Taylor Abreu
Believe it or not, not everyone has your best interest in mind, especially big business that are only looking to make a quick buck off of you in the end. In order to make their products look the most appealing and persuade an audience, magazines and businesses will often alter the images of products, models, and even the background location of the image. This is not only false advertisement; it also causes distrust and exacerbates the already flimsy relationship that the public has with the media.
The media being this comfortable with taking a few “liberties” in the editing of their photos is really quite scary. As a society, we are growing more used to the simple fact that typically the images we see are not true to life, “The increased manipulation of images has conditioned readers, already accustomed to digital effects in movies and on television, to expect not an accurate photo, but an image that’s a heightened version of the truth” (Haughney).
Just because an article has an image or a video attached to it, still does not make it factual! Photos are retouched all the time. Not to mention the angle that which the photo was taken can give it a completely different connotation than the original intent.
 |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MflT0I7ZPCs |
Photo editing software has gotten so advanced, that details that you could never imagine can now be faked, enhanced, or completely erased, “…Photo editing software is very versatile and has numerous capabilities, … You can make a person look thinner, or younger. You can remove a double chin, you can make food look more delicious and appetizing – think redder apples and juicier steaks.” (Davis). Videos can also be edited and cut in such a way that makes the subject appear better or worse to an audience, depending on the intent of the article of course.
Overall, reliable news sources do a pretty good job of checking their facts and correcting themselves when an error was made in their decision making on what to publish. Edits are always going to be made to photos to make them more appealing, but being aware of the possibilities of falsified images and videos is very important as a media consumer. Do not consider everything you read a fact, even if it comes from a reliable source. Try to make it a habit to get multiple points of view and dive deeper into a topic before you consider yourself truly educated on it!
Sources
Davis, M. (2012, September 14). Faking Photos: The Ethics of Photo Manipulation. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://www.digitalethics.org/essays/faking-photos-ethics-photo-manipulation
Haughney, C. (2012, July 20). Who Can Improve on Nature? Magazine Editors. Retrieved July 16, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/arts/magazine-editors-and-photographers-on-retouching-photos.html?pagewanted=all
No comments:
Post a Comment