Session 2: From Issues to Elements

Session 2: From Issues to Elements
Chair: Aaron Koh

Different Images – Different Literacies. A Theoretic Approach Towards the Understanding of Mass Media Images
Katharina Lobinger
Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Wien, Austria

W.J.T. Mitchell accentuated the enormous variety of images. However, he doubts that all kinds of images have similarities only because they share the name ‘image’. In this paper media images are examined. They are defined as analogical signs tied to a manifest carrier, characterised by mediation, reproduction and distribution. Their most important features are the opposition of naturalness and construction as well as the multimodal and contextual interplays with other media elements. Following Mitchell’s implication, media images, as one possible sub-category of visual phenomena in general, have their own specific characteristics and thus require own reading or viewing practices. Therefore in this paper it is hypothesised that media images also demand a specific kind of visual literacy. Given the importance of mediated visual messages as cultural resources, the need for a corresponding ability to understand media images is highly connected to media literacy in general. Awareness of the construction and contextualisation of visual meaning is one essential component of media literacy as are the knowledge of how the mass media function in society and how media language and media content are produced. In the paper, the
concept of media literacy and the concept of visual literacy are described as mutually dependent abilities.

Download Draft Conference Paper –

Not just Visual Literacy but Critical Visual Literacy: Pedagogical Tools for the Classroom
Jan Connelly
School of Education, University of New England, Armidale, NSW Australia

This paper will demonstrate that how we read images is not natural, universal nor innocent and alerts us to the urgent need to assist students to read the meanings of visuals images and to come to a deeper understanding of their social semiotic construction from a critical perspective. The presentation aims to active engage participants in the exploration of a critical visual methodology.  In this instance it will be applied to the reading of a set of billboards and other public space media drawn from global contexts.
A practical and classroom friendly pedagogical framework for the primary and middle years of school, is offered as an example of a way to introduce learners to the processes of critically reading a number of globally collected visuals through the employment of the semiotic tools of representation, intertextuality and discourses.

The Blue Page: Visual Literacy as Self, Sense and Sentiment
Phil Fitzsimmons
Centre for Research in Language and Literacy, University of Wollongong, Australia

No abstract is presently available