Image Ethics in the Digital Age

From Photoshop to CNN, confronting the moral, legal, and professional dilemmas posed by digital technologies.

Over the past quarter century, dramatic technological advances in the production, manipulation, and dissemination of images have transformed the practices of journalism, entertain [...]
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From Photoshop to CNN, confronting the moral, legal, and professional dilemmas posed by digital technologies.

Over the past quarter century, dramatic technological advances in the production, manipulation, and dissemination of images have transformed the practices of journalism, entertainment, and advertising as well as the visual environment itself. From digital retouching to wholesale deception, the media world is now beset by an unprecedented range of moral, ethical, legal, and professional challenges. Image Ethics in the Digital Age brings together leading experts in the fields of journalism, media studies, and law to address these challenges and assess their implications for personal and societal values and behavior.

Among the issues raised are the threat to journalistic integrity posed by visual editing software; the monopolization of image archives by a handful of corporations and its impact on copyright and fair use laws; the instantaneous electronic distribution of images of dubious provenance around the world; the erosion of privacy and civility under the onslaught of sensationalistic twenty-four-hour television news coverage and entertainment programming; and the increasingly widespread use of surveillance cameras in public spaces. This volume of original essays is vital reading for anyone concerned with the influence of the mass media in the digital age.

Contributors: Howard S. Becker, Derek Bousé, Hart Cohen, Jessica M. Fishman, Paul Frosh, Faye Ginsburg, Laura Grindstaff, Dianne Hagaman; Sheldon W. Halpern, Darrell Y. Hamamoto, Marguerite Moritz, David D. Perlmutter, Dona Schwartz, Matthew Soar, Stephen E. Weil.

Larry Gross is professor and director of Annenberg School of Communication at University of Southern California. John Stuart Katz is professor of English and film studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Jay Ruby is professor of anthropology at Temple University. Together, they edited Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photography, Film, and Television (1988).