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Visual literacy and media educationJuha Herkman, 18.3.2010

Helsingin yliopisto, viestinnän laitos

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Three key questions

1) What is literacy?2) What is visual literacy?3) How to teach visual literacy?

What is literacy?

Different literacies: information literacy, computer literacy, technological literacy, digital literacy, media literacy, visualliteracy, ecological literacy, statistical literacy…

1. Changes in communication tecnologies and media forms in the age of information society

2. ”Linguistic turn”: the concept of text (Roland Barthes)Almost anything can be understood as a text

3. ”Cultural turn”: focus on meanings and everyday lifeAlmost anything can be ”read”: reading the images, television, soap opera…John Fiske (1989): Reading the PopularEven the beach can be read as a cultural textThe inflation of the concept of literacy?

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What is literacy?

Etymology of the word literacy from Latin littera (letter)Litteratus (L.), literate = ”one who knows the letters”, i.e. educated, learned (in early 15th century)A competence”The ability to read and write” (Wikipedia)Raymond Williams (1977): KeywordsLiteracy as a new word from the late 19th century describing ”general and necessary skills” (vs. literate élite)Birth of the nation state and bourgeois society

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Different levels of literacy

Allan Luke (1995), Teachers College Record 1(97):1. Coding competence (technics)2. Semantic competence (understanding)3. Pragmatic competence (communication)4. Critical competence (empowerment)

From technical/operational to cultural and social skillsTowards ”critical literacies”Paulo Freire (1921–1997): literacy campaignsName the problem – estimate it critcally – act (solve the problem)

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What is visual literacy?

The relationship between visual and language skills?Visual = related to vision (seeing, sight)Richard Sinatra (1986): visual literacy as a primary skill that precedes other literacies, e.g. language skillsPaul Messaris (1994): visual literacy is learned in everyday practices when we grow up and perceive our visual environments (cognitive function)Our ability to infer what is represented in an image is based on the information cues that people make use of in their perception of physical and social reality (pp. 165)Messaris: visual conventions can be learnedThere are also coded meanings in the images!

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Different levels of visual literacy

1. Perception (physiology, psychology)2. Interpretation (psychology, semiotics)3. Culture (semiotics, aesthetics)4. Society (ethics, politics)

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What is visual literacy?

Understanding of visual practices from ”seeing things” to culturalproductions like photographs, films, television programmes and internet pages, and competences to use these visual practices in one’s own lifeThe International Visual Literacy Association IVLA:

1. Ability to discriminate and interpret visual actions, objects and symbols natural or man-made,

2. Ability to communicate with others through the creative use of thesecompetencies,

3. Ability to comprehend and enjoy visual communicationJanne Seppänen: ”Visual literacy also means to conceive the historical quality of visual orders and the power processes connectedwith them as well as to distinguish alternative orders” (pp. 94)

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How to teach visual literacy?

1. Knowledge on visual perceptionPhysiology and psychology of vision

2. Knowledge on conventions of visual productionsPolitical economy vs. creative industries

3. Knowledge on conventions of visual texts and designSemiotics, narratology (reading images)

4. Knowledge on cultural meanings of visualsContexts, aesthetics, identities

5. Knowledge on social affects of visual culturePower, politics, ideologiesFrom technical to critical media education

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Changes in visual environments

Increase of visuals since the 20th centuryVisualization, iconic/pictorial turn?Gunther Kress (2003): Literacy in the New Media AgeMultimodal literacy (Kress & van Leeuwen)Internet and the culture of sampling, ”hybridization”Social media, interactionColin Lankshear & Michele Knobel (2006): New Literacies. Everyday Practices & Classroom LearningCommunity, sharing, open access vs. old literacies (authority, individual cognitive competences)Both critical and creative competencesE.g. workshops of digital storytelling

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