Accepting Manipulation or Manipulating what's Acceptable?

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Accepting Manipulation or Manipulating what's Acceptable?

Introduction

This paper will focus on the issues of photojournalism, a term recently developed because of the advancement in computing and technology. In the past journalism was bound to a number of procedure and formalities of a dark room. With the modernization of computing and technology there is easy accessibility of information for everyone. However, as the ease of obtaining information and accessibility of images has increased; there is also an increase in the issues of integrity of such pictures and images. Modern tools are used to manipulate pictures and photographs and the relevance and integrity of information on these images are jeopardized. Ethical practices in photojournalism in the modern era are a significant concern. For this reason the focus of this paper will be on the article, “Accepting Manipulation or Manipulating what's Acceptable?” by Aaron Quinn.

Article Summary

In his article Quinn identified a number of issues related to modernization of journalism and ethical issues that have emerged on the basis of integrity of information. The two main questions that are highlighted by Quinn includes; (1) What are the proper ethical guidelines for post-shoot photo manipulations (manipulations made after the photo has been taken)? (2) How much should we rely on intra-camera exposure calculations instead of post-shoot manipulations? The first question indicates the importance of ethical constraints in editing and manipulating images after they are taken. On the other hand, the second question indicates the degree of reliance that we can put on the machines or cameras for the integrity, honesty, justice and prudence of the information depicted in images by using digital mediums (Quinn, 2003).

The strong disagreement of truth in photographs has come into question, with the era of digital editing software in 1990s, photographs can be easily manipulated. Quinn emphasized that photograph truth is a myth because he regarded truth as always culturally infected. Photographs are objects of deep emotional content because through photographs we remember events, they are crucial to what we remember. Photographs are objects that channel effect in ways that often seem magical. Photographs indicate moments in which times stop and pierce ones feeling and heart. They also serve as banal traces of the real evidence which has happened. A photograph has power which is primarily informative and power resides in the mythical truth value of the photograph. An additional contradiction of photography, is that we know images can be ambiguous they can be altered and manipulated with the help of digital photography, and photographs are truthful records of events. The knowledge of imaging is only till the legacy of objectivity is only limited to the fact that cameras and machines only produce images, even as increasing availability of digital imaging of software can easily alter and replicate photographs.

Previously it was the common perception which people have that whatever the photograph is showing is the same as it exists in reality. People had the perception that whatever a photograph carries is the exact imprint ...