Anyway I would like to talk about two topics. I guess that both of them could be a nice Reflective Case Study but that's probably not what am I going to do myself. But well who knows^_^. My research on anything having to do with Fantasy Art is not leading me anywhere 'in terms of academic research'.
EDIT: it seems that the other topic will be covered in another post.
disclaimer: Everything I write on this blog is something that comes from my brain directly, no editing. This probably means that the quality of the following text won't be that good but it's the ideas I want to have here. This kind of .. links me to the information I've found and what it evoked.
I might fix the referencing later...I'll have to learn it once again
1. Fauxtography
This topic is has been here for a while and many people discussed its ethical and moral issues. We see photoshopped images everyday in advertisement and on the internet. But what happens when someone discovers that a certain photo showing a historic event is fake (or contemporary one)?
Lately people are rather sceptical to mass media be it. The main stream media are often considered exaggerated. But where this come from?
During the past decade blogging has become very popular. This enables people to express their feelings and show their point of view on a certain subject. Certain blogs challenging the main stream journals appeared. These journalists' aim is to provide more accurate information than the information provided by mass media thus challenging them. People respond better to more personalized views and the content of the blogs is more varied than the one of mass media.
In 2006 a Lebanese photograph Adnan Hajj submited photos of Israel-Lebanon conflict to Reuters News Agency. The journal published those photos not knowing the photos were doctored. On August 5th Charles Johnson posted an entry on his blog - Little Green Footballs - about this particular photo.
This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image.[1]
On the very same blog we learn about the smoke not being the only manipulated part. There as well buildings cloned.
But it's not only the plumes of smoke that were “enhanced.” There are also cloned buildings.[1]
This wasn't the only photo Adnan Hajj manipulated. Reuters published a photo of a Izraeli F16 firing ground-attacking missiles.
... the original photo of the Israeli F-16 was probably of a single anti-SAM chaffe flare being dropped. In other words, the F-16 which Reuters proports to show firing missiles at Lebanon, was taking defensive measures.[2]
In response to the first Adnan's doctored photo Reuters notified their customers apologizing with
“Photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvenience.” [3]
Soon after this articles about breaching ethics surfaced. Soon after this next Hajj's photo was discovered to be manipulated. Reuters suspended Hajj but Reuters' credibility was already questioned. No matter how the photo managed to get published there was a breach in the company's policy (or standards would be more adequate as no company needed to deal with photo manipulation of this scale earlier - the policy was changed later).
Six months later Hajj was fired from Reuters. But damage was done already. The reputation had to be once again regained. Tom Glocer Reuters CEO said:
“The upside of the flourishing blogosphere is that beyond our own strict editorial standards, there is a new check and balance. I take my hat off to Charles Johnson, the editor of Little Green Footballs. Without his Web site, the Hajj photo may have gone unnoticed.” ("Trust in the Age of Citizen Journalism", Tom Grocer, 2006)
The whole controversy became a scandal after Reuters' editor discovered the blog post on Little Green Footballs. Reuters took action and started investigating (which resulted in firing Hajj) but the more important is what happened on the internet. After LGF post many bloggers and readers alike started investigation of their own discovering more photos that were manipulated. Posting this on their blogs (crosslinking and posting similar content) is what created a momentum for the scandal. The loyal audience commenting on the issues drives the content forward. Even though this scandal main opposition was Johnson, the audience is not negligible, their number is great and they are together a challenge to the mass media. The public is now aware of photo manipulation and what it can cause and together they can doubt and question information given. Themselves, they can start an investigation that can either prove the information right or discredit it and prove it wrong.
[1] "Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?". Little Green Footballs. August 5, 2006. http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut&only. Retrieved 2011-10-08.
[2]
"Another Fake Reuters Photo from Lebanon". The Jawa Report. August 6, 2006. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/184206.php. Retrieved 2011-10-08.
[3] Yaakov Lappin, 6/8/2006
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