corresponded with portrayals by Western colonial powers of the supposed inferior nature of subjugated peoples and cultures. Individuals in such pictures tend to lose their identities and are reduced to a stereotype, less human than the observer. “Before and after” photos depicted alleged GGC progress in such areas as education and infrastructure. Pictures of “happy colonial subjects” conveyed an impression of Koreans enjoying the benevolence of the new administration. While this photojournalism favorably impressed some Westerners, others employed images of the 1919 Korean uprising, and its suppression, to discredit the Japanese. The overall assessment demonstrates the polemical manipulation of photography. Keywords: Anthropology, Coding, Colonialism, Japan, Korea, Photography, Photojournalism, Polemics Introduction Photography is often understood to objectively depict what is true and real. But the supposed objectivity of photography has been critiqued by many, including Roland Barthes (1915-1980), who argues that photography is neither transparent nor self-evident, but a sign saturated by culturally given codes. 1 Barthes argues that the meanings of photographs are inherently unstable and floating, and are fixed by the language that accompanies them. 2 If we take this critique as our departure point, we can understand that, in fact, photography is an ambiguous artifact, interpreted through complex cultural codes embedded in the images, and through explicit accompanying messages of the text. Such critical inquiry may be particularly applicable to photojournalism by the Japanese Government-General of Chōsen 3 (hereafter, GGC), which produced large numbers of photographs that were  Acknowledgements: I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Academy of Korean Studies and the Center for Korean Studies at University of California, Berkeley which supported to conduct this research during my graduate school years at UC Berkeley. Sunglim Kim, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College. 1 Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image,” from Image – Music – Text, selected and translated by Stephen Heath (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 32-51. 2 Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image,” from Image – Music – Text, selected and translated by Stephen Heath (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 32-51. 3 Chōsen: this is a word for Korea that has multiple significations; it was first used during the Japanese Occupation. Today it is used by North Korea as a national title. DAVID PUBLISHING D