Here comes the image

Are we heading toward a world of the image and leaving the word behind? It is a distinct possibility.

In a long essay at The New Atlantis web site, Christine Rosen presents some intriguing ideas about what the ascendacy of the image over the word may mean. One point that Rosen covers is the easy falsification of reality through photographs and software such as Adobe's PhotoShop. It used to be that a photo caught the world with complete accuracy. But now, with digital cameras and programs like PhotoShop, what we presume to be reality can quickly and easily be manipulated and, therefore, the meaning altered.

Mitchell Stephens, a professor at NYU and author of The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word, suggests something even scarier: he says that in the future, people will read and write less, relying instead on images "as the predominant means of mental transport." Sounds too much like Fahrenheit 451 to me.

Granted, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but a manipulated picture is a different (dare I say it?) story altogether. I think manipulation of another's thoughts is more easily accomplished by the image, in part because humans are visual animals and soak up image information voraciously, and in part because today, "image is everything." As Rosen points out, there was that old Canon camera ad campaign with Andre Agassi saying that exact phrase. We are told to dress with success, that first impressions (i.e., before someone really gets to know you), and we ignore the admonition that we "can't judge a book by its cover." Apple's iPod is a best seller, not because it's the best product or best buy, but because of its looks, its image.

Images are powerful, more powerful than words in today's nearly post-literate world. With their power comes this ease of manipulation, which scares me. Thinking takes words. Those with command of the language will be better equipped to recognize when someone is trying to manipulate them. Those who rely on images will be more easily fooled.

Rosen has some great examples -- it's well worth reading if you are involved with the presentation of information. Click on that link up above.

Now, instead of feeling somehow inferior that my web site has few images and is mostly words, I am going to feel good about it. I'm doing my small part in putting a finger in the dike.