We can look at images and we are allowed to see and interpret and self-define what the image is. The image can be a drawing a photograph or even a textual display with a color background. We see these images on an everyday basis and at times we just take them for granted. What we don’t know until we learn is that its Visual Literacy. That every image that we see tells a story and has a meaning to whom created it and to the audience it is trying to reach. In our text and through Brian Kennedy and the video “Visual Literacy: Why we need it!
” the definition of Visual Literacy is revealed. We also realize that it is a language that such as music it is universal as we as people can interpret and see what the message of the image is all about. Brian Kennedy defined Visual Literacy as: “The ability to construct meaning from images (Kennedy, 2010)”. We see an image and we can create a meaning in regards of that image and we can tell ourselves or others what the image is all about. In our textbook “visual literacy involves the competent creation and consumption of visual messages.
These activities require not only the physical ability of sight but the cognitive abilities of attention, perception, critical thinking, evaluation, and synthesis with other sensory information and experiences” (Ryan, 2012).
Therefore what we see is that in our textbook that Visual Literacy is the creation and consumption of images that need to be seen and that a person basically needs to have the ability to define, evaluate and feel what the image is all about.
The Essay on Communication and Visual Literacy
Brian Kennedy’s lecture on visual literacy was very interesting. I’ve never really thought about visual literacy that way. You really don’t realize how you would perceive things in the world if you couldn’t see anything. He says that we learn everything visual first. Then the others things come after that. The more I think about it, the more I believe what he is saying. In our book the definition ...
Kennedy’s definition is straight and simple to develop a meaning from the image. We do need the cognitive ability to think and evaluate in order to define what the image is and what it represents. As in regards of what Visual Literacy means to me is the way we can define and interpret what an image is and the message it is providing to the viewer. When we look at Visual Literacy we can truly say it is a universal language.
We can say it is because we can see what the image is and what it is trying to tell us. It is communicating to us in a silent form, but we are the ones that give it a voice or a text. An image is something that we see and image is something that can be imagined and we can see what it means to us and what it represents to every one of us. Just like music in where we can hear a melody or what the singer is saying to the audience we can define what it means, we can do the same with an image.
Visual Literacy can impact communication and global understanding through allowing us the viewer to see what is going on, to see what the place or the word represents. We can see and feel what the image is displaying to us and what it represents. We can all have different definitions or meanings to what the image means to us because we all think differently. One thing is that the image provided an impact to every single one of us.
The image can communicate to us in a silent form and tell us this is what it is and it will allow many others of different nationalities and beliefs to see what the image is representing. Visual Literacy is a universal language that allows us to provide a meaning or that it gives a meaning to the subject in a silent form. Visual Literacy is something that allows us to look at something in this case an image such as a photograph and us as the viewer can define what it means.
We see this form of literacy everyday even if it has text on the image. We can see an image of Times Square in New York City and we can see what it is and we can also define what Times Square is to the viewer or towards many viewers. References Kennedy, B. (TEDx:Dartmouth University).
The Essay on What Is Literacy
When I think of the word literacy, I think of the ability to read and write in a way that enables a person to function as a contributing member of society. A couple of weeks ago, I would have considered myself a very literate person. However, after reading the texts for this class, this view of myself has changed. I have become aware that there are many types of literacy existing in todays world. ...
(2010, April 17).
Visual Literacy: Why we need it! [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=OefLEpds5Is Ryan, W. (2012).
Visual Literacy: Learning to see. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc..
