Janis Teruggi Page - Visual Communication

The fourth step involves loyalties, an area that Christians et al. (1987) suggest deserves the greatest attention because it's easy to deceive ourselves about the loyalties that are most important to us. Assume that you are a Georgia health policymaker. You may have loyalty to your own ethical beliefs, to the people of Georgia, and to your department. You may also be loyal to your own self‐interest, to be and to be seen as effective at your job and worthy of recognition and possibly promotions. Other likely loyalties may be to your family's well‐being, to your coworkers in the department, and so on. If you're committed to the duty of “non‐injury,” then you may be weighing the potential harm that campaign images might do against the possibility that such messaging might be effective. Again, having your campaign shown to be effective could also be a strong benefit to you.Last, you come to some conclusions about the proper course of action in this particular case. Reject the campaign because it unfairly targets vulnerable children and may cause them to feel hurt and ashamed? Go forward with the campaign because it is the most likely to result in better long‐term health for these same children? Ethical decision‐making is a real‐world activity with genuine consequences for real people. What is the right decision in the case of the Georgia obesity campaign? Reasonable people can disagree, but at the very least, the choices made would be based on a systematic and thoughtful process.

You are a creator, consumer, and distributor of visuals in today's world of instantaneous communication and sharing through social networks and digital devices. Your job as a consumer or creator of visuals has never been more challenging from an ethical standpoint. In the future, it will be even easier and cheaper to create and disseminate images, apps, videos, and remixes. Photography once had a more obvious referent to real life in that a photo of an event was relatively difficult to alter, filter, or otherwise manipulate. In the future, we will all be consuming and evaluating many images that are created primarily from people's imaginations and combinations of materials of all kinds. However, regardless of changing technologies, new and unexpected events, and even more instant and sophisticated sharing capabilities, we can still apply systematic ethical reasoning and consider our duties to ourselves and to others.

HeuristicsMental shortcuts allowing someone to make a decision, evaluate, or problem‐solve quickly with little effort.

DeontologicalAbsolutist ethics that are rule‐based; beliefs that standards are always true regardless of contexts or consequences.

TeleologicalConsequentialist ethics that value the outcome or consequences of an act as most important.

Categorical imperativeA concept of deontology; belief that one’s own ethical choices are universal law; one should act as we would want others to behave.

UtilitarianismA central concept of teleology; belief that acts should result in the great amount of good for the greatest number of people.

PluralisticBelief in several ethical perspectives and not one basic one.

Prima facie dutiesEthical decisions that should come first; from the Latin “on its face” (at first glance).

FramingConcept that any text or artifact is created – and presented – in ways that highlight some aspects of it while downplaying or eliminating other aspects, thus guiding readers and viewers to draw specific meanings.

SalienceQuality of how much something stands out or draws our attention.

AppropriationThe intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects.

ViddingEditing and adding to existing video footage.

1 As a class exercise, take an image from the Creative Commons website (creativecommons.org) where you are legally allowed to use work as long as you attribute it. Go to a meme site and “memify” it. In teams, answer the following questions: (i) What meaning do you take from the original image and what frame did it use? (ii) What meaning do you take from the meme and what frame does it use?

2 Either in teams or for individual assignments, find print ads or photos for ethical analysis using the Potter Box.

3 Imagine you're on an advertising agency team with the assignment to design a campaign to discourage 16‐ to 26‐year‐old young men from drinking and driving. What frames would you consider in creating a persuasive video?

4 You read earlier that the New York Times has one set of guidelines for news photos and another for fashion photos. Do you agree that there should be a distinction? Why or why not? Would a disclaimer or warning label help readers be more informed? In your view, do readers and viewers easily understand that fashion is a different genre and is not expected to be realistic?

5 In small groups, review the codes of ethics of news organizations and/or advertising and PR agencies. Are these codes sufficient in an age of digital communication and highly visual programming? How are the codes different from each other? Which does each group believe is most applicable in today's media world?

1 Anderson, D. (1995). Crime and the Politics of Hysteria. New York: Random House.

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3 Baird, J. (2016). Sara Palin's mustache. New York Times, Feb. 26. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/campaign‐stops/sarah‐palins‐mustache.html(accessed February 26, 2020).

4 Ballew, C.C. and Todorov, A. (2007). Predicting political elections from rapid and unreflective face judgments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104 (2): 17948–17953.

5 Belluck, P. (2009). Yes, looks do matter. New York Times, April 24. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fashion/26looks.html(accessed December 29, 2015).

6 Bird, M. (2002). Robert Capa, in focus. Time, June 30. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,267730,00.html(accessed February 4, 2016).

7 Bissell, K. (2006). Skinny like you: Visual literacy, digital manipulation, and young women's drive to be thin. Simile: Studies in Media and Information Literacy Education 6 (1): 1–14.

8 Black, J. and Roberts, C. (2011). Doing Ethics in Media: Theories and Practical Applications. New York: Routledge.

9 Bormann, E.G. (1982). A fantasy theme analysis of the television coverage of the hostage release and the Reagan inaugural. Quarterly Journal of Speech 68: 135–145.

10 Brooks, B.S., Horvit, B.J., and Moen, D.R. (2020). News Reporting and Editing. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.

11 Christians, C.G., Rotzoll, K.B., and Fackler, M. (1987). Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning, 2e. White Plains, NY: Longman.

12 CNN. (2018). National Park Service edited inauguration photos after Trump, Spicer calls. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/07/politics/trump‐inauguration‐photos/index.html(accessed December 23, 2020).

13 Entman, R. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication 43 (4): 51–58.

14 Gerbner, G. (2003). Television violence: At a time of turmoil and terror. In: Gender, Race, and Class in Media, 2e (eds. G. Dines and J.M. Humex), 339–348. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

15 Gleeson, K. and Frith, H. (2006). (De)constructing body image. Journal of Health Psychology 11 (1): 79–90.