What about Digital Technology and Visual Truth?

Alright, alright... We know that traditional photography has been manipulated or prone to subjectivity since its inception, but what about truth in the digital age?

In an essay entitled, "Digital Technology and Visual Truth," which I believe is a term paper made available over the internet, author Miron Lulic attempts to discuss the myth of photographic truth as it exists in digital images. According to the author, the computers have now made it possible to alter any image in a digital medium, and as a result we are faced with "an over abundance of information in which authenticity is hard to verify." Thus, the already present myth of photographic truth persists and is amplified in the digital age. In fact, this is the thesis for Lulic's essay, "Although malleability of digital images is widely understood and accepted, the myth of photographic truth continues to shape ideologies in the post-photographic era."
Lulic begins the essay by making claims similar to Margot Lovejoy in her book, Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age, mainly that digital images are much easier to manipulate that traditional photographic images. Lulic quotes William Mitchell, which, again, sounds similar to Lovejoy's statements, "We are experiencing a paradigm shift in how we define the nature of a photograph. The photograph is no longer a fixed image; it has become a watery mix of moveable pixels and this is changing our perception of photography."

I am not sure of the credibility of this essay, due to the fact that it is a term paper written by a student, so I won't use it extensively here. However, the essay does allow us to understand that photographic truth is something hasn't faded with improved technology, we are dealing with it again, even more so, in the digital age. The fact that students (both Miron Lulic and myself), as well as art historians and writers, are interested in investigating the myth of photographic truth can show how prevalent it is within this new digital culture.