Ethics, Technology and Computer
Art
Alan Cosgrove, Fine and Performing Arts Technology has expanded the horizons of artists. Professor Cosgrove
points out that it has also introduced some knotty issues of ethics both
for the creative artist and for those who see their creations.
Ethics and Communications
Courses
Thomas Valasek, Communications and Humanities In an attempt to give his students the feeling of actually
"owning"
some intellectual property, Professor Valasek constructed a series of
assignments
which require that students usep;and citep;each other's
work.
Ethics, Technology and Computer
Art
By Alan Cosgrove, Fine and Performing Arts
I teach Computer Art I, II and III and am currently dealing with various
ethical issues in each level of the course. Some of the issues and examples
that I have been researching and refining methods for teaching follow:
1. The Issue of Image Manipulation:
· Documentary images, which the public tends to believe without
question:
What are the issues involved in the alteration of a photograph of the
pyramids
by National Geographic and in NBC's alteration of test results on GM truck
gas tanks?
· Editorial images, which present a convincing visual argument: Is
it permissible to distort an image to support a point? If a distorted image
is presented, is there always an obligation to make the viewer aware of
the distortion? (Examples include caricatures and Newsweek's alteration
of its cover photograph of O.J. Simpson.)
· Advertising images: Are blatantly distorted images permissible here
since the public is assumed to know that they are distorted? Are ad images
designed to subtly manipulate the consumer ethical?
· Satirical images, which the public understands to be distorted: Is
it possible to be unethical in satire?
· Entertainment images, which the public seems to want to believe:
What are the issues involved in TV Guide's cover photographic composite
of Oprah Winfrey and Ann-Margret? (Winfrey's head was "edited"
onto Ann-Margret's body without acknowledgement that this was done.)
2. The Issue of Image Acquisition:
· Copyright law: What do students need to know?
· Appropriating images from fine art: When is it appropriate? Does
the appropriator have an obligation to "cite" the source of the
image? Is it possible for the appropriated image to change so much that
it becomes the appropriator's image?
3. The Issue of Image Destruction:
· Does an artist (or an artist's descendants) have the right to ensure
that the integrity of a piece is maintained after it is sold? (Example:
Kellogg's use of Grant Wood on cornflakes boxes.)
4. The Issues of Software Duplication:
· These include copyright law, intellectual property issues, commercial
software issues and shareware.
CASE STUDY: One of the cases that I have refined for class
deals with the unauthorized use of images produced by others.
After studying Magritte, Dali and other surrealist artists, the students
are given the assignment of creating their own surreal image on a computer.
After searching through magazines for appropriate (or inappropriate) images,
they select a background image for their own scene. Images of objects,
people,
places, etc. are then selected to be placed within the scene. I demonstrate
the use of the scanner and students scan their images and save them to disk.
Next, they use a paint program to "cut and paste" the images into
one unified, balanced, surreal image.
When I explain this assignment, I take the opportunity to discuss
inappropriate
manipulation of images. I use a copy of TV Guide which featured a composited
image of Oprah Winfrey's head on actress Ann-Margret's body. Ann-Margret's
skin tones had been adjusted to match Winfrey's and their neck areas had
been blended seamlessly.
I point out that the public believed that this image was actually
a representation
of Winfrey; the magazine intentionally deceived the public. Furthermore,
the magazine did not ask permission to use the Ann-Margret photo. Finally,
since part of Ann-Margret's income is derived from her image, we explore
her right to maintain control of that image.
I also use this case to discuss copyright law.
At this time I also explore with students the legitimate methods
that can
be used to achieve "surreal" results, especially in work produced
outside an educational setting. These methods include using the student's
own photographs or drawings, hiring a photographer or artist to produce
the desired image, purchasing the rights to use the desired image from an
individual or an image bank, and drawing on public domain images.
In my research I have found two excellent sources of information
on this
subject: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines by the Graphic Artists Guild and
Digital Imaging for Visual Artists by Grotta and Grotta. The latter suggests
the following questions to help an artist determine if the use of a
manipulated
image would be ethical:
· What is the purpose of the manipulation?
· Will it cause harm to another person or organization?
· Can I trust the client to use the manipulated image as it
was intended
to be used?
· What will be the impact of my image?
· Where will it be used?
· How believable is it? Is it an obviously altered picture?
If not,
should a symbol be printed with it to indicate that it has been changed?
· Could the manipulated image be construed as proof of
something that
is not true?
· Why am I being asked to manipulate this picture?
· Is there artistic merit to the proposed manipulation?
· Is the manipulation libelous or otherwise potentially illegal?
· If the image to be manipulated is not my own, do I have
the written
permission of the creator to do what is planned?
· Will I be proud of the effect the manipulated image will have?
The Ethics of Teaching in the Foreign
Language Classroom
By S.L. Reynolds, Spanish and French
Like other teachers, a foreign language teacher must abide by and enforce
certain ethical criteria: Academic freedom, student-teacher confidentiality
and academic honesty. My foreign language students also have
responsibilities:
They must study vocabulary, grammar and culture; they must keep journals
about impressions of the language and culture under study; and they must
enroll for a course at the level appropriate for their competence.
The following scenarios deal with both teacher and student
ethical issues.
Ethical Issue #1
The Setting: As part of Introduction to Spanish I students are required
to maintain journals discussing current events and their impressions of
issues affecting Hispanics.
The Situation: Reading a journal, the teacher is dismayed to find that the
student has used racial slurs regarding Hispanics. The instructor thinks
that, although complete, the journal is grossly inaccurate and illustrates
that the student had not grasped the object of the cultural studies portion
of the class. The instructor believes that in giving the journal a passing
grade he will be promoting racism and therefore, gives it a failing
grade.
General Discussion Topics:
1. What criteria had been established by the instructor concerning the
journal? Did those criteria indicate that students are free to express their
opinions?
2. Was the instructor grading the journal objectively or subjectively?
3. Is racism in this case an academic, ethical or moral issue?
Ethical Issue #2
The Setting: In a Spanish class students keep a current events journal.
They must make evaluative comments after reporting on a news event.
The Situation: An instructor receives a student journal based on news items
with opinions of those events. The student included several derogatory
comments
about Hispanics. The instructor does not think that failing the student
is the best decision since the assignment was completed as required. She
decides that discussing this occurrence with the class to prevent future
slurs from occurring would be best. While discussing it with the class the
instructor does not mention the name of the student who had written the
comments, but through innuendoes makes it apparent to the class whose journal
she had read. The student feels uncomfortable and mentions this to the
instructor.
The instructor explains that bigotry is frowned upon and says that the
student
wouldn't have felt embarrassed if he had thought twice about expressing
himself in such a derogatory manner.
General Discussion Topics:
1. Should the student have expressed his negative feelings in a formal
assignment?
2. Did the teacher violate student-teacher confidentiality by revealing
the student's identity in an indirect manner?
3. Was the teacher making a moral judgment about the student? Is that
ethical?
Ethical Issue #3
The Setting: During foreign language exams at advanced levels, students
are permitted to use dictionaries for lengthy essays.
The Situation: During a midterm examination a student is using a dictionary
for a short-answer section. The instructor has specified that dictionaries
may only be used on the essay section of the examination. When confronted,
the student apologizes and says that she had not understood the
directions.
General Discussion Topics:
1. If the student had misunderstood or not heard the instructions, should
the instructor punish her?
2. Was the instructor incompetent because she did not ensure the security
of the examination in order to have prevented such an occurrence? Would
such incompetence also be unethical?
Ethical Situation #4
The Setting: In order to register for a foreign language class a student
must take an entrance exam determining the level of competence in the foreign
language.
The Situation: A gifted athlete is scheduled to take a foreign language
placement exam. Since his grades are not good, but his native language is
French, his coach urges him to fail the placement exam. The coach reasons
that the athlete will be guaranteed a good grade in that class, which will
pull up his cumulative average. He further reasons that since French will
be an easy class, the athlete will have less work to do and can, therefore,
spend more time training. The student fails the placement exam
intentionally.
The instructor of French, however, notes immediately that the athlete has
native ability in the language. She denies the student access to her class,
explaining to the student that it is unfair and unethical for him to take
the class. Also, since the other students are not at his level of
proficiency,
they might feel disadvantaged or incompetent.
Topics for Discussion:
1. Was the student's conduct unethical?
2. Did the coach give unethical advice? Was the coach to blame for
the student's
unethical behavior? Did his position of authority make him the sole
perpetrator
of the unethical deed?
3. Was it unethical for the instructor to deny the student
permission to
take her class?
Ethical Issue #5
The Setting: Students are required to take a placement test to determine
their level of fluency in a language.
The situation: A student intentionally fails a placement exam in Spanish,
although his native language is Spanish. The student, however, does not
make it obvious until mid-semester. At that point the instructor realizes
that the student has native competence and she is unsure of what to do.
Since the school has no policy governing this situation, the instructor
decides to allow the student to remain in the class since it is too late
to drop. Several other students complain to the teacher that they feel an
injustice has been committed. The teacher disregards their complaints because
she is unsure of her course of action.
Topics for Discussion:
1. Was the teacher acting ethically?
2. Has the student done anything unethical?
Ethical Issue #6
The Setting: An instructor can be self-employed or employed by an agency
as a tutor.
The Situation: A foreign language instructor is employed as a private tutor
for an agency. The instructor, however, has decided to become self-employed.
She announces to her students that she will be terminating her employment
with the school. The students ask if it is her intention to continue teaching
elsewhere. The instructor feels a bit awkward and explains to the students
that she will be tutoring privately from her home. Since the students have
the tutor's home number (which she had given them in case they had questions
about their assignments) several of them telephone the instructor after
the class. They inform her that they would prefer to study with her as an
individual since they like her teaching style. The tutor agrees to tutor
them privately.
Topics for Discussion:
1. Is the instructor committing an unethical act by agreeing to
tutor those
students?
2. Was she wrong to have answered their questions about her leaving the
school?
3. Do the students have a right as consumers to follow their instructor
rather than stay with the tutoring agency?
Ethics and Communications
Courses
By Tom Valasek, Humanities/Communications
The lesson that I am working on for my ethics project is a set of three
sequenced assignments for Introduction to Mass Communications: A short
analytical
paper, a short research paper, and an essay examination question. (Assignment
directions are below.)
There are two objectives I would like to accomplish with these
assignments:
First, I would like students to appreciate some of the ethical
issues concerning
how sources of information are cited in newspapers and on television; for
example, how apparently "objective" information can slant a news
report or influence the reader's or viewer's perception of a news event.
Several readings on the course syllabus already address such issues, but
I would like students to learn about them through personal observation as
well.
Second, I would like each student to create some
"intellectual property",
i.e., personal observations and comments about news media (in writing
assignment
#1), which would then be made available to the rest of the class as a general
source of information (in writing assignment #2). In this way, students
would experience more directly ethical considerations about citing
information
(i.e., other people's intellectual property) accurately and fairly.
In the midterm essay question I would like students to reflect
upon both
of these objectives and to arrive at some closure on their own about
important
ethical factors that should be considered whenever they use other people's
ideas in their own work.
Introduction to Mass Communications
Writing Assignment #1
The first writing assignment for Introduction to Mass
Communications is
to describe and analyze the media coverage of a news event in the New York
Times and on a commercial television network news broadcast.
There are three parts to this assignment:
1. State the news event you are writing about and identify the
media sources
you are monitoring. For the Times this means noting the day and date of
the newspaper, as well as the section(s) and page(s) where the news event
is reported. For the television news this means noting the day, the date,
the time of the report, and the networkp;ABC, CBS, or NBC. (Please note
that you are to work with a network broadcast, not a local one.)
2. Describe in detail the media coverage in the Times and on television.
For the newspaper this means measuring the column inches of the main story
reporting the event, as well as all sidebars; describing visuals
(photographs,
maps, graphics) that are part of the report; and identifying the principal
sources of information cited. For television this means timing the exact
length (minutes and seconds) of the main story reporting the event, as well
as all the related stories; describing the use of visuals (live shots, file
footage, interviews, maps, graphics) in the report; and identifying the
principal sources of information cited.
3. Analyze the news coverage in the Times and on television and comment
on the strengths and weaknesses of each. This is the most important part
of the assignment and should be thoroughly developed. It is important that
you support your observations with specific details, examples, and quotes
from the newspaper and the television reports. Conclude the paper with a
concise, "quotable" statement about which media you think reported
the news event more effectively, and why.
This assignment should be 3-4 pages in length, typed
double-spaced.
Introduction to Mass Communications
Writing Assignment #2
The second writing assignment for Mass Communications is to
compare and
contrast newspaper and television news coverage, based on the information
gathered by the class for the first writing assignment. At the circulation
desk of the library are several reserved copies of a "research
packet"
of materials for this assignmentp;the papers that the class completed
for Assignment #1. All the research for Assignment #2 is to come from this
packet.
The object of this assignment is to evaluate intelligently the effectiveness
of newspaper and television news coverage, based on the class's observations
about recent news reports in The New York Times and on network news
broadcasts.
The bases for your evaluation are the criteria that the class described
and analyzed in the first paper: namely, the amount and the quality of
information
presented, the sources of information cited, and the overall presentation
of the news in each medium. In addition, you may cite observations and
comments
by your classmates as "expert opinion" in this paper.
Be sure the paper includes a clear thesis statement in the
opening paragraph
and that the thesis is thoroughly developed in the body of paper. Include
details, examples, and quotes from the research packet to support and explain
your arguments in the paper. Conclude the paper with a concise, insightful
statement about how The New York Times and network television news broadcasts
match up on their coverage of recent news.
The paper must include references (quotes, paraphrases,
summaries) to at
least ten papers in the research packet and include a "Works Cited"
page at the end. (MLA citation will be explained in class.) This assignment
should be 5-7 pages in length (plus the Works Cited page), typed
double-spaced.
Introduction to Mass Communications
Mid-Semester Examination Question
(To be assigned before the exam, but to be written in class)
Based on readings for Mass Communications and insights gained
from the
two writing assignments in the course so far, identify and explain some
important factors that readers and viewers should consider about the sources
of information that are cited in newspaper and television news reporting.
Feel free to include your thoughts about citing your classmates as sources
for the research paper about newspaper and television coverage, or about
having your information and observations cited by others in the class.