When using visual and audio files, it is the speaker's responsibility to verify the media is accurate. If something is digitally altered it should only be for restorative or quality purposes. Images should not be altered to enhance to speakers stance on an issue or falsify data. This goes to the speaker’s credibility and over all accuracy of the speech. Additionally presentation media should be up to date and not taken out of context, such as a partial recording. When you take something out of context to prove a point, it will come back to haunt you eventually. If a member of the audience has knowledge on the topic, they may call you on it and destroy your credibility. Once that happens, your audience will become fully disengaged as they will not be able to trust you are providing them with accurate information. Digital media should be used to enhance your speech but should never be altered to falsify information. A speaker should always be mindful of their audience and be sure presentation media used for the speech is appropriate for the setting.
I agree with you completely. I believe there is nothing more embarrassing to a speaker than to be called on inaccurate or false information, especially if you knew about it. A speaker without credibility is nothing. I think the perfect example of someone that lost all of his credibility was President Bush. People would not listen to him for what he had to say but to catch him saying something embarrassing. That is just a sad example but the truth is that it only takes a second to destroy your credibility but it takes a lot to build it back up.
ReplyDeleteWhat you wrote was excellent and totally true! Obviously altering things like pictures or audio files to prove a points is awful and completely out of line. There is no excuse for data that has been falsified. You bring up a great point about taking information out of context. This happens all to often, and more increasingly in “professional” news. The information is clearly out of context and it looks great for a little blurb or attention getter, but once the audience realizes it they loose all faith and interest in what you are trying to say. It is well worth the speakers time to do the research to get better information than to try to do damage control just to keep their credibility.
ReplyDelete