Accessibility
The technology to create digital manipulations is so easily accessible nowadays that generally anyone with the software can become a creator of a contrived image. Easy to use tools can immediately alter images to create a manipulated copy, with the extent of the change left up to the one possessing the technology. Such simple accessibility including Moral Panics and the Internet, creates concerns relating to the abuse of advancing technology, causing truth to become a manufactured entity.
As Conklin explains, in the early 1980’s, exclusive printers would work with graphic designers, spending a small fortune to take advantage of the equipment and sought after skilled staff. Data was in digital pixel format at the time, though photo scanning capabilities were extremely expensive and exclusive to industry royalty (2001). The digital revolution has since spread to not only the graphic design world, but anyone possessing the right tools of the trade.
The advent of digital technology allows extensive user input. With a simple click of the mouse, objective data is transformed in various degrees of subtlety (Coats & Ramsey 2000, 32). Sophisticated editing tools and manipulation software are no longer only accessible by savvy industry professionals. Indeed, programs such as Adobe Photoshop allow potentially undetectable fabrications to imaging, and is available to generally anyone. The easy to use tools can immediately alter images to create a manipulated copy with the extent of change left up to the one possessing the technology.
With such a broad accessibility of image manipulation tools, issues surface about teaching techniques of image alterations with a strong basis of ethical conduct. Image manipulation is such a basic skill in graphic dependant industries such as advertising, print and electronic media. Along with this skill and accessibility, is an individual responsibility for vigilance and action to preserve the visual truth of information. Accessibility is directly related to ethical conduct, as manipulation is no longer a controlled avenue of technology and the extensive opportunity of access requires effective environment control and application to ethical practice.
Millie York 20:42, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
