Blog 10; EOTO 3 Presentation Reflections

EOTO 3 Presentation Reflection

    For our third EOTO, we discussed concepts and terms that were important or influential in journalism. 

    The first topic that I learned about during our presentations was halftone photos. Halftone was a new and more productive way of printing. Halftone only uses small dots of black ink to print on
paper, and the technique consists of breaking up an image into a series of dots to produce all of the tones within a photograph. The tiny dots use a sort of gradient effect to create shading or certain images or words. The dots are actually made by screens that have a varying number of lines per inch, these lines determine the number of dots. For newspapers, the range is typically between 50 to 85 dots per inch. In higher-quality work, it is a much higher number, closer to 120 to 150 lines per inch. The halftone was actually a quite remarkable invention for its time; the first image was able to be published in a newspaper with this technique in 1880. Halftone techniques are still used today, however rather than using screens to make the dots, they are digitally generated. The longevity of halftone photos further shows how influential the halftone technique was and that its design is still very beneficial and effective in printing today.

    Another topic I gained a lot of knowledge on while watching presentations was political cartoons. 

A political cartoon is a cartoon that makes a satirical point about a political issue or event. Many political cartoons are in the daily paper or in this day and age - online newspapers or blogs. With social media being a huge part of the way a majority of our society gets their news nowadays, many people post political cartoons on Twitter. Political cartoons are a satire that tends to be funny and they additionally tend to display caricatures that over-exaggerate certain physical features for a humorous effect. It may point out the problems, and discrepancies of a certain political situation. Although a drawing reflects a cartoonist’s judgment and point of view and, as mentioned, the visual commentary often exaggerates circumstances, responsible editorial standards will never allow the artist to alter any facts. 

Political cartoons and halftone images have both had different effects on journalism and the way we get out information. However, if it wasn't for these two influential concepts throughout time, journalism would not be in the state it is today.