On the heels of our core conversation at SXSW, John Romano and I have created a blog dedicated to talking about the digital afterlife. You should check it out: www.thedigitalbeyond.com.
Of course I’m not going to let a chance to talk about the Tar Heels recent national championship pass, but I felt compelled to provide a bit more substance to my thoughts. I’ll leave the sports commentary to my friends over at CBS and Tar Heel Blue. Let’s take a minute to examine this image instead.
You’ll notice 6 championship banners. Some crafty individual added the 2009 banner with Photoshop, as indicated by its striking similarity to the 2005 one. A while back I was engaged in a fairly academic discussion about the ethics of modifying images and I think that this particular instance is interesting.
First consider that the photo conveys the presence of six national championship banners in the Dean Smith Center. This is entirely false. Only five are there. Now, what do those banners convey? Well, they convey that UNC has won six national championships. This is entirely true.
So what we have here is something false conveying something that is completely true. Is it ethical? Taking a Consequentialist perspective, the one factor which determines the appropriateness of an action is its result. In this case the resulting information is true therefore the action is appropriate. Philosophy aside, ask any Tar Heel. They’ll give props to the creator, I’m sure.
And, of course, Go Heels!
