

This will date you a bit. Back in the 1950s and ‘60s Western analysts examined photos of public events, particularly the Soviet Union’s May Day celebration of the victory over the Nazis in WWII, to see who was standing next to whom on the dais in Red Square. This to detect signals of the internal pecking order amongst the rulers of the Soviet Union.
With the installation of the Trump cabal this week we saw pictures like this one of Trump’s billionaires standing in the front row at his inauguration.
The Dayton Daily News has already gotten into this style of journalism.
Or, the Rolling Stone: