- What does Ritchin mean with the “fluidity of the digital”? Give an example of digital imaging/digital photography that exemplifies this.
In the reading, “fluidity of digital” means that along with the development of digital technology, photographs might not be trustworthy because they are always subject to modification and can be manipulated to capture certain information/create certain atmosphere in the first place. That means photography under the recent technology revolution might lose objectivity more than ever. And Ritchin gives an example of manipulating photographs. The Time Magazine modified the original photo of O.j.Simpson upon his arrest to be “darker and out of focus”, which “fit the stereotype of darker and more sinister African-American criminal”. This manipulation cater and reinforce the stereotype, despite of what reality actually was.
2.Reflect on the extent to which photography is capable of capturing reality; and compare it to other media (technology) (e.g. text, video, virtual reality, books).
Photograph can capture certain amount of visual information of reality in a moment, which means we can only look at it from one viewing angle. And by applying digital technology, it can be modified to some extent later on, which means the original piece of reality might be twisted. Another thing is that the photograph can be altered for the benefits of the power and the people who are accessible to the photograph and the technology. To conclude, photograph can only reveal limited degree of reality and it can be less with the intervention of technology and the powerful people.
Comparing it with text, photography still reveal more reality. But with text, besides the above situation that photography may encounter, the description itself can be really subjective. Among elements of a sentence, only nouns can be assumed as objective. Adjectives, verbs and adverbs can be differ based on people’s opinion. And even the nouns can be replace with another similar but slightly different alternative since after all, language is man-made creation. Besides, there are always chance that people say things to make themselves looks good or out of personal benefits and it is much easier than make change to the photos. So there might be higher chances of deception through words.