Ethics
There are several conflicting ethical and moral dilemmas surrounding the practice of digital image manipulation. Ethics presupposes ones awareness of right and wrong and evaluates conduct as being reflective of moral values. It seeks to provide guidelines by integrating or balancing personal values with institutional obligations (Wheeler 2002, 70). Images have such a powerful position in today’s society: they have provided a way of relating to the world - not only cognitively, but also emotionally, aesthetically, morally and politically. Photography had become a privileged means for understanding the ‘truth’ about the world, its nature and its properties. The 19th century presented photography as an artistic and technical work, but in response to the development of new digital electronic technologies, the concept of post-photography (Robins, 1995, 29) has developed the registration, manipulation and storage of images. The drastic growth of communications in the early 1990’s, technologies such as satellites, the internet as a new media and virtual reality have seen photographs and images seamlessly modified to produce new and morally questionable representations. These new technologies are associated with the emergence of a wholly new kind of visual discourse.
In national surveys sent to photographers, editors, and educators, as if guided by a single voice, all exclaim the same concern: The most serious threat to the integrity and credibility of photojournalism images is computer manipulation (Brink, 1988).
As digital technologies continue to revolutionise all mass media, focus is placed on credibility and responsibility, as there is currently no specific code of ethics relating to digital image media. The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) produced a statement designed to protect the integrity of photojournalism:
This statement is a proficient outline of photojournalism ethics, though cannot be successfully applied to all areas of image manipulation from other mediums.
The moral dilemmas provoked by new media technologies have called for the establishment of a specific digital ethics code to implement an effective protocol in the industry. As Charles Stuart University (1999) outline, there have been adaptations of philosophical theories, such as Utilitarianism, applied to image construction and presentation, but the developing world of technology requires a particular system to contend with issues of privacy, rights and standards which concern both business and publics alike.
As Wheeler explains, with every new graphics software program, with each discovery of a new processing technique, the opportunities for fictionalising images become even more numerous and tempting. (2002, 41). At present, our ability to manufacture fraud practically exceeds our ability to detect it. Photographic truth is an elusive, often subjective, concept. Digital manipulation crosses a broad spectrum of art, media and journalism mediums. When objective truth is put first, photographs and the stories behind them create inspiring arrangements, but it is when the truth is no longer considered in the taking or manipulating of an image, that those involved will ultimately decide, with the presence or absence of ethical considerations, what the audience will be exposed to. The threat to credibility is irreversible if the public starts to mistrust the integrity of the news photograph.
Millie York 20:46, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
