Page 342 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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PaParazzi and PhotograPhiC ethiCs

Visual imagery is a core component of communication media and stunning
and controversial images circulate throughout the media spectrum. From ad-
vertisements to Internet sites, in newspapers and magazines, on billboards and
television, photographs are used to create consumer desire, grab the attention
of newsreaders, create fear and astonishment at disasters, and spark outrage
for destruction, scandal, and abuse. We live surrounded in a spectacular visual
geography, the world made visually available in ways unimagined in the past.
From the macro-photography of insects that awe and excite, to a microscopic
world that unfolds before our eyes, the earth and its wonders seemingly come
to life through photographs. Yet even in this proliferation of imagery, certain
pictures become emblems for social concerns and others circulate as the icons
of global controversy.
New technologies have expanded the possibilities for documentation, and the
ways photographs can be taken and disseminated. Digital cameras and comput-
ers made the images of torture at Abu Ghraib possible, and cell phones allowed
the clandestine footage of the execution of Saddam Hussein. Imagery of war is
central to the history of photojournalism, and the representation of suffering
and death remains a highly contested topic. Humanitarian workers recognize
that the public must see suffering to understand the need for resources and re-
lief. Yet graphic imagery can also create “compassion fatigue” and voyeurism,
responses that distance viewers from feelings of empathy for the people shown
suffering in photographs.
In the midst of this visual representation are the camera operators and edi-
tors, photojournalists and tabloid paparazzi, graphic designers and composers,

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