b&g (87-131)

Bolter and Grusin suggest that digital photography disturbs our faith in the transparency of the photograph, its representation of reality: “We are disturbed because we must now acknowledge that any photograph might be digitally altered. Digital technology may succeed—where combination printing and other analog techniques have not succeeded in the past—in shaking our culture’s faith in the transparency of the photograph” (110). While I agree that we have become more aware of the possibility that images may have been digitally altered, I think we are also still quick to accept images as we see them. It is much easier to look at text with a critical eye than to look at an image with a critical eye because language filters “reality” more obviously than an image does. In other words, using words and symbols to represent reality necessarily distances us from that reality—it is clearly an interpretation of reality. And while images do the same thing, they are seemingly more transparent, less obviously a representation of reality rather than reality itself. This seems especially true for images (and video) found on the internet. Many people fail to discern reliable information—in the form of both text and images—from that which lacks credibility. Whether or not people have the ability to make this distinction, awareness that the distinction exists is an important aspect of digital literacy.