Marita Sturken, Associate Professor at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California and Lisa Cartwright state the following in their book Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture: “Over the course of the last two centuries, Western culture has come to be dominated by visual rather than oral or textual media. Even the bastion of the printed word, the newspaper, has turned to images— and color images by the end of the twentieth century— to draw in its readers and add to the meaning of its stories. Images have never been merely illustrations, they carry important content.”
We all seem to agree that our culture has moved from oral in tradition to a visual one. Since the digital revolution that introduced the personal computer in the 1980's our interaction with images has increased dramatically. Music videos, video games, computer graphics, computer games, and now social media contribute to increase an emphasis in the visual in our culture. Let's not forget the smart phones, the tablets and the incessant need to be connected and see something. However, it seems that our immersion in a visual culture has left us less prepared to engage in a critical visual discourse. How do we engage in critical discourse of the visual messages we receive? How do we analyze and contextualize these messages? In this session we will define context, content, methods, and examples of how a visual culture indeed shape our beliefs and ideologies.
ORGANIZER: Alma Hoffmann, Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne University
MODERATOR: Erika Church, University of Utah
PRESENTERS: