WEEK 12: PHOTOJOURNALISM

I always admired the work of photojournalists in giving a series of photographs to show us the prove of reality. I always believed that Photojournalism has the motive to show the reality which differentiates its purpose from photography which sometimes depicts an illustration of reality. I rely on the work of photojournalist to see the reality that I wasn’t there to conceive with my own eyes, and with my own experience. The postmodern era marks the beginning of digital photography that has been claimed as the destruction to photojournalism on giving reality. My purpose of writing this journal is to argue that neither digital photojournalism nor traditional photojournalism is able to portray reality. Reality as it is cannot be conceived through camera. I want to raise the issue of “photographic truth” as the ethics of photojournalism in the photograph that do not involve manipulation and how these photographs  become untrue.

Photojournalism is the combination of photography and journalism. Stuart Allan in his book journalism: critical issues stated the statement made by Barbie Zelizer that "Photojournalism records an event by using pictures to make their own point of view of that particular issue. The importance of photography to support their point of view is that for many of us of age in mediated era, seeing is believing” (Allan, 2005).

Philosopher Immanuel Kant in his critique of pure reason introduced the transcendental idealism where he declare two different perception of how human being perceived reality, intuition and concept. He quoted that “intuition contains merely the form under which something is intuited” this means that our immediate perception gives us reality as it is. However, his other perception involves what he called a concept which is “through the former object is given to us, it is though in relation to that representation (Guyer, Wood, 1997).This means that our immediate perception (intuition) is where reality is being conceived as it is but the mediate perception (concept) involves our active mind to choose or to select certain aspect of that reality we conceived through the intuition , When human active mind chooses certain aspect of that reality, it is no longer the whole reality, it is already a representation.

Digital photojournalism has been accused as unethical as it involves the manipulation of reality through technologies while non-digital photojournalism portrays reality. I don’t think that either of these two portrays reality. I would like to use Immanuel Kant’s view on intuition and concept to be compared to photojournalism. Photojournalist conceives reality immediately as his eyes sees the events, his immediate perception is called intuition but as his mind becomes active, his mind allows him to select some parts of the events he want to depict through his camera, this selection of  the aspect of reality  is called a "concept". If non-digital, unaltered photograph are taken based upon the photojournalist point of view/perspective, doesn’t this already making it a mere representation of reality. The frame itself is taken upon his point of view making the narrative itself is selected by the photographer to be presented to the audiences. Doesn’t this show that audiences are already been force to interpret the events exactly like what the photographer want, they cannot interpret otherwise since the story portrays by the narrative is based upon photographer's agenda.

This is the photograph of war which depicts the event around the war, all the reality of the despair, the battle are presented as a story through the photograph without any technical involvement of photo manipulation. The photographer might not interfere with the events of the war, he took the picture and he left like a bird without altering anything in front of him. This might seems ethical, but think about the purpose of photojournalism, they offer to show audiences with reality. They claim that reality is captured through their camera, promising only reality. I think photograph like this is biased because it shows only one point of view of war; the photographer selected his frame base on his agenda to show only one aspect of war which is the battle. Audiences do not have a freedom to interpret this image by themselves as the frame is already selected for them. They can only see the denotation of the soldiers in a battle running in water with their guns. Audiences cannot interpret otherwise, they cannot think about any other meaning besides what has been presented to them. The glory of war is not selected in this frame even though in reality, war has a defeat as well as a glory. This picture alone cannot depict reality of war as it only shows one biased point of view. Audiences cannot see the portrayal of glory of the war due to the photographer’s biases in presenting his agenda.

This is the famous picture called "the migrant mother" taken in 1936 by Dorothea Lange. The mother who is living in poverty in USA depicts the portrayal of the truth of her condition. But we never think about the photographer’s agenda and also the subject of her photographs. The photographer shows only one aspect of her agenda which is to show the cultural critique of poverty, thus selecting this frame as her narrative. The photographer’s already choose this frame for interpreter’s to interpret, this do not leave any freedom for people like us to interpret what we want to interpret, and I can only interpret on what I see, through the photographer’s agenda. I also want to argue that this photograph is taken from a specific focus/angel which portrays the face of the mother. It seems that the mother was aware of the fact that she is being photograph. Once the subject is aware of the camera in front of her, doesn’t this make her human nature to act or to behave a certain way for the camera?  Surely this shows the reality of the mother being poor, but this picture is just the representation of her poverty.

This is another photographic picture of Hitler and the Nazis. In this picture, the subjects which is Hitler and the rest of the Nazis were perfectly aware that they are being photograph. This awareness makes their human nature to behave in front of the camera, hiding their true personality to make themselves look fierce, powerful and cruel. They act in front of the camera to reveal the brutality of being a Nazis.This picture masked the subject true selves, therefore this picture is not the portrayal of the reality of the Nazis, as its narrative is being structured by the subject themselves.

I have shown three photographs to illustrate my claims that taking a frame based on photojournalist point of view is already a manipulation to the truth, so I ask myself; what makes this different form digital manipulation like adobe Photoshop, cropping and editing. This is a form of manipulation as well; even though the manipulation does not involve technologies.

It is the nature of human beings to see, to think and to doubt. Due to the interferences of our mind, reality as it is in the external world will never be the same as it is to the mind of human being. Our mind enables us to think and to choose what we wanted to see. We are so attracted with the supposedly reality portrayed in photojournalism without any doubt that our mind became the destruction of that reality. This has leads us in an ongoing debate of the never ending ethical issues regarding the search for “photographic truth” in photojournalism.

References:

Allan, Stuart. (2005). Journalism: critical issues (Ed). Open University Press. Berkshire.

Guyer, Paul. Wood, Allen W.(1997). Immanuel Kant : A Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

WEEK 11: INFORMATION GRAPHICS

The use of information graphics is vital in media particularly in news and documentaries. I am always been interested by the courage of the media in giving consumers series of visual images to enhance a better understanding. I truly appreciate that they uses this images to make me understand the message being delivered. However, studying rationalism in philosophy has enhanced my skeptical believe on what I see in order to find certainties .Thus I always question that it might be made easy for consumer to understand through the use visual graphics but it is also easier for the media to manipulate visual graphics to make audiences support their agenda. The purpose of writing this journal is that I want to argue that visual graphics particularly statistics can be easily manipulated, thus deceiving our perception of the truth.

Jonathan Evans in his tilted book “ Bias in human reasoning stated that “Human beings have the fundamental tendency to seek information consistent with their current beliefs, theories or hypothesis and to avoid the collection of the potentially falsifying evidence”.( Evans, 1990 p.41).

Media biases sometimes uses information graphics to lured audiences into what they want them to believe, leaving no freedom for audiences like us to question and to interpret the meaning by ourselves. Statistics that are often presented in a form of graphs serves as a powerful weapon to persuade the public by giving empirical evidences that seems indisputable. Media is always been a powerful deceiving device to the public, they have their own agenda to be presented to audiences. They are what I call the evil/demon who has manipulated our perception just like what Descartes has mentioned in his second meditation.

Alex Fisher in his book titled critical thinking stated that “statistics are evidence expressed in numbers. Such evidence can seem quite impressive because of the numbers make evidence appear to be very scientific, often do, lie. They do not  necessarily prove what they appear to prove”. (Fisher, 2001).

News or documentaries certainly uses information graphic to support their proposition. This might not seems wrong on showing evidence to justify their claims. But when evidence itself is being manipulated, the whole information given to the audiences are deceptive, the evidences are all lie. Consumers can no longer see the truth. Here is the example of a mass persuasion made by information graphics, using statistics in a form of graph.

The former American vice president, Al Gore in his documentary called "an inconvenient truth " uses  a graph which is already been manipulated in order to raise the public concern of environmental issues and global warming. This graph is not real it is being manipulated to support his agenda on raising concern of environmental issues. The classical American hegemony of a powerful Al Gore has lured millions of viewers into believing that the graph shows the whole truth. His biased reasoning has made the documentary an instant hit. Viewers think that he is the all American hero without any doubt that he is in fact a liar. He claims that within less than 30 years the carbon dioxide concentration will increase and the world will be in danger of global warming. Knowing that viewers will never question the credibility of his graph, he has manipulate it to raise the public concern of global warming.

Here is the video of  Fox news blaming Al Gore about his lies. The debate showing the fox news calculating the numbers of carbon dioxide emission today, and comparing it to Al Gore's Graph. If it wasn’t because of the video regarding his lies, we might not know about his lies after all.

In conclusion, it seems that information graphics seems to be used for media for a better understanding but there are some statistical facts being manipulated to support their agenda. Information graphics doesn't always show us the whole truth as the media plays a vital role in deceiving people's perception. Human agenda has interfere the portrayal of the truth, something that are design to make an easier understanding for communication has turned into a deceiving communication.


References:

Evans, Jonathan St-B.T.( 1990) Biased in human reasoning. Lawrence Earlbaum Association Ltd Publishing. East Eussex.


Fisher, Alec.(2001). Critical thinking. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

WEEK 10: GAMES AND AVATAR IN THE INFORMATION AGE

Machines have now works like hands and also legs to human being. Nevertheless, Games and avatar creates such a virtual world that mimics reality, we are able to create a new life, a new identity, and communicate in a virtual world of cyberspace. As a consumer to technological products, I feel that we rely on technology to increase our limitation and to improve our imperfections. I feel that our dependent on technologies has made us more valuable. I have always been seeing myself as human without any doubt that I am otherwise.The purpose of writing this journal is that I want to investigate that whether our over dependent on technologies has made us a cyborg. Does the modern era where we live in have transform human into a hybrid of machine and human? 

Norbert Weiner in his book titled Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine stated that a cybernetic organism (cyborg) is a biological creature, generally a human being whose functioning has been enhanced through integration of mechanical, electrical, computational, or otherwise artificial, components. (weiner, 1965)

Andy Clark stated that 'human beings have always been  natural-born cyborgs, that is they always collaborated and merged with non-biological props and aids in order to find better environments for thinking". (Clark, 2003).

In order to investigate the true nature of ourselves, whether we are fully human or a hybrid of human and machines, I think the answer lies in the man who had started this ongoing debate. He was Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy. He introduced the mind/body dualism where he justified that mind and body are two separate entities. The distinction between mind and body enables a further idea of a body being a machine.

He also provides a solution to find certainties. His first meditation of philosophy began with his introduction of the method of doubt. In the book titled Rene Descartes : Meditation on the First Philosophy, Descartes quoted “some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehood that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them”. (Cottingham, 1986).

Doubt is our only solution of finding the truth. In order to find our true nature,  we have to doubt our human nature by seeing an opposite side of our inhuman, to see the contradicting point of view of Andy Clark whether we really are the natural born cyborgs.Our over consumption of technologies might be the reason that we are not fully human. we uses shoes in everyday to help us walk, we uses avatar and games to pleasure ourselves upon the technologies that help us to escape the imperfect live of reality. We use transportation to reach our destination. Social media help us communicate in a virtual world.

Avatar and games allow us to communicate in a virtual world, to create another version of our lives , we communicate, meeting people is possible through the game above called the second life. Over dependent on technologies has gone beyond reality, it has now transferred into virtual world. This shows how imperfect we are as a human being. The mindless machines has now helping us to increase our limitation, doesn't it make us a hybrid of human and machine( cyborg) where our lives is enhanced with technologies.This might seems not a strong enough reason to justify my claims that we are cyborgian in nature as we uses technologies externally but I will show  how human uses internal technologies.

I want to use the film “inspector gadget” as it has influenced me to know that human are cyborgian in nature due to our over dependent on technologies. Movies like inspector gadget has a purpose to open our eyes that we are not fully human. 

In this scene, Inspector John Brown is just an ordinary police officer but the accident that has left his body damaged made it clear that human “body” is in fact machine. His imperfect damaged body is replaced by advanced technologies to make him half human, and half machine. His body is replaced with the enhancement of machines in order to safe his live.  There are metals and wires everyday in his body. Thus, making him a cyborg. This situation of inspector gadget is highly impossible in real life. But when I think about it, there are some situations where this is possible but not to certain extend like the one in inspector gadget. But there are in fact some cases that made it possible for internal machines to be inserted in  human bodies, and become a part of them.

These are the pictures of an artificial heart machine, a new machine created to help heart patients improve their health condition. This shows that human uses machine internally as it is inserted in their bodies. Doesn’t this shows that there are humans whose bodies are half metal and half biological human. The patient's biological bodies is enhanced by technologies. There are machines in human bodies, functioning to help them continue living. Our consumption of technologies either internally or externally made us a cyborg. Internal and external use of technologies has enhanced our biological nature, which fit the definition of cyborg above. What can we do without technologies? Can our imperfect body works without the help of technologies. I am sure that we cannot, even to feed ourselves we need machines as well. To cook we need pan, to eat we need bowl and to drink we need a cup.

In conclusion, Descartes has purposed the idea of a machine as well as giving us a solution in the method of doubt to help us find certainties. He was right that there is a need to doubt in order to find certainties. In today’s modern era, technologies has been a part of our lives both externally and internally to help us in our everyday lives. We are blinded by our false knowledge that we are fully human. Only by having doubt we are able to acquire the truth about our true nature in the middle of our constant use of technologies. Philosophy has given human beings the ability to improve their intellectuality by proposing the idea of a machine as well as the solution to the consequences of our dependent on it.

References:  

Clark, Andy.(2003). Natural-born cyborgs : mind, technology and future of human intelligence. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

Cottingham, John.(1986). Rene Descartes: Meditation on the first philosophy. The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Cambridge.

Weiner, Norbert. (1948). Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. John Wiley & Sons Inc. New York