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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 19 page consideration of the ways that the photographic archive can contain negative representations of a culture and a time that are counterproductive to true understanding. Bibliography lists 20 sources.
Page Count:
19 pages (~225 words per page)
File: AM2_PPartPhotBias.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
the generations impacting not just those cultures that created them but also those in contemporary times. The messages that they deliver are often considered one of the most accurate
interpretations of history. Photographs, after all, dont lie...or do they? In accordance with French social historian Michel Foucault, the post modernist photographic archive can be viewed as the
law of what can be said, how it can be said and when it can be said. The contention must be made, in fact, that even photographs can be
biased and can instill a certain bias to the historical record. This contention is particularly interesting as it applies to the photographs that are being created in our contemporary
world where it seems that emphasis is placed more on capturing the viewpoints of minorities and other special interest groups rather than our society as a whole. If the
photographic output of todays society is indeed a reflection of how we see ourselves then the photographic archive becomes symbolic in regard to the vacuous and divisive nature of our
modern existence. As Derida (1995) notes, the historic archive is not longer a "monotonous endless plain" (p. 28). Instead, it has evolved into a "complex volume in which heterogenous
regions are differentiated or deployed in accordance with specific rules and practice that cannot be superposed" (Derrida, 1995, p. 28). Photography is that "precise technology" described by Benjamin (1931),
that technology that "can give its products a magical value, such as a painted picture can never" impart (p. 58). There are many obvious faults in our contemporary world
and photography is one of the most powerful recorders, and perhaps even magnifiers of, those faults. The mass media would be rendered almost powerless, in fact, without photography.
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