“No picture no truth”, a popular phrase spread between the teens in Hong Kong, is meaning that a matter is truth if it can be shown through the picture. This is same as the phrase “The camera never lie” to express how the media images control our thoughts on every matter.
We cannot deny both phrases are well said. Yet, it is not an exactly correct statement to realise the truth. In my point of view, media images should be a part of the external reality. The external reality would be comprehended as a BIG CIRCLE that involve with different sizes of SMALL CIRCLE. Those SMALL CIRCLEs are not only media images, but also the auditory sense, the olfactory, even the feeling of others’ perspective, and so on.
There is an unforgettable example for me to explain my viewpoint. Last year, Hong Kong occurred Umbrella Revolution. One day, I got into a restaurant for lunch. The television there was playing the news report of the conflict the day before. An uncle told the strangers how worse the campaign was after he saw the report. At the same time, there was another customer who had taken a newspaper refuted the viewpoint of the uncle. He took the viewpoint and the photos from the newspaper as an argument.
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| Umbrella Revolution, 2014 |
All I want to explain is that a situation can be separated to different points of view on different media images to different audiences. Television is a medium to express the information of the situation. At the same time, newspaper is a medium to express the information of the situation as well. Recently, there are amount of opinions argued that bias existed in Hong Kong TV news report, especially in the largest broadcast television network, because of the stability maintenance. However, the pity is that TV are the most convenient and easiest way of the older generation to get the information. As seeing is believing, their mindset was controlled by incomplete report. Because of those incomplete report, it caused people, who are not in the scene, had different opinions.
Although the camera never lie and the picture can show the situation, the photographers can lie! Thus, I cannot make a conclusion to what extent the media images are detached from the external world. After all, it is related to the people who want to present the truth they saw with what kind of motivation they have.
Dear Hing Lun, This is a comprehensive discussion of the issue of representation. The graph in the middle is nice and demonstrates your good understanding of the topic. Try to make more explicit reference to terms like representation in your future writing on a similar topic.
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