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Picture Perfect: Life in the Age of the Photo Op - New Edition

(Paperback, New Edition)


Publishing Details

Full Title:

Picture Perfect: Life in the Age of the Photo Op - New Edition

Contributors:

By (Author) Kiku Adatto

ISBN:

9780691124407

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Publication Date:

21st July 2008

Edition:

New Edition

Country:

United States

Classifications

Readership:

Professional and Scholarly

Fiction/Non-fiction:

Non Fiction

Other Subjects:

Television

Dewey:

324.7309730905

Physical Properties

Physical Format:

Paperback

Number of Pages:

304

Dimensions:

Width 152mm, Height 235mm

Weight:

425g

Description

We say the camera doesn't lie, but we also know that pictures distort and deceive. In Picture Perfect, Kiku Adatto brilliantly examines the use and abuse of images today. Ranging from family albums to Facebook, political campaigns to popular movies, images of war to pictures of protest. Adatto reveals how the line between the person and the pose, the real and the fake, news and entertainment is increasingly blurred. New technologies make it easier than ever to capture, manipulate, and spread images. But even in the age of the Internet, we still seek authentic pictures and believe in the camera's promise to document, witness, and interpret our lives.

Reviews

"In this engrossing analysis of modern imagery, Adatto chronicles the rise of America's 'photo-op culture' and the explosion of social networking sites, image-conscious photography and the guerilla war between gaffe-seeking journalists and self-aware politicians. This book is an admirable analysis of the role of the image in modern culture and an eloquent defense of why words still matter."--Publishers Weekly "[A] lively exploration of our picture-dominated media... We are living in an image-controlled world where reality and artifice have merged and we are all conspiring in our own deception."--Sally Feldman, Times Higher Education "[A] lucid and original book on the 'new image consciousness in American culture.' Drawing on television, photography and cinema, [Adatto] dissects several curious ironies related to image-making. Not least is the love-hate relationship that has characterized the visual era from its infancy."--Carl Session Stepp, American Journalism Review "Picture Perfect shows how television's obsession with pictures is part of a much larger problem--modern American culture's fascination with images, real and manufactured."--Bob Schieffer, CBS News, Washington Monthly "[S]uperb analysis... [N]etwork news has increasingly treated presidential campaigns as artifice and, by doing so, has made them more artificial."--James Q. Wilson, New Republic "[Adatto] jolted the media establishment by ... documenting the 'shrinking sound bite'... The most damaging paradox of modern political coverage, she argues, is that TV reporters and producers, having inflated politicians to posed perfection, are then irresistibly tempted to magnify their every flaw and 'puncture the picture.' "--Pamela Constable, Boston Globe

Author Bio

Kiku Adatto is a Scholar in Residence at Harvard University's Humanities Center. Her writings on culture, politics, and the media have appeared in many publications, including the "New York Times", the "New Republic"and the "Huffington Post".

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