The Image Culture

In the Article “The Image Culture” (1976) Christine Rosen talks about how our culture has grown from a words culture to an image culture, “A decline from a world ruled by the subtlety and thoughtfulness of words on paper.” How we may find ourselves in a world where our ability to communicate is stunted, our understanding and acceptance of what we see questionable and our desire to transmit culture from one generation to the next seriously compromised.

The Image Culture informs us of how technology and film has come a long way and also informs us of how society has changed due to pictures and digital media. When cameras were first invented it was a simple picture in black and white, you peeled off a film cover and you had an image. Over time film has developed into movies, media, and pictures. The media shows us life as it is happening all over the country, which is highly developed from the old black and white still picture from the past.

But has the development of Imaging hurt our society? In the past we used to read articles, books, papers to learn. Now our society watches the news, surfs the internet, look at pictures in a book. Yes it makes learning about what is happening, happened or is going to happen easier but we lose our ability to communicate these issues in a broader sense. We don’t learn certain types of terminology to convey messages. We lose out on grammar and spelling. The fact that photos and movies can be doctored to relay a message that may not be completely true leaves us questioning what is fact and what is fiction. How can we be sure what the media is showing us is completely true and not just what they want us to see to keep us interested and wanting more? From the magazines we read and the men and women we feel we want to look like because the magazines have airbrushed their imperfections and lead us to believe their bodies and faces are perfect because they used certain products on the market to the news and the violence we see on the news leading us to think there is a whole lot of bad and not much good left in this world, we are fooled by this modern day technology of photography and film.