Item Details

title

Developing Perfection: Understanding and Redefining Photography in a Digital Age

author

Hahn, Taylor

abstract

As digital photography has grown in popularity, it has lead to the development of sophisticated digital image modification software. This thesis employs Kenneth Burke’s theory of perfection-seeking behavior to examine the usage of digital image modification in modern society. Engaging the work of Jean Baudrillard, I establish the impact of image modification in everyday life through a lens of Hyperreality. I examine genealogies of photography and image modification as a means of rhetorically comparing digital technologies to the photographic processes seen prior to computer-based modification. The conclusion establishes the potentially dramatic implications of digitally modified images retaining an ethotic dwelling place as truth-telling forms of visual communication.

subject

Visual Communication

Photography

Rhetoric

Perfection

Hyperreality

Photoshop

Communication

Digital Image Modification

contributor

Beasley Von Burg, Alessandra (committee chair)

Hyde, Michael (committee member)

Curley, John (committee member)

date

2009-05-08T17:12:05Z (accessioned)

2010-06-18T18:59:45Z (accessioned)

2009-05-08T17:12:05Z (available)

2010-06-18T18:59:45Z (available)

2009-05-08T17:12:05Z (issued)

degree

Communication (discipline)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/14886 (uri)

language

en_US (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

rights

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide. (accessRights)

type

Thesis