Picture Manipulation In Mainstream Media

In today’s mainstream media, visual images are said to be the most powerful element at attracting attention and interest to magazines, web pages, or other resources. Through editing, photos can be airbrushed, cropped, or even combined to make the perfect image. Along with all these possibilities come opportunities for manipulation and betrayal, especially on the Internet where everyone is always on. This should not be happening in mainstream media. It is unethical to use photo manipulation in mainstream media because it can lower people’s self esteem, display an inaccurate image of the person, and causes false rumors. Exposure to thin-ideal media images may contribute to the development of eating disorders by causing body dissatisfaction,

When people see a model in real life, they usually don’t look anything like how they appear on magazine covers. They use many types of enhancements such as retouching a person’s waistline to make them slimmer or changing their skin tone to make them look tan. Kelly Clarkson was on Self’s September 2009 cover, she was digitally slimmed to the point where you almost couldn’t recognize her. She appeared on Good Morning America to show that her body wasn’t nearly as slimmed as the one on the cover and ironically the magazine titled was “The Body Confidence Issue,” and where a featured interview of her talking about how comfortable she was with her body (Admin). ‘You seem to have a problem with it; I don’t. I’m fine!’ I’ve never felt uncomfortable on the red carpet or anything,” says Clarkson (Admin). This shows how magazines can be absolutely inaccurate. We are constantly attacked by a retouched perception of

People could easily clone their head and put it on a different person’s body that might be inappropriate. It might seem like it’s humor to them, but it’s not when the picture goes public and it’s on the front page of every website or magazine. Soon, the person who got photoshopped will have a bad reputation from a manipulated photo that’s actually not him/her. It is important that people should not always believe what they see in magazines or internet unless you know them personally and know that it’s 100 percent them. Photo manipulation might seem unethical, but there are still ethical things about it. People can use photoshop to make art, adjust the brightness/contrast, crop out something unnecessary, and way more. Photoshop can also be used to bring awareness to important issues like environmental problems. Even with all the good things you can do with photoshop, it’s still unethical if it negatively affect people’s