Camera as sign: on the ethics of unconcealment in documentary film and video Garnet C. Butchart* Department of Communication, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA (Received 10 November 2011; final version received 3 September 2012) When we look at a documentary, what do we see? Probably not the apparatus that gives us images to view. If we did, then perhaps questions about the ethics of documentary cinema would be easily answered. The goal of this article is to broaden the moralistic purview of image ethics debates with a semiotic phenomenology of the visual mode of address of documentary. I describe how ‘‘doubling’’ and ‘‘redoubling’’ the visual mode of address undermines the authority of documentary and helps to overcome debates about two main ethical issues Á participant consent and the audience’s right to information. Unconceal- ing the viewpoint of documentary also broadens media ethics debates by bringing attention to the implied viewer, asking of it to reflect on the consequences of the communicative act of looking. Examples of widely available documentary film and video are discussed. Keywords: documentary; ethics; film; semiotics; phenomenology Let us recall for a moment that exquisite little book devoted to the topic of visuality, documentation, and the conscious experience of memory Á Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, by French semiotician, Roland Barthes (1982). Most scholars recognize the centrality of this text to contemporary theories of representa- tion and to the esthetic analysis of photographic images. However, few scholars have paused long enough to consider what is, to my mind, one of the more important questions about this famous book: Namely, what does Roland Barthes see when he looks at his photographs? In his review of Camera Lucida, Michael Halley (1982) argues that part of what Barthes sees when he looks at his photographs are his fingertips. This may sound odd today, due to the dominance of digital media Á we don’t often hold photographs in our hands. But, as Halley points out that is precisely what Barthes was doing while he wrote that slim book not so long ago. Barthes looks down at a photograph cupped in his hand. Barthes sees the image presented by it. But also, along its edges, he sees his fingertips. That is not all. Barthes also sees that his fingertips are pointing back at him. Seeing this, Barthes recognizes that a selection is being made. And it is the process of selection that occupies much of his discussion. Barthes selects this photo, and then another, followed by another. As he sifts through his photographs, he decides that some of them are just ok (this is the category of the ‘‘studium’’); whereas others, or, this photograph in particular, wounds him. ‘‘It disturbs me,’’ Barthes says *Email: butchart@usf.edu Social Semiotics, 2013 Vol. 23, No. 5, 675Á690, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2012.740205 # 2013 Taylor & Francis