Image ethics

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The image Ethics discussed the morally correct handling of images in the (mass) media in the tension between information function and personality rights . "The use of images in the practice of interpersonal and mass media communication ties images into normative contexts and poses questions about how to act correctly with images that fall within the scope of image ethics."

Image ethics can be understood as a branch of media ethics ; it is like this one applied ethic . In contrast to the area of law , it is an "internal control resource" (Leifert) that relies on voluntary self-commitment . The concept of responsibility is central to them .

Need for a visual ethic

What you see or have seen with your own eyes is considered reliable in everyday life. The eyewitness comes i. d. R. highest evidential value. What I perceive counts as real, as true. Because pictures appear so realistic, people assume that they reflect the real event (“illusion of immediacy”). The viewer suppresses the influence of the photographer and picture editor on the picture, so that he often accepts what is shown without reflection.

Despite the increased importance of images, an increase in image literacy cannot be observed in society. In order to break through the deceptive “naturalness of seeing”, the viewer must keep making clear: “Visibility is not given, it is made”.

The need for visual ethics arises primarily from the misunderstanding that the process of image production can be limited to technical factors and that human influence can be ignored. In addition to protecting the recipients , the need for image ethics also results from the need to protect those portrayed, because images often show privacy and intimacy .

Image manipulation in the history of photography

From the beginning of the history of photography, deception and manipulation were the order of the day. The first image forgery is considered to be a self-portrait by the French Hippolyte Bayard , who developed a photographic process independently of Daguerre and Talbot in 1839, for which, however, he did not receive the appropriate recognition and has not yet received it. Frustrated by this, Bayard portrayed himself as a body of water in a photograph. With a note on the back of the print he suggested that the "unhappy Monsieur Bayard" had committed suicide in his desperation.

The customers of the first portrait photographers were not used to the realistic type of image and demanded corrections from the photographer; these were made with the retouching brush on the negatives or the prints. This method was widely accepted and widely used. Also in the newspapers almost all photos were retouched up to around 1910.

The image forgery has always been used for political and propaganda purposes. Falsifying representations have always been circulated, especially under conditions of war reporting . As early as the Crimean War (1853–1856) between Russia , the Ottoman Empire , Great Britain and France , photographers like Roger Fenton brought pictures to the public that did not show the cruel side of the war but the conflict as an exciting adventure or leisurely stroll. A particularly radical and ruthless form of political image falsification is the modern version of the ancient “ Damnatio memoriae ”, the complete erasure of the memory of personalities who had become non- persons . The Soviet Union stood out in particular during the Stalinist era . Unwanted comrades disappeared - in the literal sense - from the scene, e.g. B. Leon Trotsky in the photo with Joseph Stalin .

digitalization

The problem was exacerbated by the possibilities offered by digitization . With traditional techniques ( retouching , montage ), manipulations were still time-consuming and difficult, with the advent of electronic image processing they became easier and more perfect than ever before - in Anglo-American parlance "to photoshop" has become a synonym for the common practice of digital image processing ( the German Duden, however, still refuses to use the term "photoshopping") It is assumed that there is no photo editor today, "whose photos are not edited in any way [...]."

Image manipulation is understood to be “the intentional change of information associated with an intent to deceive through selection, additions or omissions.” A distinction is made between five types of image manipulation: the deletion and insertion of information, photomontage , incorrect labeling and staged photography .

Authenticity and eyewitness

The term “ eyewitness” refers to the fact that images have a special potential: "They can make visible what an eyewitness in another place and at a different time could see from a certain point of view relative to the event."

When you approach a picture with the demand for authenticity , you expect that the image corresponds to reality, and thus oppose the manipulation and staging of an image - but what exactly is meant by the fact that image and image correspond is open. Because, of course, the photographer selects the motifs, decides on a camera perspective , the setting size , the exposure, etc. So you have to refrain from a naive, realistic understanding .

Similar questions played a role even before the invention of photography and in broader areas of image production and visual culture. Claudia Hattendorff identified here a historical threshold around 1800, from which "figuratively fixed eyewitnesses [...] became increasingly important."

Whether a picture is objectionable in terms of a charge of fraud is always an individual decision. In Germany, it is the German Press Council that investigates image manipulation in reporting and sanctions it if necessary. It is primarily the removal of image elements that has been causing complaints recently. However, it has also been shown that the boundary between manipulation - with the aim of deception - and changes for layout or optical reasons is fluid. Leifert speaks of a "definition deficit".

It might be helpful to compare the ethics of photo journalism with technology assessment in politics: "Not everything that is feasible can and may also be done."

The problem is exacerbated today by the skyrocketing number of pictures by amateur photographers. Image databases and image portals often do not differentiate between amateur and professional photographers. It can be doubted whether the knowledge about journalistic due diligence is widespread enough among amateurs. In the discussion about social networks , in particular , it is mostly about images published there.

Protection of privacy

Legal issues relating to the protection of those shown are primarily regulated in the Art Copyright Act (KUG) - yet another field of application of image ethics comes to light here: in view of the large number of images that are published today on the Internet - also and above all in social media There is a clear conflict between the public's interest in information and the personal rights of the persons depicted, especially in the case of images of war, accidents, disasters, etc. This conflict cannot be dealt with with exclusively legal regulations.

An example that sparked the debate about personal rights were the pictures of September 11, 2001 , especially that of the “Falling Man” - a man who threw himself out of one of the windows of the World Trade Center and was in free fall was captured by the camera of an agency photographer.

Whether such horrible pictures need to be published is a legitimate question. But for the reporting, everything that correspondents deliver in terms of images of the scenes of the event comes into consideration . As long as there are authentic images of the event, it is part of the journalistic mandate to “convey the cruelty of such events when depicting wars, catastrophes, accidents and attacks” and not to gloss over them.

In the opinion of the German Press Council, only when photos of people are given names and details of those depicted in this context has the point at which the property rights of the depicted takes priority over the public's right to information.

When weighing up images in terms of visual ethics, it's always about the value of images for the social memory of a society - or of humanity: Images are also documents of contemporary history. “In this sense, remembering means less and less reflecting on a story, and more and more, being able to call up a picture.” So pictures also have an appellative function : to call for (political) action.

Flood of images

The digitization has led to an enormous increase in (published) images. According to a survey by a Korean electronics company, around three billion photos are "shot" per month in Germany alone, of which eleven percent, or around 330 million photos, reach the Internet within 60 seconds. That is why today we speak of a veritable “flood of images”. This phenomenon has also changed the basic evaluation of images. In 1992 and 1994, if one spoke optimistically of a “pictorial” or “iconic turn” (turn to the picture, iconic turn) and meant that the picture had been upgraded compared to the word, had replaced writing as the determining medium, so warn today some even before a “flood” of images - in the opinion of the critics rather a sign of disdain for the image. “The media industry's hostility to images is unbroken, not because it forbids or prevents images, on the contrary: because it sets in motion a flood of images whose basic tendency is aimed at suggestion, at a visual substitute for reality” .

The ethics of the image sees itself in the service of the image: helping the photographer to decide whether or not to offer an image; to provide the picture editor with criteria in order to judge whether the picture should be shown or not; and to give the recipient the opportunity to understand and classify the content of the picture and the intention of the picture author.

An image ethics cannot define a concrete borderline, but it can provide arguments in order to place a controversial image in the context of the journalistic assignment. A professional code for (press) photographers, as it is in the USA analogous to the code for print journalists (NPPA Code of Ethics), does not yet exist in Germany, but is required by many photojournalists .

literature

  • Sebastian Anthony: Was the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year faked with Photoshop, or merely manipulated? http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155617-how-the-2013-world-press-photo-of-the-yearwas- faked-with-photoshop (last accessed on July 18, 2016).
  • Gottfried Boehm: Description of the picture. Beyond the limits of image and language. In: G. Boehm, H. Pfotenhauer (Hrsg.): Description art - description of art. The Ekphrasis from Antiquity to the Present. Munich 1995, pp. 23-40.
  • Dino A. Brugioni: Photo Fakery. The History and Techniques of Photographic Deception and Manipulation. Dulles 1999.
  • Alfred Büllesbach: Digital image manipulation and ethics. Current tendencies in photojournalism. In: Elke Grittmann, Irene Neverla , Ilona Ammann (eds.): Global, local, digital - photojournalism today. Cologne 2008, pp. 108-136.
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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Leifert: Bildethik - Theory and Morals in Photojournalism of the Mass Media. Wilhelm Fink, Munich 2007, p. 298.
  2. ↑ cf. Holger Isermann, Thomas Knieper: Bildethik . In: Christian Schicha, Carsten Brosda (Hrsg.): Handbuch Medienethik . Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 304-317, here p. 305.
  3. ↑ Thomas Knieper: Conveying history through icons of press photography. In: Johannes Kirschenmann, Ernst Wagner (ed.): Images that mean the world: ›Icons‹ of image memory and their communication via databases. Munich 2006, pp. 29-39.
  4. ↑ Holger Isermann, Thomas Knieper: Bildethik . In: Christian Schicha, Carsten Brosda (Hrsg.): Handbuch Medienethik . Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 304-317, here p. 305.
  5. ^ Paul Lester: Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach. Hillsdale NJ 1991, p. 92.
  6. ^ Paul Lester: Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach. Hillsdale NJ 1991, pp. 98 ff.
  7. ↑ Jürgen Reiche: Power of Images. In: Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany (Hrsg.): Pictures that lie. Book accompanying the exhibition of the House of History Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn 1998, pp. 8-17, here: p. 14.
  8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - The actress Emma Roberts is the first star to take part in the #AerieREAL initiative, which dispenses with subsequent image processing and filters and encourages you to show yourself as you are. ( http://www.mtv.de/style/78576-t Schuss-photoshop-emma-roberts- shows-sich-ganz-unbektiven ). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.beyond-print.de
  9. ↑ Werner Juergens: Letter to the Editor. In: Journalist , 10, 2005, pp. 54–55.
  10. ^ Klaus Forster: Reception of image manipulations. In: Thomas Knieper, Marion Muller (eds.): Authenticity and staging of visual worlds . Cologne 2003, pp. 66–101, here p. 66.
  11. ↑ cf. Dino A. Brugioni: Photo Fakery. The History and Techniques of Photographic Deception and Manipulation. Dulles 1999, pp. 17-23.
  12. ↑ Stefan Leifert: Professional eyewitness. Manipulation and staging as an object of self-control and image ethics. In: zfkm. Journal for Communication Ecology and Media Ethics , Issue 1/2006, pp. 16–23, here p. 19.
  13. ^ Hattendorff, Claudia: Eyewitness as a concept. Constructions of reality in art and visual culture since 1800 . Ed .: Hattendorff, Claudia; Bite-cheeked, Lisa. 1st edition. transcirpt, Bielefeld 2019, ISBN 978-3-8376-4608-5 , p. 22 .
  14. ↑ Stefan Leifert: Professional eyewitness. Manipulation and staging as an object of self-control and image ethics. In: zfkm. Journal for Communication Ecology and Media Ethics , Issue 1/2006, pp. 16–23, here p. 18.
  15. ^ Rolf Sachsse: Photojournalism Today. Munich 2003, p. 46.
  16. ↑ Stefan Leifert: Professional eyewitness. Manipulation and staging as an object of self-control and image ethics. In: zfkm. Journal for Communication Ecology and Media Ethics , Issue 1/2006, pp. 16–23, here p. 19.
  17. ↑ Stefan Leifert: Professional eyewitness. Manipulation and staging as an object of self-control and image ethics . In: zfkm. Journal for Communication Ecology and Media Ethics , Issue 1/2006, pp. 16–23, here p. 20.
  18. ↑ cf. William J. Thomas Mitchell: Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago 1994, pp. 11-34.
  19. ↑ Gottfried Boehm: Description of the picture. Beyond the limits of image and language. In: G. Boehm, H. Pfotenhauer (Hrsg.): Description art - description of art. The Ekphrasis from Antiquity to the Present. Munich 1995, pp. 23-40.
  20. ↑ NPPA Code of Ethics - https://nppa.org/code_of_ethics , accessed July 18, 2016