I have mixed feelings about the publications practice to alter an image, on one hand it can’t be that harmful to a person and on the other hand it can. The ways it can’t be too harmful in my opinion are where if for a picture of a landscape for example, they brighten up the sky or enhance the suns rays to make the picture itself look better but ways where I think it can be harmful is for Women’s health magazines, there have been instances where they enhance the models appearance to seem even more likeable. This is bad because it can continue to put out a false image. If these major magazine companies keep doing this it will only make matters worse for the young teens in the nation. The younger you are the easier you are influenced by this type of media and if someone wants to aspire to be like someone and the way they look and they see an already thin model with the image altered this can be potentially dangerous. Could this type of magazine altering lead to one of the reasons that so many young people in this country are anorexic?
Changing a frown is one thing because I don’t think that can come off as potentially harmful rather then putting out a fake image. Something that we’re used to as a nation. It depends on the image in my mind, I don’t think there is any problem with it until it’s a magazine about how to look good or lose weight and the person being portrayed is an altered image. It can almost be put out as an unattainable goal that some of these people don’t know about. I think it’s acceptable are certain times but times like I just explained then no. If the company wants to sell a story about Prince William smiling then frowning then what’s so bad about that. The only thing that I can see negative that can possibly come about from this is if a certain publication can do that what’s to stop others from doing the same thing and worse as a continuing trend. I think it’s acceptable as far as advertising for food or clothing products. It’s a smart thing to do that has always worked. When you see a certain food product it almost never looks like the way it was advertised but yet you’re still inclined to buy it. With clothes they always put them on a model to enhance sales. So it’s for the good of the company to make money, if any one of us were put in the position to make more money without hurting anyone I think we would do it.
I came across a magazine and was convinced that it was fake. I then searched some more and found the original headline and that this new one was a play on the original one about National Lampoon. The headline for Texas Monthly reads “If you Don’t Buy This Magazine Dick Cheney Will Shoot You in the Face.” I thought it was fake because this magazine came out a mere month to 6 weeks after the now infamous hunting incident with Dick Cheney. I never saw the magazine before but I heard about it. It’s obviously altered because it looks like a very real but cartoonish image. I think if the sole purpose of this magazine was to get a laugh and get sales because of it, it did a good job. If they’re using a completely fake image that’s altered to look real that shouldn’t matter because it’s up to the people to decide if they will be influenced by it or not.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686303_1692246,00.html
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2 comments:
I found it really interesting that you talked about how food images on television are also altered. I had never even thought about that! You are definitly right about how people make the food look better than it actually tastes. This is definitly a big part of getting people to buy the product and spend money. Good point!
Good point! I didn't even think about alterations of food, I remember watching a video in high school about photo shoots for food, under the hot lights they use mashed potatoes when they are making ice cream cones and they use glue in place of milk for cereal. Nice post!
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