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Visual
Literacy
©2008 Frank W. Baker
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Visual Literacy Defined & Other Related Quotes
"The importance of images and visual media in
contemporary culture is changing what it means to be
literate in the 21st century. Today's society is highly
visual, and visual imagery is no longer supplemental to
other forms of information. New digital technologies have
made it possible for almost anyone to create and share
visual media. Yet the pervasiveness of images and visual
media does not necessarily mean that individuals are able to
critically view, use, and produce visual content.
Individuals must develop these essential skills in order to
engage capably in a visually-orientated society. Visual
literacy empowers individuals to participate fully in a
visual culture." (Source: Introduction,
ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher
Education )
"Visual literacy is a set of abilities that enables an
individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and
create images and visual media. Images and visual media may
include photographs, illustrations, drawings, maps, diagrams,
advertisements, and other visual messages and representations,
both still and moving." (Source:
The
Association of College and
Research Libraries Image
Resources Interest Group)
"As students develop their visual literacy, they begin to
understand that every visual choice the artist has made, every
detail regarding subject and color and composition, conveys
information that informs the reader.” (from "The Power of
Pictures: Creating Pathways To Literacy Through Art")
"Visual
literacy stems from the notion
of images and symbols that can be read. Meaning is communicated
through image more readily than print, which makes
visual
literacy a powerful teaching
tool." Source: Reconceptualizing Literacy,
Edwards, Patricia A,
Reading Today 27.6 (June-July
2010): p22
“There is this illusion that photography is ‘true,’ ” Dominique
Issermann, a French fashion photographer said. But a camera can
easily distort reality through the use of a different lens
without any retouching. “As soon as you frame something you
exclude something else,” she said, adding that photographs are
“a piece of reality, but the reality of the world is different.”
In family photos, for instance, “Someone always says, ‘That
doesn’t look like you at all.’ ” (Source:
NYT)
"We do not get to
witness most of the events in the world that are important to
us; we have to see them through other people's eyes...."(Source:
Peter Howe's reference to photojournalists from the
foreword to the book
"Moments in
Time")
"Each of us reacts to the picture on the
basis of our own sensitivity, culture, intelligence, mood
and passion. What is more, the interpretation of one and the
same photograph will be different at different times. A
photograph produced today will offer a different impact
tomorrow. Even the place where the photograph is seen can
dictate our reactions. A photograph published in a gossip
weekly cannot have, a priori, the same impact as a
photograph on display in a museum or of another printed in a
sophisticated book. The environment where the photograph
appears may determine our reading of it." (Source:
"Visual literacy
includes such areas as facial expressions, body language,
drawing, painting, sculpture, hand signs, street signs,
international symbols, layout of the pictures and words in a
textbook, the clarity of type fonts, computer images, pupils
producing still pictures, sequences, movies or video,
user-friendly equipment design and critical analysis of
television advertisements."
(Jan 2009-
Source)
Visual images, like all representations, “are never innocent or
neutral reflections of reality…they represent for us: that is,
they offer not a mirror of the world but an interpretation of
it.” (Midalia 1999 p.131) In this way, students must be made
critically literate: they require knowledge and understanding of
how visual texts are produced and composed and how viewers will
“relate to and interrogate” (Stephens 1997, p. 164) such
representations of the world around them. (Source: An
introduction to the grammar of visual design)
"....the three R’s are no longer enough. Our world is changing
fast – faster than we can keep up with our historical modes of
thinking and communicating. Visual literacy – the ability to
both read and write visual information; the ability to
learn visually; to think and solve problems in the visual domain
– will, as the information revolution evolves, become a
requirement for success in business and in life." (May 22, 2008
Source )
"One becomes visually literate
by studying the techniques used to create images, learning the
vocabulary of shapes and colors, identifying the characteristics
of an image that gives it meaning, and developing the cognitive
skills necessary to interpret or create the ideas that inform an
image, be it a television show, photograph, painting,
chart, graph, advertisement, Power Point slide, animated GIF, or
monster movie”
(p. v).
Tad Simons, in the introduction to Visual Literacy:
Learn to See, See to Learn (2002)
"Texts are only representations but people process images as
reality."
(Media Education Lab website)
"the ability to construct meaning from visual images."
(Source:
The Visual Literacy White Paper)
" the photograph is not valid as a document until it is placed
in a relationship to the beholder's experience." Beaumont
Newhall, "Documentary Approach to Photography," Parnassus, March
1938
“students need visualization
skills to be able to decipher, interpret, detect patterns, and
communicate using imagery—especially given the ease with which
digitized visuals can be manipulated.” NCREL quoted
here
"Visual
culture is not limited to the study of images or media, but
extends to everyday practices of seeing and showing, especially
those that we take to be immediate and unmediated" (Mitchell,
2002, Showing seeing: A critique of visual culture. Journal of
Visual Culture, p. 170).
“The
skills and abilities needed to decode and interpret visual
images are probably as demanding as those required for
print.”
Vandergrift and Hannigan, School Library Journal, 1993, 20
Visual literacy is:
1) the incorporation of visual images as part of conscious
and preconscious thought
2) a process of developing visual images for instructional
purposes
3) the use of visuals to express ideas and convey meanings
to others
Jean Trumbo, 1999 quoted in Communication Research Trends
“Visual literacy is an emerging area of study which deals with
what can be seen and how we interpret what is seen. It is
approached from a range of disciplines that:
1) study the physical processes involved in visual perception;
2) use of technology to represent visual imagery, and;
3) develop intellectual strategies used to interpret and
understand what is seen.” Martin Lester quoted
here
"A
democratic civilization will save itself only
if it makes the language of the image into a
stimulus for critical reflection -not an invitation for
hypnosis."
Umberto Eco
“Visual literacy is the ability to find meaning in imagery.
It involves a set of skills ranging from simple
identification—naming what one sees—to complex
interpretation of contextual, metaphoric and philosophical
levels. Many aspects of cognition are called upon, such as
personal association, questioning, speculating, analyzing,
fact-finding, and categorizing.”
P. Yenawine (1997)
Thoughts on visual literacy, in J Flood, SB
Heath, and D Lapp (Eds)
Handbook of research on teaching
literacy through the communicative and visual arts
"If students aren't taught the
language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as
illiterate as if they left college without being able to read or
write?"
Film maker George Lucas, quoted in Edutopia
Based on the idea that visual images are a language, visual
literacy can be defined as the ability to understand and produce
visual messages. (Source)
"Without an understanding of media
grammars, we cannot hope to achieve a contemporary awareness of
the world in which we live." Marshall McLuhan
“Visual Literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a
human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having
and integrating other sensory experiences. The development of
these competencies is fundamental to normal human learning. When
developed, they enable a visually literate person to
discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects,
symbols, natural or man-made, that he encounters in his
environment. Through the creative use of these competencies, he
is able to communicate with others. Through the appreciative use
of these competencies, he is able to comprehend and enjoy the
masterworks of visual communication.” (Source:
IVLA)
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site updated:
01/16/2012 |
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