Janis Teruggi Page - Visual Communication

Fantasy theme analysisDetermining how messaging converges in groups to develop cohesive understanding.

1 How has changing technology affected the visual culture of your life? Compared to text‐based communication, how have the increasing numbers of visuals – and ways to view them – shifted your engagement and experience of media?

2 Locate a contemporary advertisement, short video, or newscast that has a dominant visual component. Consider it individually by examining:The settingThe visual featuresThe messagesThe persuasive elements

Then, together as a class, share the meanings you individually took away. Note any differences and discuss how social life, popular culture, historical memory, personal circumstance, etc. shape one's understanding of a visual message.

1 Anderson, W. (1990). Reality Isn't What it Used to Be. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

2 Bernazzani, S. (n.d.). The 10 best user‐generated content campaigns on Instagram. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best‐user‐generated‐content‐campaigns(accessed September 1, 2020).

3 Central Intelligence Agency. (n.d.) The world factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the‐world‐factbook/docs/flagsoftheworld.html#(accessed 1 September 2020).

4 Cisco . (2019).Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Trends, 2017–2022 White Paper. https://davidellis.ca/wp‐content/uploads/2019/12/cisco‐vni‐mobile‐data‐traffic‐feb‐2019.pdf(accessed November 12, 2020).

5 Claveria, K. (2019). Unlike Millennials: 5 ways Gen Z differs from Gen Y. https://www.prdaily.com/wp‐content/uploads/2018/02/gen‐z‐versus‐millennials‐infographics(accessed November 12, 2020).

6 Constine, J. (2018). Instagram hits 1 billion monthly users, up from 800M in September. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/instagram‐1‐billion‐users(accessed November 12, 2020).

7 Duffy, M., Page, J., and Young, R. (2012). It's just a joke: Racist rhetoric and pass‐along email images of Obama. In: Assessing Evidence in a Postmodern World (ed. B. Brennen), 67–97. Nieman Research Conference Proceedings.

8 Eco, U. (1978). A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

9 eMarketer (2015). What is the visual web? http://www.emarketer.com/Article/What‐Visual‐Web/1013064(accessed October 19, 2019).

10 Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Culture. New York: Basic Books.

11 Graber, D.A. (1988). Processing the News: How People Tame the Information Tide. New York: Longman.

12 Graber, D.A. (1990). Seeing is remembering: how visuals contribute to learning from television news. Journal of Communication 40: 134–155.

13 Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

14 Hall, K., Goldstein, D.M., and Ingram, M.B. (2016). The hands of Donald Trump: entertainment, gesture, spectacle. Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (2): 71–100. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau6.2.009.

15 Harley, A. (2016). Trustworthiness in web design: 4 credibility factors. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/trustworthy‐design/(accessed November 12, 2020).

16 Hoaxes . (2015). The gallery of fake viral images. http://hoaxes.org/photo_database/viral_images/P45(accessed October 25, 2015).

17 Jirousek, C. (1995). Two dimensional illusion of three dimensional form. http://char.txa.cornell.edu/language/element/form/formillu.htm(accessed September 1, 2015).

18 Kranse Institute. (2017). 2016 SAT scores were the lowest in the last 20 years. https://www.kranse.com/blogs/news/2016‐sat‐scores‐were‐the‐lowest‐in‐the‐last‐20‐years(accessed September 1, 2020).

19 Lippmann, W. (1922). Public Opinion. New York, NY: Harcourt.

20 Medina, J. (n.d.) Brain Rules. Rule #10: Visual trumps all other senses. http://www.brainrules.net/vision(accessed November 12, 2020).

21 Morrison, K. (2015). Visual media changes how humans consume information (infographic). http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/visual‐media‐webdam‐infographic/622827(accessed October 29, 2015).

22 Page, J. and Duffy, M. (2013). Big Bird, binders, and bayonets: The persuasive power of social media visual narratives in the 2012 presidential campaign. Presentation at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.

23 Raposa, K (2012). In attack ad, Paul Ryan kills grandma in wheelchair. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/08/12/liberal‐group‐throws‐granny‐off‐cliff‐again/#186fe2cd8286(accessed September 1, 2020).

24 Rose, G. (2012). Visual Methodologies, 3e. London: Sage.

25 Safire, W. (1996). On language: Worth a thousand words. New York Times, April 7. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/07/magazine/on‐language‐worth‐a‐thousand‐words.html(accessed October 4, 2015).

26 Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009). Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

27 Tavin, K. (2009). Seeing and being seen: Teaching visual culture to (mostly) non‐art education students. The International Journal of Arts Education I nJAE7.2: 1–22.

28 Whitehead, C. (2015). What we don't see. New York Times, May 28. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/magazine/what‐we‐dont‐see.html?_r=0(accessed October 4, 2015).

29 Willard, S. (n.d.) Topics in Western Civilization: Ideals of Community and the Development of Urban Life, 1250‐1700. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1986/3/86.03.08.x.html(accessed October 25, 2015).

30 Williams, A. (2015). Move over Millennials, here comes Generation Z. New York Times, Sept. 18. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/fashion/move‐over‐millennials‐here‐comes‐generation‐z.html?_r=0(accessed September 18, 2019).

31 Williams, R. (1958/1993). Culture is ordinary. In: Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader (eds. A. Gray and J. McGuigan), 5–14. London: Edward Arnold.

32 Wolf, M. (2018). Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim‐reading‐new‐normal‐maryanne‐wolf(accessed September 1, 2020).

1 1It should be noted that a similar phrase also appeared in a New York Times real estate ad in the early 1900s as “a look is worth 10,000 words” and it is possible that Fred Barnard borrowed or built on the concept.

Friend or Foe? Hero or Villain?

When you meet a stranger at a bar, you automatically draw conclusions about the person's age, gender, and their differences or similarities to yourself. You process a huge amount of information almost instantaneously and use shortcuts to assign that person to certain categories. Are they a student, professor, office worker, soldier, athlete, other? Of course, you may be mistaken in this process, thinking that an old‐looking individual is a teacher when he's actually a student, or the heavily tattooed woman who looks like a Goth may actually be a social worker or a business executive (tattoos are no longer taboo in many corporate offices).

We also use physical and visual cues to identify that a truck is a type of motorized transportation, that an apple falls into the category of fruit, and that a starling is a species of bird. This quick categorization is an evolutionary adaptation and helps us conserve cognitive resources. By that we mean that every time you encounter a phenomenon, you don't need to think a lot about what it is and what it means to you. Trying to understand others' intentions toward oneself is a crucial survival skill, and visual cues are the primary means we use to make evaluations.