Module 6 Lecture

I am grateful to learn about mass media and new technology because I did not expect to learn about such things in Library and Information Science.

As the first page of the slide show says, photography created a new view of the world. I think sometimes people try not to see in reality, but pictures enable to send great messages directly to everyone without any language barriers.

Some of the pictures on the slide were shocking to me. These photographs show enough how terrible wars are. In my country, unfortunately some information has been controlled. As I mentioned on this blog earlier, I see that control of the past enables to control of the future. I learned from this lecture that this happens not only in my country, but also around the world. I think the government in every country is afraid of the power of the photograph. This fact reminded me one of my favorite photographers, Robert Capa. He states “[t]he truth is the best picture, the best propaganda.”

In the lecture, Dr. Roland also mentioned about the development of photography. The slide on Photography 2.0 was especially interesting to me. When I saw the picture of a couple, I was impressed that pictures of people were taken over a century ago.

When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, thousands of people lost their lives. The survived family members looked for family pictures because that was the only way they could see faces of their beloved ones. Some could only found one picture which was a driver license. Some could not find anything because they saved pictures only on computers. The picture on the slide reminded me the impacts of photographs in our lives. I believe in the power of changing the world by photography.