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DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 380 062 IR 016 983

AUTHOR Messaris, PaulTITLE Visual Literacy and Visual Culture.PUB DATE [95]NOTE 7p.; In: Imagery and Visual Literacy: Selected

Readings from the Annual Conference of theInternational Visual Literacy Association (26th,Tempe, Arizona, October 12-16, 1994); see IR 016977.

PUB TYPE Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.)(120) Speeches/Conference Papers (150)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Advertising; *Cultural Images; Cultural Influences;

Curriculum; *Educational Benefits; ElementarySecondary Education; History Instruction; Parody;Photographs; *Recognition (Psychology); *VisualLiteracy

IDENTIFIERS Educational Imagery; Historical Materials

ABSTRACTFamiliarity with specific images or sets of images

plays a role in a culture's visual heritage. Two questions can beasked about this type of visual literacy: Is this a type of knowledgethat is worth building into the formal educational curriculum of ourschools? What are the educational implications of visual literacy?There is a three-part educational rationale to these questions.First, knowing about the conventional implications of certain imagesmight make viewers more resistant to the manipulative uses of thoseimages in advertisements or other contexts. Second, specific images,primarily photographs, have been intimately intertwined with thesocial developments from which they emerged that the teaching ofhistory seems almost inconceivable without some reference to theseimages. Third, there are some images about which one might want toinstruct younger generations because of the role they have played asa reference point in the public life of older generations. Studentswere informally tested on their familiarity with a number ofhistorical photographs, pictures from ads, and some frequentlyparodied images. The highest rate of recognition was of theadvertising images, followed by the visual parodies, and then thehistorical images. The results give a sense of the potential foreducation to raise students' levels of visual literacy, and drawsattention to the need for further exploration of the implications ofvisual literacy. (DGM)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

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Visual Literacyand Visual Culture

Paul Messaris

Anyone who has read Mad magazinehas encountered the image of Alfred E.Neuman, whose insouciant featureshave appeared on so many of themagazine's covers. In 1963, a resident ofAuckland, New Zealand, pasted apicture of young Alfred's face on a plainenvelope and, with no other indicationof the envelope's destination, hedropped it in a local mailbox. His letterwas duly delivered to the office ofMad's publisher in New York City(Reidenbach, 1991, p. 138).

This incident is a striking example ofthe broad reach of U.S. visual culture (aphenomenon that some observers haveviewed with considerable concern; seeTomlinson, 1991). A study by Dumas(1988) provides a revealingcounterexample. As part of a broaderinvestigation of viewers' interpretationsof advertising images, Dumas showedChinese and U.S.-born graduatestudents a picture of a man in abusiness suit having breakfast next to awindow with a penthouse-level view ofa big city. This picture had come froma print ad for a prestigious financial-services firm, but the firm's name andall other text had been removed. The

image of a man looking down at a cityor a factory from a tall building is atraditional device in U.S. advertising(Marchand, 1985), and Dumas's U.S. -born respondents readily identified theimage's implications of wealth andpower. However, these implicationswere much less obvious to the Chineserespondents, many of whose commentsfocused instead on the reasons why amiddle-aged man would be havingbreakfast alone, without his family.

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BYAlice Walker

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

In opposite ways, both of theseexamples demonstrate the potentialconsequences of an intriguing aspect ofvisual literacy, involving familiarity withspecific images or sets of images thathave played a role in a particularculture's visual heritage (or, as in thecase of Mad magazine, a visual heritagethat spans many nations and cultures).One way to approach this kind of visualliteracy is to ask a pair of practicalquestions: Is this a type of knowledgethat is worth building into the formaleducational curriculum of our schools?What are the educational implicationsof visual literacy in this sense of theword? These are the concerns thatmotivated the present discussion.

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Educational Rationale

Advertising Awareness

There are at least three reasons whyone might want to say yes to the firstquestion posed above. To begin with,there is the possibility that knowingabout the conventional implications ofcertain images might make viewersmore resistant to the manipulative usesof those images in advertisements orother contexts. As Dumas's studysuggests, educated viewers often find itrelatively easy to identify the intentionsbehind the persuasive images of theirown culture. On the other hand,however, there is some evidence thatless-educated viewers may be less-conscious of these intentions and maytherefore be in a position to benefitfrom instruction on such matters(Messe.ris, 1994).

Historical Knowledge

A second reason for encouraging theform of visual literacy being consideredhere has to do with a rather differentcategory of images, namely, those witha notable historical content. Morespecifically, it could be argued thatcertain images, primarily photographs,have been so intimately and significantlyintertwined with the socialdevelopments from which they emergedthat the teaching of history seemsalmost inconceivable without somereference to these images.

The civil rights marcher beingattacked by police dogs; the exhaustedwoman seeing refuge in a camp forDepression-era migrants; theVietnamese children fleeing a napalmattack on their village these are only

a few of the many images which haveplayed significant roles in the evolutionof the events which they recorded. Thatsuch images should be a part of basiccourses in U.S. history seems anunassailable proposition. Furthermore,one could also argue that such imageswould be worthy candidates forinclusion in the kinds of cultural-literacylists which various writers havedeveloped in recent years (Hirsch et al.,1993; Simonson and Walker, 1988, pp.191-200).

Cultural Understanding

Finally, a third argument forincluding knowledge of specific culturalimages in a visual-literacy curriculum isrelated to the one above but may besomewhat less obvious. There arecertain images about which one mightwant to instruct younger generationsbecause of the role which they haveplayed as a reference point in thepublic life of older generations. The artof Norman Rockwell may be the bestexample of this type of image in theU.S. This author's only encounter withRockwell in an academic setting tookplace many years ago, in an art historycourse in college, in which theinstructor once got his daily quota oflaughs by treating the class to tenminutes of heavy sarcasm at theexpense of one of Rockwell's SaturdayEvening Post covers. But it should notbe necessary to argue about the relativemerits of Rockwell and, say, JacksonPollock in order to make the point thatRockwell is worth knowing about if onewants to know about his society and histimes.

What is at issue is not how accuratelyRockwell reflected the "American

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character" (which is, in any case, afictitious entity), nor what effectRockwell's work may have had on thevalues of his contemporaries. Rather,Rockwell's distinction can he said to liein the fact that his work became -- forbelievers and unbelievers alike -- acommon standard against which tomeasure character and values (seeOlson, 1983). Even today, an advertisingphotographer can speak of capturing aRockwellian mood in one of his images(a Nikon ad of little leaguers in front ofa New England church, photographedby Dewitt Jones [1989]), whiledebunkers of the mythical past go aftertheir quarry by going after Rockwell.

Going beyond Rockwell, now, anespecially interesting manifestation ofthis process of cultural reflection occursin the case of certain well-knownimages which frequently serve as thebases of mass-mediated parodies. Insuch instances, the original image'spower as a frame of reference isexpressed directly in visual form, byvirtue of the parody. Pride of placeamong the relatively small number ofAmerican images in this category surelybelongs to Grant Wood's "AmericanGothic," which has provided the themefor several generations of variations onthe nature of American identity.

In contrast to the works of NormanRockwell, whose meaning mostcommentators seem to feel is only tooclear, there is an ineffable quality aboutWood's attitude towards the subjects ofthis image, and this quality is alsopresent to some degree in two otherfrequently parodied U.S. images, JamesMontgomery Flagg's World-War-I "IWant You" poster, and J.A.M.Wilstler's portrait of an elderly woman.

The ambivalent note in these images ischaracteristic of a certain Americanattitude towards the past and may partlyexplain why these specific images haveattained their unusual status in thenational consciousness. Some degree ofambivalence also seems present inSteinberg's famous New Yorker cover,whose view of the United States as seenfrom Manhattan was, for some time,(and may still be) a ready metaphor forAmerican class relationships andregional differences.

Testing Students' Knowledge

In an informal attempt to get somesense of how widespread people'sknowledge of such images actually is,the author has recently been conductinginformal tests of students' familiaritywith a number of historicalphotographs, as well as picturesextracted from ads and somefrequently-parodied images of the kinddiscussed above. Since the courses inwhich these tests have been performedall deal specifically with visualcommunication, the results can probablybe taken as an indication of the likelyupper limit of this form of visualliteracy among the broader college-agepopulation.

Historical Photographs

Among the various historicalphotographs tested so far, all of whichwere associated with events whichhappened before most of the studentswere born, there were two which hadparticularly high recognition rates:Walker Evans's 1936 photograph of anAlabama sharecropper's wife andAlfred Eisenstaedt's picture of a sailorkissing a woman on the day on which

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the Second World War ended. 83percent of a class of 29 undergraduates(all U.S.-born) knew that Evans'spicture had been taken during theDepression (despite the fact that thisphotograph is a facial close-up with noobvious signs of poverty or distress),and 73 percent accurately identified thecircumstances of the Eisenstaedtpicture. The corresponding figures wereeven higher for U.S.-born graduatestudents, and, interestingly, evengraduate students from other cot: :drieshad recognition rates of 50 percent ormore for these two images.

On the other hand, however, none ofthe other photographs included in thesetests had a recognition rate higher than50 percent among undergraduates. Forexample, in contrast to the EisenstaedtV-J day photograph, only 47 percentwere able to give even an approximatedescription (e.g., a World War II battle)of the correct circumstances in JoeRosenthal's photograph of the marinesraising the flag on Iwo Jima (othersthought that the scene had occurred inVietnam, Korea, or, in one case, theCivil War). Similar recognition rateswere also typical of such images as thecivil-rights marcher attacked by dogs(several students thought that it wassomething that had happened in SoughAfrica) or the assassination of MartinLuther King (several thought the peopleon the balcony in this scene werepointing at something in the sky).

Visual Parodies

In testing students' familiarity withthe original sources of mass-mediatedparodies, the method employed was toshow them a parody and ask them toidentify the original image on which it

was based. This yardstick has tended toyield relatively high recognition ratesfor parodies whose original form wasitself a mass-mediated image, such as"Uncle Sam," correctly identified as arecruiting poster by 83 percent ofundergraduates, or Steinberg's NewYorker cover, which 63 percent ofundergraduates were able to name asthe prototype of a parody in which adifferent city took the place of NewYork. It is worth noting that in neitherof these two cases could the studentshave had any substantial familiarity withthe actual prototypes of these images,i.e., the poster itself or the magazinecover in its original appearance.

In contrast to parodies based onmass-mediated images, recognitionratestended to be lower for parodies of "highart." For example, only 37 percentrecognized the image of Whistler'smother (in an advertising parody whichactually contained the words, "A sale tomake a mother whistle"). Since thestudents' exposure to either type oforiginal would typically have come fromreproductions, rather than from theoriginal poster, magazine cover,painting, or whatever, differences inaccessibility, in and of themselves, areprobably not the main reason for thesedifferences in recognition rates.

Advertising Imagery

The relatively high rates ofrecognition for parodies o f imagesoriginating in the mass media mightlead one to expect similarly high scoresfor conventional advertising imagery.This expectation has been borne out forsome of the advertising images tested sofar, but there have t een interestingexceptions as well. Only one of the

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undergraduates and one of the U.S.-

born graduate students failed to give acorrect identification of the productmost likely to be associated with theimage of a cowboy (Marlboro) and avisual montage contrasting "liberated"and "pre-lib" versions of womanhood(Virginia Slims). Recognition of theMarlboro man was also high forinternational students (75%), althoughtheir scores for Virginia Slims wereconsiderably lower (40%). However,certain other well-establishedconventions of visual advertisingreceived uniformly low recognition ratesregardless of the students' backgrounds.For example, only a third of theundergraduates were familiar with theuse of parent-child images as a meansof promoting investment advice and theselling of insurance. More seriously,fewer than a third of the students in anyof the categories indicated familiaritywith what is arguably one of the mostpernicious of advertising conventions,namely, the associltion of cigaretteswith pristine natural imagery.

Conclusion

The numbers cited above, togetherwith those reviewed earlier inconnection with the historicalphotographs and the visual parodies,give us some sense, perhaps, of thepotential scope of any educationalefforts to raise students' levels of thetype of visual literacy considered in thispaper. More generally, the aim of thispaper has been to draw attention to thisaspect of visual literacy and toencourage further exploration of itsimplications. Scholarship in visualliteracy has been making significantongoing contributions to our ability todeal with emerging imaging

technologies and the visual media ofthe future (e.g., Beauchamp et al.,1994); but there is also some value inoccasionally casting an eye backwards atthe traces of the visual culture of thepast.

References

Beauchamp, D. G.; Braden, R. A.;Baca, J. C. (Eds.). (1994). Visualliteracy in the digital age: Selectedreadings from the 25th annualconference of the International VisualLiteracy Association. Blacksburg, VA:International Visual LiteracyAssociation.

Dumas, A. A. (1988). Cross-culturalanalysis of people's interpretation ofadvertising visual cliches. UnpublishedM.A. thesis, Annenberg School forCommunication. University ofPennsylvania.

Hirsch, E. D., Jr.; Kett, J. F.; Trefil, J.(Eds.). (1993). The dictionary ofcultural literacy. 2nd ed. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.

Jones, D. (1989). Fall classic. OutdoorPhotographer, 5(8); 10-23.

Marchand, R. (1985), Advertising theAmerican dream. Berkeley and LosAngeles: University of CaliforniaPress.

Messaris, P. (1994). Visual 'literacy ":Image, mind, and reality. Boulder, CO:Westview Press.

Olson, L. C. (1983). Portraits in praiseof a people: A rhetorical analysis ofNorman Rockwell's icons in Franklin

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D. Roosevelt's "four freedoms"campaign. Quarterly Journal of Speech,69: 15-24.

Reidenbach, M. (1991). CompletelyMad: A history of the comic book andmagazine. Boston: Little, Brown andCompany.

Simonson, R., & Walker, S. (1988). Thegraywolf annual five: Multi-culturalliteracy. St. Paul, MN: Grayvvolf Press.

Tomlinson, J. (1991). Culturalimperialism: A critical introduction.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress.