IMAGES ON THE NET! - EXERCISE IN IMAGE ANALYSIS

This exercise in image analysis deals with image publication on the internet. The target audience is fourth- to sixth-grade students. When applicable, the exercise may also be used with younger or older students. The images that accompany the exercise are published in the 'For students' section.

The images do not have explanatory captions. The idea is that students are free to deduct on their own what is going on in the images, and to consider the related ethical and legal issues. Using the questions for each assignment description below, the teacher can guide the discussion towards the theme of the tasks.

Even though there are ethical and legal questions related to publishing images such as the ones in this set of exercises, publishing images on the internet is in general not a negative thing. Publishing can, in fact, create joy and positive experiences for many children and teenagers. The internet facilitates many kinds of positive self-expression, and there are various arenas for presenting the results of one’s own creativity. For example, pictures you have taken of a pet or of nature are very good cases for practising internet publishing, since there is no danger of any infringement of privacy or copyright.

Task 1: Publishing pictures of yourself or your friends

In general, there is no harm in taking a picture of you and your friends goofing around and publishing it on the internet. The picture does, however, contain personal information, so when you publish it, it is important to consider the following issues:
• Why would the people in the picture choose this particular picture for internet publication? What is the message they want to convey with the image?
• What is your impression of the boys in the picture, based on this photograph?
• What happened just before the picture was taken? What happened after the picture was taken?
• What if the picture is seen by a person the child or teenager hopes will maintain a positive impression of him or her (for example, parents or other relatives, parents of a friend, or a teacher)?
• How do the friends feel if a silly picture is published?
• What if the boys were holding items – for example, cigarettes or alcohol – that do not belong in the hands of minors?
• Have all people who are visible in the picture been asked for their permission for publishing of the picture? Permission to publish a picture of someone who is less than 18 years old must be requested from his or her guardian. More information is available, for example, from the ‘Good to know’ brochure of the Data Protection Ombudsman.
• What does the picture reveal of the boys who are in it? A picture can reveal things beyond what the people in the picture would like to tell about themselves publicly: that might be the name of the school in the background, a street sign, the licence plate of a car, etc. With the help of such information, the people in the picture are easier to recognise and locate – also for the wrong reasons.
• How can you limit the publicity of a picture published on the internet? This appears to be possible with page privacy settings. In practice, though, this is not how things work, since anyone with viewing rights to an image can distribute it further. Privacy settings are restrictions used by internet communities to specify who can see the images and information published in a profile: this could be, for example, everybody, only one’s friends, or only certain friends.

More information on the protection of privacy

Online Safety School
Information security protecting your rights
Web site for youth by the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare

Task 2: Bullying with a picture

In this series of pictures, a boy bullies another boy by sitting on his backpack. A girl takes a photograph of what is happening with her mobile phone’s camera. In the next picture, the photo that was taken of the bullying has been published on the internet so that others can see what happened and continue the bullying.

The goal of the task is to think about the connection between bullying at school and bullying on the internet, as well as to consider the special features of online bullying. The task addresses quite a common occurrence: bullying that has first been physical being taken from schools or other such locations to the internet, where the bullying is continued by publishing a picture or video of the situation. Such materials can have a considerable audience on the internet.

For discussion:

• What happens in the pictures?
• What is online bullying? What kinds of bullying have you come across?
• Who can see the picture of the bullying once it is published on the Web?
• How do the people who were bullied feel in the situations described in the pictures? What can they do in these situations?
• How does a picture that was published on the internet end up being seen by people for whose eyes it was not meant in the first place?
• What consequences might the publisher of the picture or the people in the picture face after the publication of such a sad picture on the internet? How should the bullying be dealt with?
• When and why is online bullying a crime? What can you do in such cases?
• What would you do if you found a similar picture of yourself on the internet?

More on online bullying

Online Safety School
Pages of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare
Youth Web site of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare

Task 3: Self-expression and copyright

In this series, a girl publishes a picture she has taken on the internet. Someone else then submits it to a photography competition under his or her own name. The purpose of the task is to think about the opportunities the Web offers for presenting one’s skills and to consider copyright issues from the point of view of the copyright owner. Even though the series of pictures ends with copyright infringement, the basic situation remains positive: it is perfectly all right to publish pictures on the internet as long as you remember certain things.

Copyright issues are complicated for adults too. Copyright laws that apply elsewhere apply also on the internet. A good description of copyright basics can be found on the www.tsilt.fi pages, for example.

For discussion:

• What kinds of pictures have you published on the internet? What kinds of positive experiences resulted from the publication of your pictures?
• What kinds of pictures should be published on the internet?
• What kinds of picture publishing services do you know?
• Did the girl have the right of online publishing of the photograph she had taken?
• How can you limit the publicity of a picture published on the internet? How should the privacy settings of various types of Web services be used?
• In what kinds of situations is it permissible to use an image found on the Web, and when is it not permitted?
• How does the girl feel when she sees the photograph she took herself entered in a photography competition under someone else’s name?
• What does copyright mean?
• For how long do you have copyright to a photograph you have taken yourself?
• What are the consequences of copyright infringement?

More information on copyright and the internet for teachers

Online Safety School
‘Piracy factory’ and educational materials on copyright
Information and exercises
A wide selection of information on copyright and internet piracy
Material on copyright issues related to teaching in schools
Frequently asked questions on copyright of images
Information on the Creative Commons licence

More exercises on image publication on the internet:

Image publication on the internet is also the subject of the animated story ‘Knots and Incidents’, which is most suitable for sixth- to ninth-graders

The Mouse Round materials, designed for pre-school and basic education, have many exercises that are related to photography and image publishing, such as:
‘Mugs’
Take a picture – or should you not?:
The Reporter

Updated 05.02.2010

Print