Doris Salcedo: Ethics and Censorship

I have chosen to respond on an online article relating to Doris Salcedo where I will discuss ethics and censorship to do with the artist. My reason to choose the subject of art is because it is a type of citizen journalism.

Artists may explore different aspects of society through commenting on social issues, gender based problems, racism, inequalities between social classes, and critiques on the consumer society. Art can be the most powerful form of activism because it lasts long after the protestors and keeps us thinking about the issue in subtle ways. Artists express their social and political views to help reform society, they serve humanity best when they focus on a truthful expression of the world.

 

Doris Salcedo has an intense concern with human anguish and has an emotional and political strategy. She was born in Colombia where the Government is corrupt and has a background of both systematic and random acts of violence and terror occur everyday. Salcedo believes that “the major possibilities of art are not in showing the spectacle of violence but instead hiding it…it is the latency of violence that interests me.” Her work is to be looked at universally identifying human rights and the aftermath of problems associated with the “disappearances” of young women. All her work is based on real happenings from a private experience she had shared with the public to express her grief. Salcedo creates sculptures that evoke the human toll of the ongoing drug and civil wars in her country.

Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism can also be known as public journalism, participatory journalism, democratic journalism or street journalism. The concept of citizen journalism is so that any member of the public can play an active role to form citizen media by processing, collection, reporting, analyzing and distributing news and information. Citizen journalism is useful as members participate by having a voice to provide independent, reliable, accurate and relevant information and facts in news that the public deserves with out being a professional journalist.

 

The way citizen journalism works is mainly from the use of new technology as a person from the public can capture information or evidence to create factual media on their own or in collaboration with a group and then distribute the information onto the internet for the public to see. Most citizen journalism can be viewed on the internet on websites like blogs, Youtube, Facebook or chat forums where people have posted captured images, videos or articles. The public can have their say by responding and commenting posts with their opinions

 

Citizen journalism is so popular as people have instant access to view real information that has been posted with out censorship or distortion on the video or image. However the problem with citizen journalism is that it may infringe upon laws or be too explicit for certain groups of the public.