What are the ethics of digital manipulation? What should be censored?

Following on from the censorship and truth lecture, I have found examples of graphic design that have been edited, so we don't know the truth about the image, or have been censored from us. [see blog post].


I've done a bit more research by looking in to the ethics of digital manipulation. The question posed is: how much truth are we allowed to see with photographic manipulation?


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http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/ETHICS.HTM

How can we believe anything we see anymore? With today's technology, we can literally do anything we want with images.



When photography was first invented, its overwhelming power came from the fact that it recorded nature more realistically than any other art form had ever done before. Because of this, people trusted it and believed it portrayed "reality" and "truth".
But, just as story telling could portray the "truth" with an accurate accounting of the facts, it could just as easily become fiction. Fake and manipulated photographs - visual fiction - began circulating not long after the invention of photography.

This is maybe one of the most famous examples of image manipulation before the invention of photoshop. In 1917, Elise Wright, age 16, and her cousin Frances Griffiths, age 10, used a simple camera to produce what they claimed were photographs of fairies in their garden in Cottingley, England

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When we correct, manipulate and enhance images in Photoshop, we must deal with questions of both ethics and aesthetics.

Aesthetics, on the other hand, deal with the nature of beauty, art and taste, and things that are pleasing in appearance.

Ethics are a set of rules that we invent that define what we think is good and bad. The dictionary says ethics are "a set of moral principles or values" and that ethical means "conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct".


With digital processing, there is almost no limit to what can be done to an image, and many things are done to images with the best intentions. The question is, when does the pursuit of aesthetics violate our ethics?


Changes can be made to images that are undetectable, so much so that there is now discussion that photographs will no longer be allowed as evidence in courts of law.


Today's viewers however, are very sophisticated visually. They know full well that anything, literally, can be done to an image. They have seen dinosaurs and aliens portrayed with lifelike realism in the movies. Problems arise though because viewers expect to be fooled in the movies, and tend to get upset and feel betrayed when they are fooled in an allegedly factual medium such as the news business.


How much is too much, how far is too far?

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Graphic Design as Communication


This example shows how graphic design can be powerful, and maybe even have negative effects, so it does need to be censored to protect the viewer.

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The last example made me look on the ASA website, and I found their  codes of advertising, which give advice for advertisers, so that things aren't made that could potentially offend people.

Points include:

• Care should be taken when featuring or addressing children in marketing communications.
• The way in which children perceive and react to marketing communications is influenced by their age, experience and the context in which the message is delivered. Marketing communications that are acceptable for young teenagers will not necessarily be acceptable for younger children. The ASA will take those factors into account when assessing whether a marketing communication complies with the Code.
• Marketers should take account of the prevailing standards in society and the context in which a marketing communication is likely to appear to minimise the risk of causing harm or serious or widespread offence.