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Controversies and Interdisciplinarity: Beyond disciplinary fragmentation for a new knowledge model
Edited by Jens Allwood, Olga Pombo, Clara Renna and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 16] 2020
► pp. 199–215

Chapter 10
Controversial images

‘Listening to’ the visual, for a new communication ethics

| University of Pisa

Communicating with controversial images may be a device to draw attention to issues that are key to the interest of people and society alike. A device that can raise public awareness, or, instead, anaesthetise it may lead to make responsible or irresponsible choices. It is this ability of images that will be emphasised by communicative events involving controversial images, astride three media revolutions ad imaginem: printing, photography and digital technology. Lastly, emphasis will be placed on the importance of communication ethics in the choice of a “good” controversial image, one that may enable viewers to see it, ‘listen to it’ and understand it and, thus, to act morally.

Keywords: controversial, ethics, image, listening, social, visual communication
Article outline
  • Foreword: The power and limits of controversial images
  • The inter-disciplinary and synesthetic dimensions of visual communication
  • The contro-versial dimension of the visual, and opinion-forming
  • Medial caesurae and controversies from, and in, the visual
  • Conclusions: Listening to images, for a controversial ethics of the visual
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.16.10ner
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