Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: Another Look

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Journal of Visual Literacy, 2013 Volume 32, Number 1,

Visual Literacy and the Digital Native: Another Look Richard Emanuel, Ph.D. Alabama State University Montgomery, AL USA Siu Challons-Lipton, Ph.D. Queens University of Charlotte Charlotte, NC USA

Abstract

measure

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From petroglyphs on cave walls to pictures posted on Facebook walls,

This paper offers a reconceptualization and measure of visual literacy. It ability to recognize and understand meaning from images.

What is Visual Literacy?

of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same

in a number of different ways. In fact, it seems that the concept of visual visual literacy as the ability to understand and use images, including the

result of reviewing the visual literacy literature spanning three decades

indicated that visual literacy is the ability to decode, comprehend, and analyze images in order to construct meaning from visual representations of ideas and and skills needed to accurately understand, interpret, and analyze visual messages, and to create such visual messages. Avgerinou and Pettersson Their conceptualization of visual literacy includes visual perception, visual language, visual learning, visual thinking, and visual communication. The Association of College and Research Libraries developed a set of

Journal of Visual Literacy, Volume 32, Number 1

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understanding and creation of visual messages. This may be too far-reaching. create visual messages to

the meaning of images without for centuries. One can understand and appreciate the meanings found in a conceptualization, visual literacy includes the ability to determine the meaning of visual images. In short, it is the ability to read, decode and interpret visual images. The other side of the visual coin is creation and

call upon a visual vocabulary, which enables image readers and writers

Visual literacy

Visual thinking

Visual creation/design

Visual vocabulary

an image is recognized and/or its meaning understood usually depends on more prevalent and mainstream the image, the more likely it is that it will be known. Some may be very familiar with many mainstream or primary images, yet generally unfamiliar with many lesser known or secondary

half of the time. The images used were arguably not primary images. Even if

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a person recognizes an image, they may not know its name – what it is called

there are degrees of visual literacy and that more meaning may be gleaned images are readily understood at face value while others have greater

Visual literacy operates on a continuum. This conceptualization of

sophisticated strata of engagement: recognizing, understanding, applying, visual literacy is initially demonstrated at the basic levels of recognition and understanding – recognizing an image, telling what a symbol means, indicating the name of a painting and/or its artist. As one becomes more skilled at analyzing and interpreting the meaning of visuals, they are maturing person may know what a word or term means, yet not know its part of

other nuances. For an image, literacy is demonstrated by recognizing and

the meaning of images is that the process does not always begin with recognition. Instead, images may be evaluated and interpreted before

business visualization using images, sketches, and infographics to help

in a spatial map and then creating an emotional reaction to it. Analyzing, Journal of Visual Literacy, Volume 32, Number 1

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understanding, and interpreting the meaning of data-rich charts and graphs represent deeper and more developed levels of visual literacy. The degree to which a person is visually literate is determined by their ability to recognize an image, to understand its meaning, to analyze and evaluate the image, and

Level of Learning Fluency

Fluency

Literacy

Literacy

Images

Images

Analyzing Applying Understanding Recognizing

Visual literacy continuum

world are powerful communicators and creators of culture. Literate societies have been surrounded by visual rhetoric, overt or subliminal, since before the dawn of the optical age.

accompanying vocabulary to describe them. This working knowledge and vocabulary is broadly referred to as visual literacy. \Visual literacy enables

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File Visual Dictionary provides thousands of graphic representations of more or less technical

Editor and media analyst Tad Simons suggests that a person does not learn to write by reading, nor learn to play a musical instrument by happen by merely looking at images. It is a learned skill that is not necessarily intuitive. One becomes visually literate by studying the identifying the characteristics of an image that give it meaning, and developing the cognitive skills necessary to interpret or create the ideas that inform an image. to help young people navigate in their new environments. Visual literacy provides a communication short-hand, a common ground for communication and understanding that connects cultures and generations.

is not entirely their fault. Most undergraduate curricula do little or nothing ability to make meaning from an image, this interpretation, is an ability that

communicate with others in our culture, what they know is ephemeral and


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names from which to choose than if asked simply to identify the artists with no help do not seem to know what it means to describe art often misuse stylistic terms and employ very little technical or analytical vocabulary when asked to talk about art have minimal understandings of specialized vocabulary do not speak in the language of art criticism or history have little to say when asked to interpret meaning These results are not surprising to museum educators and they demonstrate the affects of the marginal role of art in our culture and passionately plead that it is time to embrace visual literacy. They contend that the entire education system needs to be revamped to emphasize visual

Central to any understanding of visual literacy is the operationalization or measurement of the concept. The research literature on visual literacy offers no consistent operationalization, and most studies that provide some

female respondents much more likely than male respondents to assume that magazine images are altered. accurately read visual information by asking them to interpret several images.Four photographs were used: a black-and-white version of a

of Azrat Ali in Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan, and a woman holding a folded No source information was provided for any of the images. The rationale

taken. Additionally, respondents were asked to indicate their perception of

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the tone of the soldier photo were: resigned, frightened, aggressive, and enthusiastic, with resigned as the correct response. Overall, the survey clues in the images, although they were better able to interpret the tone. students could: detect if a photographed had been altered identify when and where a photograph was taken correctly assess the tone or mood of the photograph when given four moods from which to choose stage, a more sophisticated level of understanding than mere recognition used are not well-known, widely published mainstream images. They are not commonly used by people in geographically and culturally diverse settings.

visual literacy. The fact that respondents were better able to interpret the tone of the images is likely due to the fact that there were only four response

with paintings and mainstream images.

their head, representing an idea or thought.


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The symbols were: United Nations, Facebook, recycle, radiation, and a

The photograph of the D-day invasion, the radiation and the United National symbols, and the Monet and Picasso paintings are slightly lesserknown than the other images. Therefore, these may be considered borderline secondary or purely secondary images. The implication is that respondents may not readily recognize or know as much about these images as the other primary images. Note, too, that the most recent photograph – the terrorist age students were in elementary school. The only truly current image is the

was done so as not to bias their responses in any way. Respondents were also asked their age, gender, and the number of years of college they have

The population from which the sample was taken consisted of

at a public co-educational university in the southeast. A test/re-test

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of the student population in terms of year in school, with freshmen and

proportion of students who typically choose the art appreciation course and the proportion of respondents who successfully completed that course are unknown.

the paintings.

or preponderance of incorrect guesses for any of the images. In terms of recognition, the Facebook symbol and the Twin Towers photograph were the most recognized, the Monet and Picasso paintings


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occurs on a continuum. The disconnect gap is the difference between the proportion of students who claim to recognize an image and the proportion who correctly identify it. That is, students claimed to recognize an image, but they could not identify

the Facebook symbol. invasion photograph, the United Nations symbol, and the Monet and Picasso paintings. Therefore, they may be reasonably categorized as secondary images. The Facebook symbol was the most recognized and correctly

Attack on the Twin Towers First men on the Moon Photographs Idea/Thinking Wright Brothers' flight D-day invasion (war)

Symbols

Paintings

Facebook Recycle Radioactivity (danger) Blue ribbon United Nations The Last Supper - DaVinci The Starry Night - van Gogh The Creation of Man Michelangelo Three Musicians - Picasso Water Lillies - Monet

Correctly Recognized Identified 99 97 96 92 70 63 58 48 46 42

Gap 2 4 7 10 4

99 93 76 77 29 95 42

99 91 66 67 13 75 11

0 2 10 10 16 20 31

40 11 10

9 6 2

31 5 8

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with the UN symbol. The symbol includes a globe. The most prevalent globe

College students were most adept at identifying photographs and least adept at identifying paintings. They were most familiar with contemporary images. As consumers and creators of the visuals of the future, educators have a special and urgent challenge to transform lazy looking into visual

impossibility of recording volumes of data, translated words into drawings. Students need to learn visually and teachers need to learn to teach visually. Most people have a tendency to think in words rather than in pictures, yet the use of visualization in thinking appears to be increasing. The literature suggests that using visual elements in teaching and learning yields positive enhancements to be used most effectively, teachers should possess skills that Suzanne Stokes claims in her research, visual skills should be promoted in combination with the development of verbal, reading, and mathematical skills. Using visuals in teaching results in a greater degree of learning. The basic premise of her body of research is the ability to interpret and generate images for communicating ideas and


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critical and creative thinking skills, and they are essential to living in this and writing visually in order to derive meaning from what is being communicated. Educators have an urgent responsibility to transform and tools to understand those visuals, society is likely to be less literate, and the images more likely to fall on lazy eyes that look but do not truly see.

New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. taxonomy for New York: Longman.

Library Documentation System. literacy, literacy. Journal of Visual Literacy Indezine. Retrieved from www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/personality/tadsimons.html problem solving. . Retrieved from EduCause Learning Initiative website: http://net.educause.edu/ir/

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of the millennial learner. Journal of Visual Literacy, skills.

on student learning.

Applications

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Journal of Visual Literacy, New York: Facts on File. Cambridge: MIT Press. Literacy,

Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Cultural Literacy

Schuster Macmillan. activities. less is more: Meaningful learning from visual and verbal summaries of Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Literacy. UVa Inaugural Academic Symposium, Journal of Visual Literacy, Volume 32, Number 1

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University of Virginia. Document available online at www.cideronline.

Literature Perspective,

trieved from International Visual Literacy Association website: http:// TED talk. Retrieved

Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Northern Colorado. Portugal. From Visual Understanding in Education. Retrieved from practice.pdf From Museum-Ed: Connecting the Museum Educator Community. Retrieved from http://

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Appendix 1 Visual Literacy Survey

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The event is

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Male

Female