"The Ethics of Visual Rhetoric & Photo Manipulation"

 Discussion & Application: Did BP Act Unethically?

With concern for the ethical theories previously outlined, paired with reasonable knowledge of the scenario and BP’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, one can make a well-considered judgment of BP’s public relations efforts. While this process may just raise rhetorical questions, this scenario serves as an example of the complex nature of decision-making when technical subject matter, the media, and immense pressure are concerned. As technical communicators, our work is rhetorical, meaning we have a duty to practice responsibility within our means for persuasion. While this seems easily understood (a no-brainer, really), pressure from a client, the corporation, the media, and the public can make easy ethical decisions rather hazy. The important takeaway from the application of these theories to BP’s public relations fiasco is that these decisions are not to be taken lightly, and that when we make an ethical decision to manipulate a photo to the point of altering reality, we should be able to provide reasoning for our decision-making process.

Under a deontological lens, BP would likely be accused of acting unethically in releasing manipulated photos as means to ease the media and the public’s inquiry into their cleanup and response efforts in the wake of the oil spill. It would be difficult for anyone involved in the doctoring of the photos, and/or their subsequent release to the media and the public by publishing them on the official BP website, to argue that they believe that their actions should be or could be considered universal law, and therefore morally right. If it became universal law to alter reality by manipulating photos in the face of building public and corporate pressure, chaos would ensue. Additionally, in the wake of one of the largest environmental disasters of all time, it would be reasonable to argue that BP’s public duty was repairing, both physically and emotionally, the damage to families of victims of the explosion, people living and working on the Gulf Coast, and anyone who believed the corporate giant was acting solely in its own best economic interest. By doctoring images, especially in such a careless manner, the company was seemingly making light of such a public duty, therefore behaving unethically in terms of deontological ethics. BP also acted unethically in consideration of Kant’s second guiding principle: that recipients of actions with moral standing should be treated as ends rather than means to an end. Unless the corporation claimed to operate under an ethic of egoism (which is doubtful, as that would be detrimental to the company’s public image), they should consider human beings to have moral standing. If humans are considered to be recipients of moral standing, they shouldn’t be taken advantage of by being deceived. In this way, while BP is not literally using the public as means to an end, they are using the public’s perceived acceptance of the doctored photos as means to an end-- the end being eased pressure from the media and the public.

Consequentialist ethical theory, while fundamentally opposite of deontological ethics, does not offer BP many allowances in terms of ethical judgment. While it would be difficult to argue in favor of doctoring technical images or photos that aim to offer accurate information, it could be reasonable to assume that BP was offering the photos to the public in order to ease pressure, not for their own financial and public relations benefit, but rather so that they would be able to focus on more pressing matters—like killing the wellhead leak, cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico, and repairing the physical and financial damage to people living on the Gulf coast and their property. I cannot prove that BP was acting to ease public pressure, but it is possible that the corporation was acting in order to get the media and the public off their back, allowing them the peace of mind to operate at their highest level of efficiency. If this were the case, the scenario would fit under consequentialism as follows: the agent (BP) performed the act of manipulating photos, which would allow greater peace of mind for the agent as well as perceived satisfaction of desires and wants of the recipients (the media and the general public interested in the case). Under a preference-satisfaction utilitarian lens, this could possibly be considered ethical. If the end of an action can be considered good and right regardless of the nature of the means required to achieve such an end, then BP may have acted ethically. However, this conclusion is still problematic in that there is no way to truly and accurately deem such an objective good or right.

Considering the case solely as it pertains to technical communicators, referencing the rhetorical and ethical theories outlined in this case study, it should be clear that BP’s actions were unethical no matter how they are interpreted under more general ethical theories. The workers who doctored and/or released the photos are performing rhetorical work — they are attempting to persuade their audience to believe something. Consequently, the alteration of images to the point of altering reality (creating false narratives or settings, like a busy control room or a helicopter surveying the disaster site) should be understood as breaking fundamental ethical principles. According to the Society for Technical Communication’s (STC) ethical principles, technical communicators “seek to promote the public good in [their] activities. To the best of [their] ability, [they] provide truthful and accurate communications” (STC, 1998). Any manipulation of information that alters the accuracy or truthfulness should be considered dishonest. While all photos can be considered altered (since a photographer mediates reality by framing a photo and choosing to capture it at a certain focal length, shutter speed, and aperture), BP’s alterations go beyond mediating reality and breach into changing reality. Furthermore, in the likely event that BP doctored the photos for the sake of their own public image, the corporation acted without regard for the public good (in terms of being open and honest with the public, as they intended to be by creating the Flickr page). Therefore, in being dishonest and seemingly operating under an ethic of egoism in their effort to ease public pressure, BP acted unethically by doctoring photos in their response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.