What is "Visual Literacy?

"

The term “Visual Literacy” was first coined in 1969 by John Debes, one of the most important figures in the history of
IVLA. Debes’ offered (1969b, 27) the following definition of the term:

“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.”

However, there are many more definitions of the term. In fact, each visual literacist has produced his/her own!
Understandably, the coexistence of so many disciplines that lie at the foundation of the concept of Visual Literacy,
thus causing and at the same time emphasizing the eclectic nature of it, is the major obstacle towards a unanimously
agreed definition of the term.

Visual Literacy and the Classroom by Erin Riesland

Although the definition of literacy remains a hotly contested topic among educators and researchers, it is hard to deny
that technology is driving the debate. While reading and writing will most likely remain at the heart of standard literacy
education, educators should reconsider what it means to be literate in the technological age. The New London Group,
a cohort of educators and researchers interested in examining the teaching of new literacies, explains literacy this
way: "one could say that its fundamental purpose is to ensure that all students benefit from learning in ways that
allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life." (1996)

Multimedia, or new media, is changing the way society communicates in the virtual and real world. One major
transition is the Microsoft PowerPoint takeover of nearly every office boardroom and college lecture hall.
PowerPoint's saturation has created the sudden need for every office meeting or group gathering to show dynamic
multimedia presentations, regardless of content. This kind of ubiquitous availability of technology crosses over to the
classroom as well. More and more students are turning to PowerPoint or equivalent programs for classroom
presentations. These students are pushing their classmates to compete and setting classroom precedents. The
speed at which technology is altering classroom communication is overwhelming. The time to address visual media
literacy is now.

Currently, in high schools across the country, many students are expected to present complex visual ideas using a
variety of multimedia applications without serious direct instruction. Student ability to "participate fully in public,
community, and economic life" is quickly being redefined through emerging technology. Anyone who has suffered
through an 8pt text-jammed PowerPoint presentation can recognize the delicate balance between verbal and visual.
As we move to an increasingly visually-dominated culture (Kress, 1998), where students are expected to code and
decode complex messages in a variety of media, shouldn't literacy instruction include visual media as well?

Redefining literacy
The broad field of visual literacy is loosely defined in this paper as the ability to communicate and understand through
visual means. The New London Group has included in their "Pedagogy of Multiliteracies" a definition of literacy that
includes the "understanding and competent control of representational formats that are becoming increasingly
significant in the overall communications environment, such as visual images and their relationship to the written
word-- for instance, visual design in desktop publishing or the interface of visual and linguistic meaning in
multimedia."(1996) By educating students to understand and communicate through visual modes, teachers empower
their students with the necessary tools to thrive in increasingly media-varied environments. The definition of literacy is
outdated and that the new definition must account for the technologically evolving landscape. For example, if
students are to successfully meet the demands of new literacy, they must be able to navigate and communicate
through evolving mediums such as hypermedia.

Hypertext/Hypermedia
Hypertext is most commonly seen and was developed in the 60s as a way to creatively link text together. Hypermedia
expands the term hypertext (where the word or media is a link that can be navigated to explore the idea behind the
link further,) to include audio-visual as well as written media. Because hypermedia is non-linear in nature and reflects
a more genuine thinking style in the way each link can take the reader in many directions, hypermedia reading differs
greatly from print reading. The increase in student use of online hypermedia for serious information gathering is
altering the way students read and collect information, and will ultimately alter the way students write. Hypermedia
writing/design challenges the student to organize compositions that give up sequential control of the text all the while
struggling to integrate poignant illustrations through a variety of visual media. The audience or reader of hypermedia
text is free to customize and tailor their experience according to interests and needs. Most hypermedia texts are
designed for online display and therefore prompt the student to write and design specifically for an audience.
Typeface size, style, color and page layout all must be considered, yet most students have no idea where to begin.
What remains the cornerstone of hypertext is the reader/writer relationship where ultimately the reader takes on the
role of the writer/designer.

This shift is fundamentally changing the way generations to come will think about books, reading, and writing-- it
cannot be ignored in the classroom much longer.

Hypermedia work has been observed in the classroom with compelling results. Garthwait's (2001) experiment using a
basic hypermedia design program was well received by students who were excited by the idea of implementing visual
and sound elements into texts. Some students displayed high level graphics manipulation using skills they taught
themselves, an indicator of high motivation. Other students began working with color to organize thoughts in a
pleasing manner. The overt visual nature of creating these texts reinforces the attention visual literacy deserves.
Moreover, it is the visual nature of classroom projects like these that is alluring to children.

Traditionally, writers use language to convey ideas and metaphors while drawing upon images and graphs to
reinforce writing. Kress has demonstrated a shift in science textbooks revealing the switch from visuals that support
text explanations to text that supports visual explanations. Kress argues that graphics hold more meaning and are
central to the meaning of modern texts and meaning-making systems. Hammerberg (2001) notes the increase in
children's books that are interactive through sound or visual cues. These new books incorporate non-linear elements
similar to hypermedia. Hammerberg argues that these visual and non-linear shifts indicate a disparity between what
children read and what they are taught to write. "In the same way that instruction can take place on the conceptual
level of the alphabet, instruction can also take place on the conceptual level of textual design and ever-shifting
perspectives (e.g., hypertext.)" Young students are primed through experience to negotiate complex multimedia
environments, however the disconnect in literacy education remains.

Visual Literacy and the Media

As students learn to decode hypermedia, they are also learning how to decode advertising. Visual literacy education
should prepare students at a young age for the onslaught of advertising they will be exposed to during their lifetime.
The immediate examples of seemingly innocuous sites are numerous: Nickelodeon advertises their commercial
programming and includes shopping links. Zoog Disney seamlessly ties in merchandising links with its interactive
programming. AOL Instant Messenger, a growing favorite among youngsters, is continually employing new pop-up
advertising techniques. This kind of complete advertising integration transforms students' budding view of the world.
"Their participation in global media culture shapes the way they communicate and the kinds of social identities they
take on. It informs how they present themselves to others and their understandings about the social groups and
communities to which they might conceivably belong." (Nixon, 2003)

Advertisers understand how to reach youngsters (and really, just about anyone) far better than educators.
Professional visual communicators hold the power when communicating in the modern media image-centric
environment. Just as the visual language of point and click and scroll has become transparent and embedded into
modern culture, so have the messages to buy Coke and shop at the Gap. Why should we continue to let advertisers
teach our children how to see while we hold ourselves ignorant to their methods?

Visual Literacy in the Classroom

Integrating visual literacy instruction into classroom curriculum begins by asking a few key questions to spark the
critical thinking process. Professional visual communicators evaluate visual messages by asking: What am I looking
at? What does this image mean to me? What is the relationship between the image and the displayed text message?
How is this message effective? Just as professionals ask critical questions of messages they examine, students
should be just as critical of the messages they see too. In the visual design world, similar questions are asked during
message creation as well: How can I visually depict this message? How can I make this message effective? What are
some visual/verbal relationships I can use? Once students internalize these questions, not only will students be
prepared to recognize and decode subversive advertising messages, but they will also be prepared to communicate
with a level of visual sophistication that will carry them through the multimedia-dependent environment of higher
education and the modern work environment. Moreover, visual literacy instruction will better prepare students for the
dynamic and constantly changing online world they will inevitably be communicating through.
There are many ways to integrate and address multimedia in the classroom to make it educational. Drawing upon
Seymor Papert's (1980) research, researchers such as Resnick (1996) and Kafai (1996) have promoted the
constructivist notion of learning by design where students learn by working on "real world" constructions. Educators
create a project whereby students work together to create a web page or interactive movie where they are allowed to
create their own messages like the professionals they're imitating. This learning environment, based on the
constructivist learning philosophy that evolved during the 1970s and 1980s, has its foundations in cognitive learning
psychology. The learning model is based on the concept that knowledge is constructed rather than processed from
information received from an external source. In this process, the student assumes the role of the producer rather
than the consumer of information. Through classroom construction of a multimedia project, an in-depth understanding
of visual communication, or visual literacy, is learned along the way.

The examples of learning by design are numerous. Garthwait (2001), as mentioned earlier, used a hypermedia
design program to encourage students to write while incorporating multimedia design. His results showed high
motivation and learning retention. The key to Garthwait's experiment is the level of comprehension that developed out
of designing hypermedia stories. Every student exhibited an impressive understanding of not only how hypermedia is
displayed on the Internet, but also how to communicate in non-linear and visual modes of discourse. Exposure
appears to be the key element in these experiments. Chandler-Olcott & Mahar (2003) explored the disparity between
one student's high-level web design and communication completed at home through her enthusiasm for Japanese
Anime and the non-existent technology education at school. Rhiannon, the student named in the study, wrote lengthy
fanfictions or anime stories and posted them on a web site that she designed without any school resources but
showed little interest in school-assigned writing. Rhiannon's expertise came from home access to the Internet,
curiosity, and collaborative online learning, yet went unnoticed by her teachers.

Conclusion
Opportunities for web and hypermedia story design are passed over in the classroom every day in favor of traditional
reading and writing exercises. As Rhiannon and countless other students are finding their way through new media,
they leave their peers in the dust. Yet, our modern technology-driven society demands a level of communication that
remains largely unaddressed in the classroom. If the goal of literacy education is to empower students with the tools
to communicate and thrive successfully in society, shouldn't we consider the current literacy demands of the
technological age? Who will ultimately teach our children to communicate?

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an
image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated
through a process of readThe term “visual literacy” is credited to John Debes, co-founder of the International Visual
Literacy Association.[1] In 1969 Debes offered a tentative definition of the concept: “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.”[2] However, because multiple disciplines such as visual literacy in education, art history and
criticism, rhetoric, semiotics, philosophy, information design, and graphic design make use of the term visual literacy,
arriving at a common definition of visual literacy has been contested since its first appearance in professional
publications.

Since technological advances continue to develop at an unprecedented rate, educators are increasingly promoting
the learning of visual literacies as indispensable to life in the information age. Similar to linguistic literacy (meaning
making derived from written or oral human language) commonly taught in schools, most educators would agree that
literacy in the 21st Century has a wider scope.[3] Educators are recognizing the importance of helping students
develop visual literacies in order to survive and communicate in a highly complex world.

Many scholars from the New London Group[4] such as Courtney Cazden, James Gee, Gunther Kress, and Allan Luke
advocate against the dichotomy of visual literacy versus linguistic literacy. Instead, they stress the necessity of
accepting the co-presence[5] of linguistic literacies and visual literacies as interacting and interlacing modalities which
complement one another in the meaning making process.

Visual literacy is not limited to modern mass media and new technologies. The graphic novel Understanding Comics
by Scott McCloud discusses the history of narrative in visual media. Also, animal drawings in ancient caves, such as
the one in Lascaux, France, are early forms of visual literacy. Hence, even though the name visual literacy itself as a
label dates to the 1960s, the concept of reading signs and symbols is prehistoric.

Visual literacy is the ability to evaluate, apply, or create conceptual visual representations. Skills include the
evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of visual representations, to improve shortcomings, to use them to
create and communicate knowledge, or to devise new ways of representing insights. The didactic approach consists
of rooting visualization in its application contexts, i.e. giving the necessary critical attitude, principles, tools and
feedback to develop their own high-quality visualization formats for specific problems (problem-based learning). The
commonalities of good visualization in diverse areas, and exploration of the specificities of visualization in the field of
specialization (through real-life case studies).