Visual Communication. Janis Teruggi Page
blanks and complete the meaning of the message (Page and Duffy 2013).
What's Ahead?
If we can better understand how meanings are produced, we can become smarter consumers of visuals and other communication and more effective creators. As you can see from the previous discussion, how we communicate and interpret visuals is deeply rooted in our cultural worlds and expectations. In the following chapters, we'll explore how and why images communicate effectively, how they can fail to communicate, and how to apply that knowledge as professional communicators.
Chapter 2 outlines useful approaches to ethical decision‐making in creating and consuming visuals.
Chapter 3 explains a classic way to explore the meanings of images: visual rhetorical analysis, and then introduces the next four chapters that deal with symbols, metaphors, narratives, and imaginative fantasies.
Chapter 4 teaches semiotics: how visual “signs” and symbols communicate within a culture.
Chapter 5 covers how the comparative functions of metaphors can be a powerful visual strategy.
Chapter 6 illustrates the storytelling capacities of visual images.
Chapter 7 helps you see how visuals can illustrate dramas and meanings within group communication.
Chapter 8 is the first of four chapters that cover professional practices using visual images. This chapter helps you to understand advertising, its compelling visual qualities, and questions of ethics.
Chapter 9 continues with strategic communication, featuring the field of public relations and its use of visuals, for example, in crisis, public service, and political communications.
Chapter 10 features the role of visual imagery in journalism, the image's significance in delivering news, and issues of subjectivity and misinformation.
Chapter 11 teaches how to “read” and perform an organization's culture from the standpoint of observing and transmitting visual cues.
Chapter 12 builds on all previous chapters by developing your intercultural literacy when it comes to the use of visual imagery.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter we began our exploration of visual culture and its influence in our lives, influence fueled in large part by technological innovations. Professional communicators increasingly use images and video for messaging and persuasion. Moreover, the proliferation of devices and apps allowing almost everyone to create and share images contributes to visual culture. Social media amplify the power of visuals, a power that can be positive, promoting individuals' and communities' wellbeing. Yet, social media may also unleash destructive messages and have negative, unintended consequences. Visual social media's impact extends to every realm of social life and helps shape what we understand as reality.
KEY TERMS
StereotypeAttitudes people acquire without specific knowledge of an event or individual.
MemesCultural images shared between people, often with text and carrying symbolic meaning.
Virtual reality (VR) Computer simulation of a 3D image or environment which a person can interact with in a seemingly real or physical way through use of special electronic equipment.
Augmented reality (AR)The superimposing of a computer‐generated image into the real world.
PolysemyDifferences in meaning and interpretations; multiple meanings.
Visual cultureThe visually‐constructed way of life of a people; a way of thinking, feeling, and believing.
Scopic regimeWays in which both what is seen and how it is seen are culturally constructed.
DecodeThe interpretation of the underlying meanings of texts based on varying assumptions and skills, dependent on context and interpreter.
DenotativeLiteral definition or description.
ConnotativeMeanings drawn from associations, emotions, and cultural expectations.
SemioticsStudy of signs and their meanings.
Visual rhetoricPersuasive messages carried in visual images.
Narrative analysisDetermining how compositions tell stories.
Metaphor analysisDetermining how images propose comparisons.
Fantasy theme analysisDetermining how messaging converges in groups to develop cohesive understanding.
PRACTICE ACTIVITIES
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.
REFERENCES
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