In today's society, it is becoming easier, especially with modern technology to manipulate news media, and to censor the information, which reaches the public. The manipulation of images can give misleading impressions and can influence people take on certain views.
How do we define what is acceptable and what is not? Even the slightest manipulation of an image can alter people's reactions and beliefs. People read newspapers and watch the news to gain information, if this is changed or presented in a biased way it can effect the way people form their opinions. News bulletins and advertisements can become corrupt, moulding the public into the way they should act, look and behave. The media has a lot of power over a large number of people. Changes can be used to tell people what to think about the world before they have a chance to think about it themselves. Therefore the manipulation of images which impose particular ideas, or present falsity in a product are unacceptable.
APN News & Media
psychological manipulation
Fuji ButterflyThe public should demand that they receive all information uncorrupted by bias, and set standards in news and current affairs. This will help people form their own opinions on events and issues. They need to obtain all the facts as they are. To have the media conceal the truth and replace it with their own opinions for whatever motive is a frightening thought in a democratic country.
It is a thin, line in determining what manipulation is acceptable and what is not. Even giving an image a certain label have a major impact. Snipping someone out here and placing him or her somewhere else in theory doesn't sound bad. Yet when one look's at the potential impact a simple act like that could have on an issue, it reveals itself as being an aid...