Journalists are responsible for ensuring that the visuals used in their storytelling accurately represent the facts and events being re-ported. The visuals should align with the truth of the story and not distort or manipulate the information being conveyed. This responsi-bility includes presenting visuals in their original context and avoiding misleading edits or alterations that could misrepresent the truth or sensationalize a story for dramatic effect.

Visual Ethics addresses the need for critical thinking and ethical behavior among professionals responsible for visual messages in photography and photojournalism, film, and digital media. From the author of Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach, published more than 20 years ago, this book goes beyond photojournalism ethics. It discusses crucial contemporary concerns, including persuasion, stereotyping, global perspectives, graphic design decisions, multimedia production, social media, and more. Written for an ever-growing discipline, author Paul Martin Lester gives serious ethical consideration to the complex field of visual communication.

This text examines the use of images in journalistic contexts and the manipulation of these images to accomplish varying objectives. It provides a framework for critical discussion among professionals, educators, students, and concerned consumers of newspapers, magazines, online journals, and other nonfiction media. It also offers a method of assessing the ethics of mass-media photos, which will help visual journalists to embrace new technologies while preserving their credibility. Phototruth or Photofiction? also: *recounts the invention of photography and how it came to be accorded an extraordinary degree of trust; *details how photos were staged, painted, composited and otherwise faked, long before digital technology; *lists contemporary image-altering products and practices; *details many examples of manipulated images in nonfiction media and lists rationales offered in defense of them; *explains how current ethical principles have been derived; *lays groundwork for an ethical protocol by explaining conventions of taking, processing, and publishing journalistic photos; and *offers tests for assessing the appropriateness of altered images in non-fiction media. Each chapter is followed by "Explorations" designed to facilitate classroom discussion and to integrate into those interactions the students' own perceptions and experiences. The book is intended for students and others interested in the manipulation of images.

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Communications - Journalism, Journalism Professions, grade: 5,0 => 1,0 (s. Anm.), University of Helsinki (Communications), course: Current Issues in Journalism, language: English, abstract: The Mohammed cartoons, torture photos from Abu Ghraib, videos from school shooting, and pictures from dead bodies in the London terrorist attacks taken by other victims are visual contents that we all had to deal with in the last years. The discussions on the changes for journalists caused by digitalization are ubiquitous. But mostly they focus on decreasing readership numbers, how to reconnect with the public, and on grassroots journalism. Ethical questions usually are concerned with issues such as tabloidization, sensationalism, and emotionalization- in short, quality loss in journalism. Journalistic codes are updated and adapted to the new demands. Other societal debates concentrate on possible negative influences of pictures in news media, video games, music videos, and such- usually containing violence and/or sex. But there is a lack of discourse on ethical challenges concerning photojournalism. During or after a tragedy like school shootings there is lots of talk but the ferocity of those arguments is neither reflected in professional debates of journalists on ethics in photojournalism nor in journalistic codes. However, those issues are gaining importance proportional to the rising significance cameras, picture taking, and visual media in people’s lives. This essay therefore is summarizing current debates about journalism ethics, focusing on visual media. Those issues are illustrated with two examples: the Mohammed cartoon-incident and school shootings at the Virginia Tech University, USA and in Jokela, Finland. The question to be answered is what problems exist concerning ethical issues in photojournalism and how they possibly could be improved.

"An indispensable guide to visual ethics, this book addresses the need for critical thinking and ethical behavior among students and professionals responsible for a variety of mass media visual messages. Written for an ever-growing discipline, authors Paul Martin Lester, Stephanie A. Martin, and Martin Rodden-Smith give serious ethical consideration to the complex field of visual communication. The book covers the definitions and uses of six philosophies, analytical methods, cultural awareness, visual reporting, documentary, citizen journalists, advertising, public relations, typography, graphic design, data visualizations, cartoons, motion pictures, television, computers and the web, augmented and virtual reality, social media, the editing process, and the need for empathy. At the end of each chapter are case studies for further analysis and interviews with thoughtful practitioners in each field of study, including Steven Heller and Nigel Holmes. This second edition has also been fully revised and updated throughout to reflect on the impact of new and emerging technologies. This book is an important resource for students of photojournalism, photography, filmmaking, media and communication, and visual communication, as well as professionals working in these fields"--

Transmedia Storytelling explores the theories and describes the use of the imagery and techniques shared by producers, authors and audiences of the entertainment, information and brand communication industries as they create and develop their stories in this new, interactive ecosystem.