Visual Literacy: Image, Mind, And Reality [Paperback]

Paul Messaris (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0813319374 | ISBN-13: 978-0813319377 | Publication Date: January 26, 1994

Post-industrial humankind is inundated daily with visual images. Televisions transmit their blue haze into dark living rooms; advertisements and billboards bombard us at every turn; movies evoke tears, outrage, or hilarity; and the visual arts elicit strong emotional or intellectual responses. At almost every moment, several visual images are warring for our attention in order to make a claim, sell a product, or call us to action. Faced with visual overload, how do we interpret these images? What is happening when a picture moves us? What process takes place in our minds as we respond to such visual devices as close-ups, camera angles, and flashbacks?This book provides a foundation for answering these questions. Encouraging his readers to become “visually literate,” Paul Messaris takes them on a journey through four major conceptual levels of understanding: imparting visual literacy as a prerequisite for comprehending visual media; creating awareness of the general cognitive consequences of visual literacy; making us alert to visual manipulation; and promoting aesthetic appreciation of the images we see. Taken together, these approaches provide a comprehensive view of how visual images are produced and interpreted, and of what their potential social consequences may be.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Messaris is associate professor of communication at The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He has conducted research on viewers’ awareness of visual manipulation in movies and advertising, and on parent-child discussions about television. He has also taught 16mm film production.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (January 26, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813319374
• ISBN-13: 978-0813319377
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #692,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Introduction to Visual Communication for, June 4, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Visual Literacy: Image, Mind, And Reality (Paperback)

An all in one book for those looking into learning a thing or two about visual communication. Covers areas like eye physiology, seeing, gestalt laws, seeing as a social construct and communicating with visual images. Illustrated throughout in black & white with a colour insert. The paperback version in particular is great value for money. Combine this with a good book on cognitive psychology (like "Cognitive psychology and its implications") and you know more than most of the graphic designers I know.