ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC CONSIDERATIONS IN PHOTO-EDITING AMONG MASS COMMUNICATION STUDENTS OF ESUT AND IMT, ENUGU

Photography is an important means of disseminating both visual and verbal messages and its aesthetics plays an essential role in capturing the essence of an event and maintaining the attention of the audience. There is great concern about the ethical implications of the advanced technology that makes it easier for photos to be manipulated, thus making the public doubt the credibility of such photos. Therefore, this study examined the ethical and aesthetic considerations in photo-editing among Mass Communication students of ESUT and IMT, Enugu. Deontology and Aesthetic Pleasure Theories provided the theoretical foundation for the work. The survey method was adopted for the study and the population was 2,845, the total number Mass Communication students in both schools. A sample size of 340 was drawn using the online sample size calculator provided by Wimmer and Dominick (2013) through the systematic random sampling technique. Questionnaire served as the measuring instrument and the mean statistic was used in analysing the data. Findings from the study showed, inter alia, that to a moderate extent, ethical and aesthetic considerations were known and applied in photo-editing at ESUT and IMT Mass Communication Department photo studios. The study recommended, among other things, that photojournalism lecturers and photo editors should emphasise the ethical and aesthetic aspects of photo-editing to help students imbibe them fully and the institutions should acquire state-of-the-art technologies for photo-editing that can help the students to learn how to improve the technical qualities of pictures with ease without doctoring them to mislead the public