AbstractsCommunication

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.