1. Introduction
Digital imaging technology, the shift from chemical darkroom into the digital era, along with technological convergence, has had a great impact on photojournalistic practices and routines since the 1980s (Fadel, 2010). This shift has created new realms of challenges for photojournalists; photo manipulation is one such challenge. Despite its existence since the emergence of photography, it has always been a matter of fierce debate and concern, especially after the massive ‘revolution’ of the advanced digital technology which made manipulation much easier, more persuasive and mostly undetectable. According to Bardis (2004, p.211), “[w]ith proper computer software, portions of a photograph, specifically groups of individual picture …show more content…
This means that the credibility of photographs is at stake and hence photojournalists are facing many ethical dilemmas concerning the decisions that should be taken while manipulating photos. On one hand, some researchers argue that if photojournalists are not attentive and aware of using the digital imaging manipulation techniques and crossed its ethical boundaries, the credibility of photojournalism will be destroyed (Irby, 1996, cited in Gosen, 2000). "Should the day ever come when photographs in mainstream newspapers or magazines are greeted with doubt as to their very content or origin, something terrible will have happened to our democratic free press in the name o f higher technology" (Van Riper, 1994, cited in Gosen, 2000, p.99). Along the same line, Howard Chapnick (1982) clearly summarized the main duty of ‘professional’ photojournalists. "Credibility. Responsibility. These words give us the right to call photography a profession rather than a business. Not maintaining that credibility will diminish our journalistic impact and self-respect, and the importance of photography as communication" (pp. …show more content…
Despite the growing volume of studies and research projects that have investigated questions similar to the ones presented in this paper, there is no relevant study referring specifically to Egypt. Furthermore, while many studies detailed the changes in the newsroom and the journalistic working practices after digitization (Hermida and Thurman, 2008), very few studies tackled the impact of these changes from the photojournalists’ perspectives themselves. Therefore, this study aims to fill these gaps and provide findings and guidelines that will contribute to the ethical practices of deploying the digital imaging manipulation technology in the Egyptian printed media
Digital imaging technology, the shift from chemical darkroom into the digital era, along with technological convergence, has had a great impact on photojournalistic practices and routines since the 1980s (Fadel, 2010). This shift has created new realms of challenges for photojournalists; photo manipulation is one such challenge. Despite its existence since the emergence of photography, it has always been a matter of fierce debate and concern, especially after the massive ‘revolution’ of the advanced digital technology which made manipulation much easier, more persuasive and mostly undetectable. According to Bardis (2004, p.211), “[w]ith proper computer software, portions of a photograph, specifically groups of individual picture …show more content…
This means that the credibility of photographs is at stake and hence photojournalists are facing many ethical dilemmas concerning the decisions that should be taken while manipulating photos. On one hand, some researchers argue that if photojournalists are not attentive and aware of using the digital imaging manipulation techniques and crossed its ethical boundaries, the credibility of photojournalism will be destroyed (Irby, 1996, cited in Gosen, 2000). "Should the day ever come when photographs in mainstream newspapers or magazines are greeted with doubt as to their very content or origin, something terrible will have happened to our democratic free press in the name o f higher technology" (Van Riper, 1994, cited in Gosen, 2000, p.99). Along the same line, Howard Chapnick (1982) clearly summarized the main duty of ‘professional’ photojournalists. "Credibility. Responsibility. These words give us the right to call photography a profession rather than a business. Not maintaining that credibility will diminish our journalistic impact and self-respect, and the importance of photography as communication" (pp. …show more content…
Despite the growing volume of studies and research projects that have investigated questions similar to the ones presented in this paper, there is no relevant study referring specifically to Egypt. Furthermore, while many studies detailed the changes in the newsroom and the journalistic working practices after digitization (Hermida and Thurman, 2008), very few studies tackled the impact of these changes from the photojournalists’ perspectives themselves. Therefore, this study aims to fill these gaps and provide findings and guidelines that will contribute to the ethical practices of deploying the digital imaging manipulation technology in the Egyptian printed media