When does a photomontage or photo illustration become an ethical issue?

I ask this because in the computer ethics class that I teach, I sometimes talk about the ethics of altering reality with programs like Photoshop. Don't get me wrong...I'm an avid fan of PS and consider it the greatest software in the world, but I'm curious about when the content of a picture is changed what social or ethical side effects it might have.

For example, I usually give the following examples to my students:

The prevalence of doctored photos to make people believe something else has happened (i.e. the shark jumping up to eat the man dangling from the helicopter, recent tsunami hoaxes, etc.)

Some U.S. university (can't remember name off top of my head) that altered a picture in its course catalog to include the picture of a black person happily hanging out with white people (apparently to make the university *seem* more diverse).

A British tabloid that changed a politician's beer bottle to appear as if it were a champagne bottle.

I was curious, though, what other examples might exist out there?
What pictures do you think alter content sufficiently enough for it to become an ethical issue?

i understand what youre saying, but for me, never... im sure for some it can be though.... personally im sick and tired of the world becoming pussafied with all the Political Correctness crap & "It takes a village... BULLS**T!" Teach your kids right from wrong, heres an idea, actually interact with your children, dont just let the BOOBTUBE do it for you..... people get way too offended over trival things, & we sue beacuse of our own stupidity.. its life, not everything is roses... get over it. my

I don't think you understand me, shaman.
I'm not saying I, personally, think it's wrong to do it.
I'm just interested in when it's PERCEIVED wrong by society in general.

Oh, wait, in re-reading your comment, I think I see what you're saying...ok, I'll tell them.

i knew what you meant, and i kinda went on a rant there... sorry bout that... nothing against you at all... its the same thing for me with the 'African-american' crap....
im sorry, were you born in Africa? oh you were born in chicago... so youre not African-american then! YOURE AMERICAN! im not Irish-american... now if i came over from Ireland, then yeah id be Irish-american.... crap like this is whats killing this country...
i think John Wayne said it best....
http://www.acfd.com/hyphen_by_john_wayne.htm

sorry for going off topic again
cheers

i think it goes both ways (like my ideal woman). for example, there was a pic of president bush looking through binoculars, but with the caps still on the lenses. that was a pretty obvious chop and it was funny. no harm done there.

but chopping in a black guy to make a school seem more diverse, that is breaking ethics. i wouldnt say its false advertising, but in a way it is.

what about the 9-11 photo with the plane coming straight at the guy from behind him? i heard about people seeing that pic and gasping and crying. well for one, it was an obvious chop. everyone in america watched the tapes over and over again, and neither plane crashed into the observation decks of the WTC towers. but still, no one realized it, and it brought out emotion of a tragic time. i thought that was in horrible taste.

this kind of situation reminds me of a moment on the simpsons. in the episode where lisa starts her own newspaper, towards the end when milhouse quits. he says "you know that report i filed from bagdad? i was actually in basra."

well said and i agree with you PM
there are lines to be drawn obv.

There has to be boundries for everything. I think that the motive should be the criterion for this. I don't see chops as the mighty pen of yore weilded in satire, etc. If your motive is to hurt because you can then it is wrong. This would be no diferent than a school bully picking on a smaller schoolmate.. The powerful tool should be used wisely, to humour, to bring joy etc., not to miss inform.

I guess I can see three areas where chopping
and accountability meet.
1.......................LIBEL/slander- any chop can easily be compared to current libel law and probably could be prosecuted as such.
If I were to go around and tell people Rashdog stole my dog-
I could get in serious trouble for slander and be held legally responsible--
likewise if i chopped an image of Rashdog hopping my fence in the middle of the night dragging my dog by the neck.
Libel/Slander would also likely include unauthorized use of likeness to create pornography,
false affiliations (I.E.Image of G.Bush in Condoleza's bedroom)and probably a million other scenarios including anything relating to current copyright law.

2....................... Misrepresentation causing harm or theft by deception-
Violin for sale ad-rare 5tradivarious for sale, very old in mint condition.
Buyer later learns it's a Chinese knockoff and seller
is held legally responsible.
Same as selling another violin on E-bay, maybe even a real "Start"that is in
bad condition but the image is chopped to perfection-
seller is still held responsible
My favorite- the new restaurant in town with the full page spread in the daily paper showing incredibly delightful looking food.
You get there and they are a macaroni and hotdog buffet bar.

3............................The moral issue--noone gets hurt,
no victim-no crime?That's the legal POV of our
judicial system-EVERYTIME.
When "National Geographic" made a cover of Egypt's pyramids and
moved them all into a straight line. Morally reprehensible in my book.
I felt they should of had to recall the magazines and re-print.
911 plane image Polish spoke of? Distributing THAT without a disclaimer?
In my book, whoever did it should be in jail right now.
At the very least those who lost loved ones in 911 should have recourse.
BUT that's not the business of the law.
Around PSC we all know what's up with images and are unlikely to
take harm from them, in fact we are more likely to appreciate the humor, or the work.
Disclaimers are necessary and whether you like my opinion or not,
I am willing to place my personal guarantee that they will become the law
of this land within a few short years.
You may think people need to lighten up when it comes to chops,
and I agree when it comes to harmless pranks and comedy,
but I am certainly not one to lighten up about
fake slightly blurry images that keep surfacing of
non-existent POWs in Cambodia- there are many
people who are deceived by them, think they may be lost brothers, husbands,
and sons.
"Lightening up" and having perspective are two different attitudes.

excellent
thank you

I did show them the pic of the guy standing on the WTC as another example, now that I think of it.

But all of you have given me plenty to think/discuss in my class.
Thanks for your input!

As far as the original question is concerned I do feel that all of us have an ethical and a moral responsibility to be aware of the possible ramifications of our work. As far as the infamous 9/11 pic, yes it was tasteless and may have crossed the border between what is and what is not offensive for many people, but legally I saw nothing wrong with it and maybe we need to lighten up a bit.
Who did that picture REALLY hurt? No one. Yes, it made some people cry and brought back feelings of sadness or anger in others - but at that point in our history, anything could have evoked such emotions. Did we really need a pic like that to make us remember how sad we were? For months, every time I heard or saw an airplane I couldn't help but think of it. Every time I’ve looked at the NYC skyline I remember. Every time I watch any movie ever made from 1975 - 2000 that takes place in NY I will remember because nearly every one of those movies has an establishing shot of the WTC in it. As far as anger? I think the strongest anger it caused in most people was their own anger because they felt that they ‘got duped'. They were angry because someone might think that they were too blind, ignorant, prejudiced or uninformed to realize it was a fake picture. But, was it really that big a surprise that something you got in an email wasn't the truth? That a picture had or could been faked. Remember the picture of Lee Harvey Oswald holding that rifle on the cover of Life Magazine? That was a fake. And that was made over 40 years ago!!! Some people thought the 9/11 pic was too graphic, but it was still a lot less graphic and disturbing than watching the real thing on the news over and over and over again. Maybe if the creator had done an better job and no one was able to tell it was a fake, it would have been seen and forgotten about, stored somewhere in our minds with every other countless image of the tragedy. Maybe if the creator hadn’t done as good a job and it was a more obvious fake to more people it wouldn't have been a problem and we would have just shrugged it off, or would never have seen it because no one would have bothered to pass it on. Maybe if it was funnier it would have been taken in a better context. After all, we really could have used a good laugh then to cheer ourselves up. It seemed like every tragedy before 9/11 was followed the next day by hundreds of tasteless, yet often very funny jokes. Really, to those who have a personal experience with themselves or a family member involved, how was this pic any different from all the 'OJ Simpson' or 'Need Another Seven Astronauts' or 'Chicken Kiev' or the 10 million Ethiopian jokes we’ve told and heard before? I’ve even heard holocaust jokes and a lot more people were killed in more gruesome and painful ways than were in 9/11. So what really made 9/11 different? Why was 9/11 taboo? Was it because there were no jokes about it that made it even more surreal? Was it because we all knew like our Grandparents did at Pearl Harbor that we were headed towards and long and deadly war? Was it that the world was forever changed and we would never feel the way we did on September 10, 2001 ever again? The 9/11 pic was not made to hurt people. It was not made to profit off others sorrow. The picture was not made to steal money from people, that would have been different. That would be crossing the line legally. Chopping to some is a form of art and art is a form of expression and our right to free expression is one of our basic freedoms. Freedom of speech. Whether we like it or not, as long as that right does not interfere with anyone else's rights, it is protected by our Constitution. Even if it is not aesthetically pleasing, even if it is not morally or ethically right, even if it is in "bad taste". We need to remember why people who would have taken offense to such a picture have fought and died for that person's right to make it. We need to parent ourselves and our children, we don't need our government to do it for us. Because if we do not, then who then decides for us what is offensive and what is not? What we can and cannot say? What we can or cannot chop? I feel that as long as we are not stealing someone else’s work for profit, we have the right to chop whatever and however we choose. As long as our work does not endanger the rights and well beings of others. But we also still have our own sense of responsibility to draw our own lines. We have to have our own balance as to what is right and what is not. Afterall, all art is inherently a lie. Art is the artist’s interpretation of the truth. A great artist named Pablo Picasso said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal”. A former artist named Adolf Hitler said, “The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it”. We need to find our own balance as to how much we can bend the truth and still live with ourselves and not hurt anyone else.

This is one of my favorite composites, it was created by Oscar Rejlander in 1857. It's an optical print made up of more than 30 negatives, it's called The Two Ways of Life. For it's time, it proved to be very controversial and raised many science versus art debates.



This one is also a classic

I worked across the street from the WTC, and lost a pile of people on 9/11, so I feel like I have and interesting insight on this topic where that is concerned. I saw the photo of the guy on the rooftop a few days after 9/11, as part of a website that was taking note of new urban legends being spawned every five minutes. Around here, over the ten days or so that followed 9/11, we heard all kinds of crazy things that turned out to (probably) not be true: that a bomb had been found under the George Washington bridge, that a cop on the 86th floor of tower two had "surfed" to safety when the tower collapsed, that someone had breached the "frozen zone" on 9/15 and smashed several vials on the ground. Sometimes these things were on the news, sometimes word-of-mouth...and we soon realized that what they say is true--you can't believe everything you hear on the news.

That may seem somewhat unrelated, but then it got more serious: The first image I think of is the one of the Pentagon, supposedly just after the plane crash. Someone has used Photoshop to superimpose the outline of a passenger plane, supposedly to scale, over the photo. The image is designed to demonstrate that what they said happened COULDN'T have happened, because the plane is so much bigger than the hole in the building, and there are no pieces of fuselage or wings visible in the photo. A viewer looking at the image would, in my opinion, draw the conclusion that some kind of conspiracy must have taken place. Next thing you know, there are all kinds of images on the internet, supposedly showing bombs affixed to the bottoms of the planes, satan in the dust of the explosion, explosive charges going off on floors below (indicating that the towers were "pulled" intentionally with explosives for some reason), and so forth.

Personally, I've concluded that I can only believe what my eyes see in person. There's no possible way for me to draw a real conclusion about the Pentagon, because I didn't see it with my own eyes, and I know the power of Photoshop. However, I did watch the towers come down with my own eyes, and the fact that it looked like a controlled demo was commented on at length around here, long before any of the photos (doctored or not) came out.

I love Photoshop. Its power scares me, though, because it means that the reliability of media images will always be an unknown factor--so if, for example, the photos of explosive charges at the WTC were unretouched, but the photo of the Pentagon was...people who were in neither place that day will never really know what to believe. In that case, a person might be tempted to either believe all of it, or believe none of it--and such thinking is very dangerous, in my opinion.

The other thing that scares me is this: There are an awful lot of nuts out there who think that the Holocaust never happened, or was greatly exaggerated. Until Photoshop, you could show them a photo of a pile of bodies (sorry to be graphic), and there wasn't much they could say. Now they say, "Well obviously that's been created with a computer. It never happened."

This is a great topic, by the way. I learn so much at this site.