From Images to the Technical and Ethical Responsibilities of Reporting

Abstract

A description of the world in images is one of the elements that characterize the era of technical dominion. And yet, the myth of gaining knowledge through images — the idea that knowing is, before all else, being able make an image of something — is an ancient dream, and we might almost say, a necessary destiny. Indeed, Western culture has always been an essentially visual culture. The very word idea, which for Plato was the most appropriate object of knowledge, etymologically derives from orao, a very ancient verb that means to see.