How does photography change culture?

Photography is a love of mine, and how people use photography and how it effects them is also an interest. A couple of blogs are talking about the Smithsonian Institute's new exhibit "Click! Photography Changes Everything."

I grabbed the post from blog Material World. Check it out.

From the post:

"The Initiative is collecting and sharing images and narratives that shed light on how photography influences who people are, what people do and what people remember. Has a photograph been used to document property loss, inspire a hairstylist, sell a house, beat a traffic ticket or helped with the decision about where to go on vacation? Has a single photograph ever influenced what someone believes in or who someone loves?"

The exhibit is also inviting viewers to participate by choosing photographs that affected them and explain why. This is a cool social experiment in itself; what types of photographs do people deem noteworthy and why? How do these pieces of paper or collection of pixels shape how we see the world? Why is seeing an image so much more powerful for most people than verbal explanations of it?