Chapter I

Review of the Literature

Once the print journalist recognizes the need to better understand visual communication, he or she must find sources of information on the topic. Unfortunately, the literature of journalism is unlikely to prove very helpful, perhaps because researchers who produce that literature are often as word-oriented as the journalists who seek their help. Although it is difficult to derive a clear understanding of visual communication entirely from within the field of journalism, the area of photojournalism provides a good starting place because these journalism specialists clearly recognize the importance of visual communication in print.

“Photojournalism is the art and craft practiced by editorial word and picture specialists,” writes Edward Hamilton in Graphic Design for the Computer Age. “It is a system of designing words and pictures together to form a powerful mode of information--more powerful than the use of either words or pictures alone.”¹

“In fact,” adds Wilson Hicks, a photojournalist best known for his work with Life magazine, “the very foundation of the form rests on its extraordinary ability to induce a phenomenon wherein the total of the complex—that is, pictures and words together—becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”²

The synergistic relationship of words and pictures is exploited, at least to some extent, by all journalists who use pictures and words together. The fact that photojournalism is an area of specialization within the field would seem to indicate, however, that many journalists themselves do not openly acknowledge that relationship. Even among photojournalists, recognition and acknowledgement often seem to be ends in, themselves, for much of the literature of photojournalism is devoted to describing examples of words and pictures working in tandem without exploring the basis for their interaction.

Although it is not considered a specialized area within journalism, the closely related field of graphic design offers the journalist much information related to visual communication. Unlike photojournalists, graphic designers have relatively little interest in the pictures and words themselves, concentrating instead on their effective presentation. In spite of their emphasis on message packaging, graphic designers devote a great deal of attention to visual communication. Graphic designers most often take a practical, problem-solving approach to print communication, and the literature of graphic design is filled with examples of applications of basic design principles. Unfortunately, in many graphic design texts, those principles are not clearly spelled out. As far as the word-oriented journalist is concerned, the literature of graphic design is plagued by the same basic problem as is the literature of photojournalism: Writers in both fields seldom elaborate on the theoretical bases for their conclusions, preferring instead to teach by example. Certainly examples are useful, but they cannot take the place of explanations. For those explanations, the journalist must look within several disciplines including psychology, philosophy and art.

Other helpful disciplines

A great deal of relevant empirical research in psychology has been devoted to the physiological processes of visual perception, but for the journalist, cognitive responses to visual stimuli are probably of greatest interest. For example,, by exploring the theories underlying the familiar Rorschach inkblot tests and Thematic Apperception Tests, journalists can gain insights into how people respond to relatively ambiguous visual stimuli. The work of the Gestalt psychologists is also of particular interest to journalists, for the Gestaltists devoted much of their research to understanding how people organize and categorize visual information. Since all languages are symbolic, the work of psychologist Carl Jung, his theories of the unconscious, of symbols and of archetypes, are also of interest. Helpful as it is, though, the literature of psychology does not provide a complete theoretical understanding of visual communication, for as Samuel Becker notes, the bulk of psychological research has contributed very little to the important question of how meaning is derived from pictures.³

From psychology, the journalist can turn to the literature of philosophy and art to enhance his or her understanding of meaning and how it is transmitted from one person to another by means of symbols. Philosophers have devoted a great deal of effort to providing a broad understanding of man as a symbol-using being, while artists and art historians have dealt more with visual symbols on a practical, communications-oriented level.

The visual literacy movement

Perhaps the best synthesis of relevant information is to be found in the literature of the visual literacy movement. The concept of visual literacy is as old as nonverbal communication itself, but it was not until the late 1960s that the concept became the focus of a nationwide movement to teach people to understand and create visual messages. The chief advantage of becoming visually literate was, according to the movement’s proponents, the increased control of the communications process based on a thorough understanding of the elements of a visual message and their interactions.

“Visual literacy is to the world of images as conventional literacy is to the world of print,” writes Richard Adler in his article “What is Visual Literacy?” “If traditional literacy is the ability to read and write words, then visual literacy is the ability to understand and create nonverbal communications.”⁴ Adler explains, warning, however, that, “there is no single, generally accepted meaning for the term, even among those who are actively involved in the movement.”⁵

If the advocates of visual literacy had difficulty with definitions, they had an even greater difficulty convincing their critics of a genuine need for visual education. Some opponents saw little if any need to teach what seems to be an innate skill, and even the most adamant spokesmen of the movement found it difficult to dispute evidence suggesting that, at least as far as object recognition goes, pictures appear to be comprehensible to anyone with normal eyesight. As Adler explains, “If visual literacy consisted of nothing more than teaching students how to look at pictures, then it seemed to be a solution looking for a problem that did not exist.”⁶

In fact, visual literacy does consist of more than teaching students how to look at pictures. In her book A Primer of Visual Literacy, Donis A. Dondis admits that the skills needed to understand visual messages “are intrinsic in man and will emerge, to some extent, with or without teaching or models.”⁷ As Adler points out, however, “Literacy also implies the ability to write as well as read. Thus, visual literacy is concerned with teaching students how to create visual messages as well as understand them.”⁸

Because of its dual emphasis on creating and understanding visual messages, the literature of the visual literacy movement is directly relevant to the concerns of the word-oriented journalist. The movement’s advocates take a pragmatic approach, stressing clear, unambiguous visual communication rather than aesthetic or artistic considerations. They believe that understanding and effective use of visual language can be learned by anyone who studies the component parts of that language. Based as it is on an analogy drawn from verbal communication, the visual literacy concept weakens at those points where visual language differs substantially from verbal language. These basic differences, to be explored further in Chapter III, do not markedly diminish the overall value to journalists of the visual literacy concept, however, as long as they are understood and acknowledged.

Summary

Material relevant to the understanding of visual communication is scattered throughout many disciplines including psychology, philosophy and art. Within the field of journalism, the writings of photojournalists are helpful in understanding words and pictures and their interactions. The related field of graphic design can also provide relevant material. Probably the best synthesis of information is to be found in the literature of the visual literacy movement.  

Notes from Chapter I

¹Edward A. Hamilton, Graphic Design for the Computer Age (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1970), p. 30.

²Hicks, p. 6.

³Bikkar S. Randhawa and William E. Coffman, Visual Learning, Thinking and Communication (New York: Academic Press, 1978), p. 40.

⁴Richard P. Adler, “What is Visual Literacy?,” American Film, III, No. 8 (June 1978), p. 22.

⁵Ibid., p. 25.

⁶Ibid., p. 24.

⁷Donis A. Dondis, A Primer of Visual Literacy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1973) p. 67.

⁸Adler, p. 24.