There is little doubt that this photograph of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito – in full lip lock outside her cottage in Perugia, Italy, while police inside investigate the murder of her flat mate Meredith Kercher – helped seal their image in the collective public mind. The photo quickly went viral, and supported the prosecution and media’s contention that this young woman and man were totally callous and uncaring, so they must have had something to do with the murder.
In reality, however, the picture is not a stand-along photograph at all. Rather, it is a single frame from a video, and its selection tells us a whole lot more about those who chose to publish it than it does about the two seeming lovebirds.