I recently attended the Society for Photographic Education's national conference in Baltimore. Joan Fontcuberta was a keynote speaker (articulate, funny, thoughtful- every keynote speaker should be so engaging!) and he said many things that really struck me. He was talking at one point about photographic truth, a topic with which he has been intensively engaged throughout his career. (Go to his website and you'll see what I mean.) He said, "In today's world, photography is Google." He went on to explain that, back when photography was born in the 19th century, everyone looked at it as the ultimate arbiter of Truth. If it was photographed, then what was seen in the photograph must be true. It did not take long for photographers to challenge this notion. And today, people treat the internet the same way. We search for information on Google and tend to believe that whatever results we find are true, even though we know that isn't so.
I found his notion really interesting, and had something to chew on for the rest of the conference.