Visual Communication. Janis Teruggi Page
are unlikely to mislead a consumer.
Visual Appropriation
Visual appropriation, the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects, is a strategy long used by artists. For example, in 1962 Andy Warhol painted images of the Campbell's tomato soup can. It led to a great debate about the ethics of such work, and appropriation remains an ethical gray area today.
Visual appropriation has been strategically used in negative political advertising. In 2016, an attack ad by Republican primary candidate Ted Cruz against rival Marco Rubio attempted to visually paint Rubio as the Republican Obama. One of the final images on a campaign video make an analogy between the Obama “Hope” poster by Shepard Fairey (Figure 2.7) and a photoshopped image of Marco Rubio (Figure 2.8). The Rubio image used the recognizable style of the Fairey poster, seeking to short‐circuit people’s analysis of Rubio’s characteristics and policies by heightening his presumed similarities to Obama. In addition, it used the creative work of Fairey in a different context. In this case, a political operative applied a digital filter known as posterizing. Widely available apps allow users to use a limited number of colors on a photo, thus giving it the effect of a movie or music poster. This brings up the question of visual plagiarism such as using elements of one image combined with others to create a different representation, image, or work of art. Regarding the original Fairey graphic, AP sued the artist in 2011 claiming copyright ownership over the image, as it was closely based on an AP photo. Both sides settled on sharing rights to the image (Kravets, 2011).
Figure 2.7 Original image inspiring the Rubio photoshop.
Source: Aaron Alex / Alamy Stock Photo.
Figure 2.8 Photoshopped image of Marco Rubio.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/embed/uKcQoFSVvGQ?feature=oembed, Ted Cruz.
Mashups and Remixes
Mashups or remixes are now common, and some say they are simply new cultural practices enabled by technology. Vidding, or editing and adding to existing video footage, may be used to comment, satirize, or to offer a fresh perspective on an event or viewpoint. This brings up both legal and ethical implications. Is it proper to use materials that someone else has created? In addition, what legal policies may be applicable to these situations? In these cases, copyright and “fair use” laws are in play. Copyright laws are intended to protect writers, photographers, and videographers from having their work stolen or used inappropriately. It also protects their rights to be compensated (Brooks et al., 2020). However, rules regarding fair use of copyrighted materials allow others to use small portions of those materials when they are properly attributed. In this book, our use of others' work and ideas are examples of fair use or copyrighted use has been sought and granted. Images, especially in the age of digital work, present ever more complex ethical questions.
Homages
There are tensions between stealing another's work and an “homage” to another's creation. An homage is a reference, reconfiguring, and sometimes a recreation of an image or work of art, often done with the goal of honoring and elaborating on that work. Moviemakers frequently will adopt or reference scenes from other movies. For example, director Quentin Tarantino in The Hateful Eight uses costumes, snips of dialogue, and scene setups that call on classic western films (Miller, 2015). To use the Obama “Hope” poster by Shepard Fairey in this chapter required that we provide compensation to the copyright holders, in part because it is a complete work and it wouldn't be possible to use only a portion of it.
However, imagine if an individual substantially altered the Obama “Hope” poster, animating it, inserting new characters, settings, or backgrounds. Does it then become a different creation, possibly with copyright protection itself? What if it is then disseminated on social media? Noted visual theorist William J. Mitchell (1994) suggests that easily replicable visual images have profoundly changed how we interact with those images both individual and societally.
We might best regard digital images, then, neither as ritual objects (as religious paintings have served) nor as objects of mass consumption … but as fragments of information that circulate in high‐speed networks now ringing the globe that can be received, transformed, and recombined like DNA to produce new intellectual structures having their own dynamics and value
(Mitchell 1994, pp. 53–54).
Mitchell and others point out how easily manipulated and shared images seem to have less and less relationship with an “external referent” (p. 55) or to be mirrors of what we think of as our everyday reality. Visuals are never just neutral representations of the world. Instead, they are interpretations that may have different meanings for different people and, intentionally or unintentionally, “argue” for a certain point of view.
APPLYING ROSS'S ETHICS
LO3 Apply strategies for evaluating the ethics of visual communication that you or others create.
Earlier in this chapter, in the section on Pluralism, you read that Ross's first duty is fidelity or the responsibility to keep promises, be truthful, and fulfill contracts and obligations. That means we shouldn't lie. However, another one of Ross's duties is non‐injury: our responsibility to avoid hurting other people physically, emotionally, or psychologically.
Unintended Effects
Ross's approach can be useful to professionals in advertising, journalism, and other media because of the frequently competing roles they must fulfill (Wilkins, 2016). For instance, a health communication message meant to address a problem of childhood obesity could be considered beneficent since it is a serious public and individual health problem. However, some messages may have unintended effects (Thorson and Duffy, 2016). Visuals are very powerful and can evoke visceral responses, short‐circuiting our processes in evaluating the worth of messages (Page and Duffy, 2016). A good example is the Strong4Life campaign from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta that used images of obese children believing that such images would motivate pediatricians, families, and schools to provide supportive actions. However, some critics said that the campaign stigmatized and shamed overweight children (Lohr, 2012).
Thus, the duty to do no harm and duty for beneficence come into conflict and the multiple duties of public health professionals and those creating the campaign arise. According to Wilkins (2016), Ross's typology encourages us to look at the specifics and the context of circumstances and decide which duty outweighs the others in a given situation.
FOCUS: Rethinking Diversity in Visual Narratives
A video series by the nonprofit iBiology showcases researchers who represent overlooked groups. “Background to Breakthrough” features Latino Estaban Burchard's journey from growing up in a poor, single parent home to his adult life as a health expert on asthma. The video's unique perspective frames Burchard not as a marginalized survivor, but rather as an creative achiever drawing from his valuable life experience to become a world‐renowned researcher and tenured professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
While many narratives about scientists from underrepresented backgrounds present an “underdog” story, iBiology believes they are stale, overused, and lack contextual depth.
This “surviving the odds” storyline does not fairly represent the scientists and science itself; rather, it is one dimensional. It diminishes the