Week 12: Photojournalism: The Best of Both World

 I remember back then when I was a little kid, analog and polaroid camera used to be the 'in' thing before the digital camera took over the  market and now it seems  like a must-have item for an individual. In addition, as technology advanced, software such as photoshop and picasa are easily available for us to upload, save and edit picture digitally and as a result, it makes me wonder to what extent does a picture tell us the truth about certain event or story behind it. In the world of photojournalism, the issue such as the credibility of photograph, distortion of reality, objectivity and the ethics of photograph has been raised. Therefore, in this journal entry I would list out some rules of ethics in journalism which a photojournalist should consider.

1)  Be Precise and avoid sensationalism

Captions and cutlines should be considered so that audience would know what is being represented in the photography. Good caption and cutlines would provide information for audience but it should  not be misleading or sensationalized although it could capture audience's attention.

2) Seek for the truth

Chapnick (1982) advocated that 'Credibility. Responsibility. These words give us the right to call photography rather than a business. Not maintaining that credibility will diminish our journalistic impact and self-respect, and the importance of photography as communication.' This explains the true nature of a job as a photojournalist which is to tell story via photography.

3) Photojournalists must act with compassion and sensitivity

I tend to agree with Garry Bryant ethical approach because as human beings we should consider whether being photographed could bring any psychological effects on the subject. According to National Press Photographers Association's code of ethic, photojournalist should also avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

4) Act Independently

This is one of the code of ethics of the society of professional journalists. I tend to agree with them because one should be free from any association in order to remain professional and have both integrity and and credibility.

5) Avoid manipulation and staging photography

This has been one of the major issues in photography as some of the photo captured are being staged. For instance, it was found that a  photography captured by the Award winning Pulitzer Prize Photographer had been staged in order to draw reader's attention to the story featured on The Sunday newspaper magazine, Parade. Therefore, in order to avoid misrepresentation, one should point out that if a photograph has been staged.

References: 

SPJ Code of Ethics. Retrieved from http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

Lester, P.M., (1999) Photojournalism an ethical approach: Picture manipualtion. Retrieved from http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/chapter6.html

Stovall, J. (2009). Photojournalism ethics. Retrieved from http://jprof.com/photojn/photojn-ethics.html

Week 11: Information Graphics

The diagram above is a graph that I have attempted from the tutorial question which asked us to show the relationship different variables if we were to present it to the company's stakeholders. From the previous lecture, we were told that an information graphic must be simple and informative, but I produced a pretty bad one although I used some correct method of using line graph and pictogram. While I was trying to show the correlation between gross expense, cost of fuel and cost of fuel as a percentage, I failed to show the relationship between the gross revenue and gross expense. A line graph should be used instead so that stakeholders know how the increase of the cost of fuel affects the company overtime. Another important mistake found in this graph is that the net profit and net lost cannot be determined as this information is significant for shareholders. Overall, this graph would cause confusion among the viewers of what sort of information is being represented, however, it would be presentable if  some alteration is to be made to this graph.

Upon realizing how painful it was to put four information into one graph, it made sense to me that to make an effective information graphic requires highly skilled individual because one have to consider to put both verbal and visual information at once. As our brain is the laziest part of body, this explains why visual has an impact on the audience than verbal. The Wharton study in the United States shows that the retention of verbal presentation was only 10% and it was found that 83% of information relayed to the brain in visual presentations comes through the eyes.But the combination of both would attain a greater impact because they complement each other. Tufte (1983) further emphasized  that 'words and picture belong together'. 

As the technology is advancing, information graph is widely used ranging from the business world to the media. Rather than just communicating verbally, the media combine it with visual aids to grab audience's attention. However, as far as ethics is concerned, information graphics can be distorted and misleading. Benjamin Disraeli advocated that 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." One of the reasons for this is because information graphics producers emphasized on entertaining and capturing the reader instead of focusing on the reliability of the information (Moen, 1987).

Overall, information graphics is effective in conveying both verbal and visual information. Although its producer intended to entertain the audience, ethical issues should also be considered in order to give an accurate and reliable information.

References:

Hocko, J.M. (n.d). Merging Verbal and Visual Media in Information Graphics. Retrieved from http://www.jenhocko.com/bentley/hf730/vis_verb.pdf

Lester, P.M. (1995). Informational graphics. Visual Communiccation: Images with messages (pp187-211), California: Wadsworth Publishing

Pease, A., Pease. B. (2004). The definitive book of body language. New York, NY: Bantam Dell