Ethics in information graphics

(I apologize beforehand for the indentation in this entry. I'm not sure how to fix it.)

Compare the two graphs below. What is the ethical problem here?

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly (Newsom and Haynes, 2004). It is a form of visual communication that aims to present large amount of information with the minimum amount of effort(ink). The infographics shown here is a type of information graphics called the presentation graphics, usually used to show statistical tabulations and appear mostly in the form of graphs (Petterson, 1993). The ethical problem is in how the information graphic is structured. 

Firstly, the x-axis of the graph shows “the % of respondents” in a survey where multiple responses are allowed. The scales are not equal in the two infograph. This will confuse the reader because it does not accurately represent the correct respondents visually. This made both the chart look similar. It would be better presented this way, with a correct scale:

(A rough sketch of the Linux Concern graph, highlighting only the importance of the scale)

(A rough sketch of the Windows Worries graph, highlighting only the importance of the scale)

By doing so, the infographic shows the real length of the bar charts accurately.

Second, the survey questions are not entirely shown/used in the making of the infographic. The author of the infograph only picks a few questions to be shown. This is a deliberate attempt to mislead the audience. By doing so, it creates a different view on the companies. The author could attempt to compile only data that gives a positive impression of the company and omit the negative-inducing ones, or attempt to tarnish a company. Without showing the same type of concerns, audiences are made to compare the two companies. It again is an attempt to mislead audiences by trying to make an illusion that they are roughly similar.

Although there are debates how far entertaining the audience should go, it is agreed that the graphs should at least accurately reflect the numbers that they portray (Lester, 1995). According to Lester, the scales should be proportional when more than one chart is used in the same frame. Touching on the size space of the x-axis, he also states that they should be consistently spaced. This was not the case in the two infographics produced by Informationweek.

In conclusion, it does not present a visually accurate representation of the data, and is therefore deceptive.

References:

Lester, P. M. (1995). Informational graphics. Visual communication: Images with messages (pp. 187-211). California: Wadsworth Publishing.

Petterson, R. (1993). Visual information (2^nd ed.) (pp. 169-175). New Jersey: Educational Technology Publications.

Newsom, D. and Haynes, J. (2004). Public Relations Writing: Form and Style. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.

Q: Could I actually be a cyborg?

In a 1960 paper by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline on astronautics, Clynes and Kline define a cyborg as an organism that "incorporates exogenous components extending the self-regulatory control function of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments.". Human have roughly been doing this since ancient times; tools are created so that work can be done more efficiently. For example, using rocks to break nuts in order to obtain food. These tools gets more and more sophisticated as time goes, such as the use of hammer and later on using mills to grind wheat. But, they are still extension of the physical self only. 

The Information Age is highlighted with technology that extends the mental self. During her talk in the TED Conference in 2010, cyber anthropologist Amber Case said technologies has eliminated the distance between individuals when it comes to communicating. Time and space is compressed by technology such as phones and internet; one person can talk with another person on the other side of the world. Our reliance on technology does not end there; computers and smart phones also act as the external brain for their owner. An average person would have so much contact details of friends, colleague, or business partners that it would be impossible to remember them without aid. So Computers helps in storing and organizing information. If we lose the digital information in the computers, we would feel like losing something in our mind. 


In the Information Age, the social relationship is enhanced by the technology, especially by the cyber world. According to Anthony Fung who studied the cyber life and its interaction with real life at Hong Kong, in the metropolitan area of Hong Kong where people interact in a hectic and crowded environment, online communities are still created to provide additional interactions (2006).  His study found  that especially for gamers, real social relationships have become inseparable with cyberlife. 

The cyber world, cyberspace, or virtual reality, can be seen as the residence of the extension of our mental self. Kevin Robins pointed out that the technology of cyber world promises to free its user to from the constraints of physical reality, allowing free experimentation in creating an alternate identity inside a space that allows unlimited freedom (2000, p.81-82). Identity in the cyber world can be created to fit our own liking. The virtual world is a place where we can do what we want. In Michael Benedikt's words, "Cyberspace can be seen as an extension, some might say an inevitable extension, of our age-old capacity and need to dwell in fiction".


For sure, the use of technology in our life, for communication purposes, or as a place to escape the physical reality, has made our life easier. We have incorporate the use of information technology as a means of adapting more successfully in our environment. Going back to the definition of cyborg, I think the people living in the Information Age are cyborgian.


References:

Case, A. (2011, January). Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html

Clynes, M. and Kline, N. (1960). Cyborgs and space. Astronautics. Retrieved from: http://faculty.uca.edu/rnovy/Clynes--Cyborgs%20and%20Space.htm

Fung, A. (2006). Bridging cyberlife and real life: A study of online communities in Hong Kong. In Silver, D. M. and Adrienne Steve, J. (eds.), Critical cyberculture studies (pp. 129-139). New York: New York University Press.

Robins, K. (2000). Cyberspace and the world we live in. In Bell, D. and Kennedy, B. M. (eds.), The cybercultures reader (pp. 77-95). London: Routledge.

What is cinema and television studies for?

Cultural literacy is a particular view of the construction and generation of knowledge, the role of culture in that process, and the role of education in modern industrial society (House, Lemmer and Lawrence, 1991). They also explained that culture is not an antique but instead is actively produced and reproduced, and holds that cultural literacy is not an intellectual ability similar to reading literacy and that they involve different abilities.

Television works better than teachers as educator when it comes to spreading cultural literacy (Estes, Gutman and Harrison, 1988). In the words of John Hartley, "Television has successfully been used to teach the public about the culture and politics of past elites..." (1999, p.23). Cinema and television reflects the social values of a culture. For example, in the past, TV contents do not show sexuality as it was considered a taboo. As social values change, almost all movies now use sexual appeal. The show of affection in the public was also once unseen, but now it has become normal to kiss in the public. The two kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace between Prince William and Kate Middleton during their royal wedding is evidence of a shift in the social values. It should be noted though, social values differ from culture to culture and so one culture may have a shift in social values while others do not; for example, Brunei still do not show sexuality in the media.

The cultural literacy via television in present days is of different cultures, which differs accordingly to the geographical regions. For example, in Brunei, most people subscribe to Astro for their TV channels. From here, Bruneians can be exposed to not just one culture. The channels such as MTV, HBO and CNN, are channels with an American background and so will literate the audience in American culture. The cultural literacy they bring would be different from channels from Malaysia such as RTM1, 8TV, or NTV7. The Japanese channel, NHK World, would bring Japanese culture while KBS World the Korean culture.

Hartley explained in his book the full influence that television as having the ability to "to invade its viewers’ privacy", therefore making it "a most important primary educator" in teaching cultural literacy (1999, p.140). He also said that television "kneads" the minds of the audience, educating them with broadcast content. Television is able to mold the mind of the audiences and they take pleasure in being molded. 

In conclusion, television studies helps in understanding how culture pass through the medium of television, and its potential in literating publics on culture.

References:

Estes, T.H., Gutman C.J., & Harrison, E.K. (1988). Cultural literacy: What every educator needs to know. Educational Leadership, 46(1), 14-17.  Retrieved November 15, 2012 from ASCD database http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_198809_estes.pdf

Hartley, J. (1999). Uses of Television. London and New York: Routledge.

House, E.R., Lemmer, C., Lawrence, N. (1991). Cultural Literacy Reconsidered. In Hiebert E.H. (Ed.), Literacy for a Diverse Society: Perspectives, Practices, and Policies. (pp. 58-74). New York: Teachers College Press. Retrieved November 15, 2012 from: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/5982/Cultural-Literacy.pdf

Visual Rhetoric - Persuasion with image

Question: Use a print advertisement that you believe persuades the reader rhetorically. Explain your case using the concepts learnt.

According to Blair, an arguer using visual argument benefits from two factor: The first is the ease of evoking emotions with visuals; it does not rely on the cooperation of the audience to ”exercise its sympathetic imagination", nor being dependant on the audience's capability to imagine. The second is that the visual can, through the use of symbols, evoke involuntary reactions that has to be consciously countered by the recipient (2004).

So let us look at an advertisement from a rhetorical perspective.

“Bad smell makes everything looks bad"

Daktarin powder, is used as a treatment to fungal infection of the skin such as ringworm, athlete's foot and fungal nappy rash. However, in this advertisement, the rhetoric approach is for Daktarin powder to be advertised not as a medicinal product but as a product that removes bad smell. It become a solution for the problem of bad smell even though it is not exactly made for it. For an advertiser, selling the powder as a medicinal product would be less effective than to sell it as just toiletries.

McQuarrie and Phillips has this to say of rhetoric; "truth-seeking is not part of the mandate of rhetoric or advertising" (2008, p.7). The advertiser's main goal is to sell the product as effectively as possible; truth comes second, so rhetoric will be used primarily to increase sale. If the consumer sees foot problem as a health problem, he or she will most likely seek help at health professional, which usually means the hospital. But if it is seen as less health-related and more towards a social-related problem, then it will fall to the same category as bad smell, or yellow teeth, in which case the solution may not be limited to the hospital and they would be more likely to look for remedies outside of the formal health institution. The industry turns smelly feet into a social problem and then provide their products as a solution to it.

Moving to the image itself, at first glance it appears to be a gathering of outlaws in a saloon. Then readers may spot one man sitting with his bare feet on the table. Also they may notice that everyone else is looking at the person, or his feet, to be exact. This shift the focus of the reader to the feet. What is wrong with it?

The first propositional premise, in this syllogism is: If someone covers their face, they are up to something bad. And everyone in the room covered their face. The reader would probably take the covered face as a signifier of villainy. This is reinforced by the dark tone of the advertisement and mean face expression of the characters in the image.

Scanning the whole advertisement, they would then read the words at the bottom corner last. This leads to the conclusion of this rhetoric; that the readers would realized they have wrongly labelled the people in the saloon as bad people. This is the part of this rhetorical argument that seeks the participation of the audience. The reader would have to agree to the "everyone were labelled as crooks" part. "...Everything looks bad" will echo with the thought of most readers. As for the "you're got it wrong because of the bad smell", it makes readers halt, and prompts readers to scan the whole advertisement again. "Is there anything that supports this? Was I really mistaken?"

The reader then saw the presence of the bare feet, that signify bad smell. He would see the mask as being used to cover the smell of the feet, and the expression a grimace of disgust. Straight away, the reader realized it is more probably now that the "outlaws" could be just customers of the saloon who cannot stand the smell. This is the second premise that built the argument.

Thus, the argument in this advertisement can be considered an enthymeme. Aristotle regards deductive arguments as a set of sentences in which some sentences are premises and one is the conclusion, and the inference from the premises to the conclusion is guaranteed by the premises alone; "the construction of enthymemes is primarily a matter of deducing from accepted opinions" (Rapp, 2010).The first premise in the advertisement was "thrown in your face" but the second premise, crucial to the argument, was hidden and can only be deduced by knowing the conclusion first. The reader has to take part in making the argument up.

To sum it up, this advertisement has employed rhetoric when constructing the visual and manage to shape a pretty convincing argument.

References:

Blair, J. A. (2004). The rhetoric of visual arguments. In Hill, C. A., and Helmers, M. H. (eds.). Defining visual rhetorics. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

McQuarrie, E.F. (Eds.) & Phillips, B.J. (Eds.) (2008). Advertising rhetoric: An introduction. Go figure! New directions in advertising rhetoric. New York: M.E. Sharpe

Rapp, C. (2010). Aristotle's Rhetoric. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 17, 2012  from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/

Narrative, a.k.a story-telling.

Why is narrative important when shaping a visual image to the audience?

Peter Lamarque (1994) consider all narration as involving the recounting and shaping of events. He explained that narration describe not just things, but events as well. In Huisman's words, "Just as we can describe experience only through the language we have available to us, so we make use of existing narrative patterns to structure and make sense of new experiences (Huisman, 2005, p.27). Visual images, be it movies, comics, or photographs, usually has a story to tell. Understanding how narrative works allows for better construction of visual images that makes sense to the audience. I will provide some examples below.

Ismail S Talib (2011) claimed that narratives are broadly agreed to be dualistic in nature. It is argued that narrative is made  up of the story and the discourse. The story is the content of the narrative in which the main elements are actors, time, events and location. Most superhero movies these days are similar in their structure; they found their sources of power - meets villian - loses the fight - lost confidence - regains confidence - beat the villain - story ends. The only thing that differs is the location, events, time, actors. The discourse does not change.

The discourse is the style in which the narrative is told; how the narrative is arranged or what is being emphasized. The story of Snow White was about a princess being hunted under the order of an evil queen, and eventually through three attempts by the Queen, Snow White fell. In the end, Snow White was revived by Prince Charming, and they get married and lived happily ever after. but in Snow White and the Huntsman, Snow White, after escaping from imprisonment by a Queen, led a rebellion against the Queen alongside her childhood friend. But she stayed single.

In the many narrative from ancient times to present day, the structure of narrative change in two form, the paradigm and the syntagm. A paradigm works on the story part of the narrative, where one element in a configuration can be substituted with another element belonging to a similar category (Ismail, 2011). For example, switching the zombies in a horror genre to  deadly locust swarm, or switching the location of a murder from abroad a  spaceship to present-day cruise ship. 

A syntagm is "a linear configuration which can be analysed in terms of the relationships of each of its elements in the linear configuration" (Ismail, 2011). It involves changing (configuring) the signs (elements), which generate meanings in relation to other signs that comes before and after it, which in turn changes the meaning generated. It can be seen as changing the discourse of the narrative. An example would be changing the story of the movie Transformers into making the Autobots seeking for help from a supposedly dead civilisation of Atlantis, who then provide them with aid to defeat the Decepticons.

Another component of narrative is the subject. There are two kinds of subject, the subject of speech, and the speaking subject. The subject of speech refers to whatever the narrative is talking about, while the speaking subject refers to the producer of the text . Focalisation is a component that ties closely with subject. Focalisation refers to the phenomenon of using a particular perspective in mediating a story (Hiusman, 2005). A person telling you what happened to him/her yesterday could either narrate the story from the focalisation of the past by telling it from his/her perspective at that time; or reporting it as though the present him/her had witnessed it from a bystander's point of view.

Another ingredient of narrative is temporality, but may be known as duration or spacing (Huisman, 2005). Temporality is one way that the discourse can be changed. It involves the pacing of the duration of the story and the length of the movie/novel/etc. It is deciding the length of the movie you will use to show Bruce Wayne doing his workout. And how long you want to show Batman interrogating the Joker in a 1.5hr long movie. If a fabula takes up a  big percentage of the movie length, it is a significant part of the narrative. In novels it would mean dedicating page after page to a particular scene or topic.

Knowing how narrative works will help in producing one that does not tick the audience off, and helps in telling a better story to help in selling an idea or product. 

References:

Huisman, R. (2005). Narrative concepts. In Fulton, H., Huisman, R., Murphet, J. and Dunn, A. (eds.), Narrative and Media (pp. 11-27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ismail S Talib (2011). Chapter 1: Definitions of Narrative. Narrative Theory: A Brief Introduction. Retrieved November 17, 2012 from http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/NarrativeTheory/chapt1.htm

Lamarque, P. (1994). Narrative and invention: The limits of fictionality. In Nash. C. (ed.), Narrative in culture (pp. 131-132). New York and London: Routledge.

Photography as a form of cultural critique

Why do we consider photography as a form of cultural critique? Is every photograph able to do so?

John Keith Hart, a former professor of anthropology from the University of London, explained in his website that cultural critique can be understood to be the examination of the foundations of culture "by having recourse to judgment" (2002). 

Photography is able to become an instrument of cultural critique because it is reliable as a method of documentation. Siegfried Kracauer argued that "photography grasps what is given as a spatial (or temporal) continuum" and that it captures too much information, too coherent and too linear in its articulation of time and space, doing so, follows the rules of non fiction. (In Batchen, 2004). In the early 20^th century, when modernism took hold, photography was used as a “spotlight of modern technology” to reveal “the evasions and concealments” of the old world, and envisioned to be able to “ pin down the changing world of appearance”(Wells, 1997, p.26).

Photography can be used to document the plight of others and bring it to people's attention. Dorothea Lange is known for her picture titled “Migrant Mother” that brought the suffering of the migrant workers, displaced farm families and sharecroppers to public attention. Her photograph wake people up, telling people what is happening in places where they have never seen. Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life, is a photographic exhibition held at the International Centre of Photography in New York examining the legacy of the apartheid system in South Africa. In their website. ICP said “Several photographic strategies, from documentary to reportage, social documentary to the photo essay, were each adopted to examine the effects and after-effects of apartheid's political, social, economic, and cultural legacy” (Rise and Fall). 

Although the examples given here are mostly photojournalistic, if the photograph is able to pass on clearly to the viewer what the photographer captures, then it is considered a form cultural critique. It is only because camera are not as easy to obtain in the past that most of the photograph are taken by professional. In the present day, any amateur with a camera can take a decent photograph that can be recognized. But not every photograph is a form of cultural critique. If it is taken by a child who plays with his father's camera and a blurry picture was taken, it would not be able to do so. 

But perhaps, aesthetic pictures can also be used to critque; we can ask for whom and for what purpose is the photograph taken or used, for the photo to be captured and frame in such a way. All the hands that take photographs are subjective in nature, they choose what and how the photograph is taken. And in choosing they show the values that were valued over others, and what message they wanted to convey. Therefore, to an extent, any photograph should be able to critique the culture of the subject of the photograph, and the culture of the photographer.

References:

Batchen, G. (2004). Forget me not: Photography and remembrance (pp. 6-16). New York Princeton architectural press.

Hart, J.K. (2002). Cultural critique in anthropology. The Memory Bank. Retrieved  November 17, 2012 from http://thememorybank.co.uk/papers/cultural-critique-in-anthropology/

Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life. International Centre of Photograph. Retrieved from http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/apartheid

Wells, L. (1997). Thinking about photography. Photography: a critical introduction (pp.24-54). London: Routledge.

Photojournalism

Question: Find a photojournalistic news story from any newspaper or magazine and answer the questions below.

Relatives mourn during the funeral of Itzik Amsalam, who was killed on Thursday after a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi November 16, 2012. REUTERS/Nir Elias

Why did you choose this news over others?

This news is chosen because the picture captures my attention and has made an emotional impact on me. 

Journalistic photographs are evaluated by the impact they have on public opinion (Zelizer, 2005). There is a question being asked here; "If the conflict does not involve civilian, then do civilians die, and so many suffers?". This picture, with its rhetoric, may well have made Americans to empathize with the people of Gaza as well as made the public in general to question the reports in Israel regarding civilian casualties. 

Is the narrative component of the story necessary or is the picture enough to express the intended message of the news?

When I first encountered this photo, it was set in a context that does not require much more information to understand what the photograph tries to convey. I was searching for photojournalistic news stories through Google and came across the Reuters website and subsequently found this picture after going through Reuters' slideshow of photos, where around half of them are related to the turmoils of Gaza. When I saw this picture, I instantly recognize it was a coverage of the sufferings in that area. It is possible that this photo will be encountered in a setting where the reader is aware of the topic.

The narrative component of the story provides the exact setting of the event shown in the picture, that is, the date, who the people in the pictures are, and the exact reason for their grief. These details are difficult to be presented with photograph without manipulating it.

To answer the question, I would say it was not necessary to include the caption.

Did the picture and writings capture the "truth" of the event?

Although photographs are still viewed as realistic, there is a consensus that photographs do not directly replicate circumstances (Wells, 1997, p.25). The view of photography as a documentary  practice was prominent in the modernism but in the postmodernist era, the idea of photography providing depictions of things was given up.

One of the responsibilities of photojournalists is to avoid deceiving the public about how the images were made (Warburton, 1998, p. 131). I will adapt Kieran and Matthew's view on photojournalism:

         "Photojournalistic images have meaning in virtue of three interrelated aspects:

                       1. What they are of, in the sense of what cause them;

                       2. What they look to be of;

                       3. How they are used in a particular context."                  

                                                                                             (Warburton, 1998, p.145-146)

As I have no means to verify the photograph taken with the photographer with the three aspects, I will only explain what the these aspects mean based on my understanding.

The first one, "...in the sense of what cause them..." the act of . This photograph would not be truthful if "what seems to be documentary evidence, is really just an illustration of the event it purports to reveal" (Warburton, 1998, p.147). If, in reality, the picture shown above is of a family trying (but failing) to reassure each other for the success of a surgery done on their family member due to a car accident, at a hospital in England, it would be a deceptive photograph. It would be an illustration only and not a photojournalistic image.

The second one, "what they look to be of" is understood to be carrying the same meaning of the message they actually carries. If the reality of the event that this photograph capture is one of happiness and relief, to frame the shot into one of despair and grief would be untruthful, deceptive.

The third aspect is how the photograph is used in this context. Different conventions are used to read different context. Knowing it is a photograph in the website of a news agency, we would assumed it was there for the purpose of providing news. We would not try to read the picture as a joke, finding out what is funny, like how all the pictures we saw in the website 9GAG are being treated.

I cannot be sure if the photo is "truth"-ful but it has a big impact on my opinion of the news it is covering on. I would say that it is successful in conveying the "truth" it wants to tell.

References:

Warburton, N. (1998). Electrical photojournalism in the age of the electronic darkroom. In Kieran, M. (ed.), Media ethics. London: Routledge. 

Wells, L. (1997). Thinking about photography. Photography: a critical introduction (pp. 24-54) London: Routledge

Zelizer, B. (2005). Journalism through the camera’s eyes. In Allan, S. (ed.), Journalism: Critical issues (pp. 167-176). Berkshire: Open University Press.