According to Walsh (2006), pictures also convey different meanings for different people, which will result in different imaginations. With a picture of Obama and Michelle as Muslims, people will start to get the wrong picture, therefore creating fear among voters. This is unhealthy as it is a form of discrimination and defamation, also this has breached ethical publishing. With such insensitivity, unnecessary doubts will be formed towards the leadership and personality of Obama.
The publishing of this picture is insensitive towards the religion and the believers. This will give a wrong concept that Muslims are just about war, however this is not true. Apart from that, Lester (2003) also states that culture plays an important role in interpretation when it comes to pictures. For the Americans, they have witnessed the horrifying September 11th, therefore with this picture portraying Obama with a picture of Osama, Americans will have fear instilled in them again, and for those family members who have lost a loved one, it is a form of reopening old wounds. According to Kress & Leeuwen (2001), an article may be intended to entertain viewers,especially the design or pictures used, however to some the interpretation might not be entertaining as it has crossed ones ethical group,making it as an insult.
Therefore, ethical publishing should be monitored to cut down on the offence that would be caused among readers.
(307 words)
Reference
1. Lester, P.M 2003, Visual Communication: Images with Messages, Third Edition, Wadsworth, United States of America.
2. Kress G. & Leeuwen T.V 2001, Multimodal Discourse, Arnold, United States of America.
3. Walsh M. 2006, The Textual Shift: Examining the reading process with print,visual and multimodal texts, Vol.29,No1,pp.24-37.
4. Obama Picture, Google Images, Last viewed 15th June 2009,
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