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Visual Literacy and Visual Culture DOCUMENT RESUME ED 380 062 IR 016 983 AUTHOR Messaris, Paul TITLE Visual Literacy and Visual Culture. PUB DATE [95] NOTE 7p.; In: Imagery and Visual Literacy: Selected Readings from the Annual Conference of the International Visual Literacy Association (26th, Tempe, Arizona, October 12-16, 1994); see IR 016 977. PUB TYPE Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120) Speeches/Conference Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Advertising; *Cultural Images; Cultural Influences; Curriculum; *Educational Benefits; Elementary Secondary Education; History Instruction; Parody; Photographs; *Recognition (Psychology); *Visual Literacy IDENTIFIERS Educational Imagery; Historical Materials ABSTRACT Familiarity with specific images or sets of images plays a role in a culture's visual heritage. Two questions can be asked about this type of visual literacy: Is this a type of knowledge that is worth building into the formal educational curriculum of our schools? What are the educational implications of visual literacy? There is a three-part educational rationale to these questions. First, knowing about the conventional implications of certain images might make viewers more resistant to the manipulative uses of those images in advertisements or other contexts. Second, specific images, primarily photographs, have been intimately intertwined with the social developments from which they emerged that the teaching of history seems almost inconceivable without some reference to these images. Third, there are some images about which one might want to instruct younger generations because of the role they have played as a reference point in the public life of older generations. Students were informally tested on their familiarity with a number of historical photographs, pictures from ads, and some frequently parodied images. The highest rate of recognition was of the advertising images, followed by the visual parodies, and then the historical images. The results give a sense of the potential for education to raise students' levels of visual literacy, and draws attention to the need for further exploration of the implications of visual literacy. (DGM) ********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***************************A******************************************* Visual Literacy and Visual Culture "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS Paul Messaris MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY U S DEPAFI !WENT OF EDUCATION Othce Ot Educat.onal Research and Improvement Alice Walker EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) reproduced as 0 I rus document has been tece.ved Iron, the person or OrgAniZ8hon originating ,1 C Maio, changes have been made to mtPrOve TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES teptOduclion Quaid./ INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." Pp.nts Or view Or op.mons stated .0 pus CIOCu ment do not necessarily represent &boat OE RI Oos.t,on or 001Cy Anyone who has read Mad magazine image of a man looking down at a city has encountered the image of Alfred E. or a factory from a tall building is a Neuman, whose insouciant features traditional device in U.S. advertising have appeared on so many of the (Marchand, 1985), and Dumas's U.S. - magazine's covers. In 1963, a resident of born respondents readily identified the Auckland, New Zealand, pasted a image's implications of wealth and picture of young Alfred's face on a plain power. However, these implications envelope and, with no other indication were much less obvious to the Chinese of the envelope's destination, he respondents, many of whose comments dropped it in a local mailbox. His letter focused instead on the reasons why a was duly delivered to the office of middle-aged man would be having Mad's publisher in New York City breakfast alone, without his family. (Reidenbach, 1991, p. 138). In opposite ways, both of these This incident is a striking example of examples demonstrate the potential the broad reach of U.S. visual culture (a consequences of an intriguing aspect of phenomenon that some observers have visual literacy, involving familiarity with viewed with considerable concern; see specific images or sets of images that Tomlinson, 1991). A study by Dumas have played a role in a particular (1988) provides a revealing culture's visual heritage (or, as in the counterexample. As part of a broader case of Mad magazine, a visual heritage investigation of viewers' interpretations that spans many nations and cultures). of advertising images, Dumas showed One way to approach this kind of visual Chinese and U.S.-born graduate literacy is to ask a pair of practical students a picture of a man in a questions: Is this a type of knowledge business suit having breakfast next to a that is worth building into the formal window with a penthouse-level view of educational curriculum of our schools? a big city. This picture had come from What are the educational implications a print ad for a prestigious financial- of visual literacy in this sense of the services firm, but the firm's name and word? These are the concerns that all other text had been removed. The motivated the present discussion. IVLA - 51 2 Educational Rationale a few of the many images which have played significant roles in the evolution Advertising Awareness of the events which they recorded. That such images should be a part of basic There are at least three reasons why courses in U.S. history seems an one might want to say yes to the first unassailable proposition. Furthermore, question posed above. To begin with, one could also argue that such images there is the possibility that knowing would be worthy candidates for about the conventional implications of inclusion in the kinds of cultural-literacy certain images might make viewers lists which various writers have more resistant to the manipulative uses developed in recent years (Hirsch et al., of those images in advertisements or 1993; Simonson and Walker, 1988, pp. other contexts. As Dumas's study 191-200). suggests, educated viewers often find it relatively easy to identify the intentions Cultural Understanding behind the persuasive images of their own culture. On the other hand, Finally, a third argument for however, there is some evidence that including knowledge of specific cultural less-educated viewers may be less- images in a visual-literacy curriculum is conscious of these intentions and may related to the one above but may be therefore be in a position to benefit somewhat less obvious. There are from instruction on such matters certain images about which one might (Messe.ris, 1994). want to instruct younger generations because of the role which they have Historical Knowledge played as a reference point in the public life of older generations. The art A second reason for encouraging the of Norman Rockwell may be the best form of visual literacy being considered example of this type of image in the here has to do with a rather different U.S. This author's only encounter with category of images, namely, those with Rockwell in an academic setting took a notable historical content. More place many years ago, in an art history specifically, it could be argued that course in college, in which the certain images, primarily photographs, instructor once got his daily quota of have been so intimately and significantly laughs by treating the class to ten intertwined with the social minutes of heavy sarcasm at the developments from which they emerged expense of one of Rockwell's Saturday that the teaching of history seems Evening Post covers. But it should not almost inconceivable without some be necessary to argue about the relative reference to these images. merits of Rockwell and, say, Jackson Pollock in order to make the point that The civil rights marcher being Rockwell is worth knowing about if one attacked by police dogs; the exhausted wants to know about his society and his woman seeing refuge in a camp for times. Depression-era migrants; the Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm What is at issue is not how accurately attack on their village these are only Rockwell reflected the "American 1VLA - 52 3 character" (which is, in any case, a The ambivalent note in these images is fictitious entity), nor what effect characteristic of a certain American Rockwell's work may have had on the attitude towards the past and may partly values of his contemporaries. Rather, explain why these specific images have Rockwell's distinction can he said to lie attained their unusual status in the in the fact that his work became -- for national consciousness. Some degree of believers and unbelievers alike -- a ambivalence also seems present in common standard against which to Steinberg's famous New Yorker cover, measure character and values (see whose view of the United States as seen Olson, 1983). Even today, an advertising from Manhattan was, for some time, photographer can speak of capturing a (and may still be) a ready metaphor for Rockwellian mood in one of his images American class relationships and (a Nikon ad of little leaguers in front of regional differences. a New England church, photographed by Dewitt Jones [1989]), while Testing Students' Knowledge debunkers of the mythical past go after their quarry by going after Rockwell. In an informal attempt to get some sense of how widespread people's Going beyond Rockwell, now, an knowledge of such images actually is, especially interesting manifestation of the author has recently been conducting this process of cultural reflection occurs informal tests of students' familiarity in the case of certain well-known with a number of historical images which frequently serve as the photographs, as well as pictures bases of mass-mediated parodies. In extracted from ads and some such instances, the original image's frequently-parodied images of the kind power as a frame of reference is discussed above. Since the courses in expressed directly in visual form, by which these tests have been performed virtue of the parody.
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