“With the emergence of fake news articles and ‘deepfake’ videos on social media within the past 2 years, it is now imperative more than ever to incorporate techniques to teach students how to evaluate images into the classroom. By turning a critical eye towards these types of images and learning how to critically read digital images, students can increase their visual literacy skills and their critical thinking skills in tandem

Dana Statton Thompson (2019) Teaching students to critically read digital images: a visual literacy approach using the DIG method, Journal of Visual Literacy, 38:1-2, 110-119, DOI: 10.1080/1051144X.2018.1564604. Image; “You don’t always get what you want” by Ed Yourdon is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Images must be evaluated in a similar way to written texts. Like text, images can be used accurately, deliberately, misleadingly or carelessly

Visual literacy refers to the ability to successfully interpret and use images. We derive meaning from a great deal of visual input in our daily lives – something that has increased significantly with the rise of digital media and technology

Many jobs roles include application of visual literacy skills – from manipulation of imagery in creative media and design arenas to representing data in a financial or scientific context. Being able to effectively interpret visual information is a key skill, impacting many areas of our professional and personal lives

In this article, we are going to explore what visual literacy is, why it should be encouraged with regards to teaching and learning, and provide some suggestions as to how it can be fostered in the classroom.. Visual literacy is the ability to make sense of a whole range of visual information – essentially to be able to ‘read’ visuals, appreciating and being able to interrogate or analyse both literal and inferred meaning

According to Sayre what are the three steps in the process of “seeing”?. Objects that are intended to stimulate a sense of beauty in the viewer are thought to be _______ rather than functional.

Which of these is not a principle of “green architecture”?. architects look to continue to use building techniques and materials that have been in use since the Industrial Revolution in the West

Jan van Eyck’s “Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife Giovanna Cenami” depicts many objects that have symbolic meaning. In “The Treason of Images,” the artist combines awareness, creativity, and communication by encouraging the viewer to look closely at an object

“With the emergence of fake news articles and ‘deepfake’ videos on social media within the past 2 years, it is now imperative more than ever to incorporate techniques to teach students how to evaluate images into the classroom. By turning a critical eye towards these types of images and learning how to critically read digital images, students can increase their visual literacy skills and their critical thinking skills in tandem

Dana Statton Thompson (2019) Teaching students to critically read digital images: a visual literacy approach using the DIG method, Journal of Visual Literacy, 38:1-2, 110-119, DOI: 10.1080/1051144X.2018.1564604. Image; “You don’t always get what you want” by Ed Yourdon is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Images must be evaluated in a similar way to written texts. Like text, images can be used accurately, deliberately, misleadingly or carelessly

Approved by the ACRL Board of Directors, October 2011. Superseded by Companion Document to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Visual Literacy (April 2022)

Today’s society is highly visual, and visual imagery is no longer supplemental to other forms of information. New digital technologies have made it possible for almost anyone to create and share visual media

Individuals must develop these essential skills in order to engage capably in a visually-oriented society. Visual literacy empowers individuals to participate fully in a visual culture.

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image, extending the meaning of literacy, which commonly signifies interpretation of a written or printed text. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be discovered through a process of reading.[1]

Classical and Medieval theories of memory and learning, for instance, placed a strong emphasis on how the visual format of words and lines affected the ordering of information in the mind. During the Enlightenment new emphasis was placed on training the senses through print and manuscript technologies in a way that benefitted the rising middle class.[2][3] In addition to learning to read visual material like tables and figures, many schoolchildren learned how to write and draw in graphic patterns that made their notes more accessible and easier to access.[4] By the nineteenth century visual literacy was a core component of the national educations systems that were emerging in Europe and North America, with educational reformers like Sir John Lubbock arguing for visual tools like diagrams and models to be used in the classroom.[5]

Since technological advances continue to develop at an unprecedented rate, educators are increasingly promoting the learning of visual literacies as indispensable to life in the information age. Similar to linguistic literacy (meaning-making derived from written or oral human language) commonly taught in schools, most educators would agree that literacy in the 21st Century has a wider scope.[11] Educators are recognizing the importance of helping students develop visual literacies in order to survive and communicate in a highly complex world.

Visual Literacy: Applying Information Literacy to Visual Materials. Louis was recently hired as an office assistant for an advertising firm

His boss specified that it should be as visual as possible and be designed for a large projector screen. If the firm likes the work, it will be adapted into both a website and a printed pamphlet

This chapter is different from most of the others in this textbook, in that it does not focus on one particular aspect or pillar of information literacy. Instead, it looks at a specific area of information literacy: visual literacy

Source: The Association of College and Research Libraries. – The visually literate student defines and articulates the need for an image.

– Defines the scope (e.g., reach, audience) and environment (e.g., academic environment, open web) of the planned image use. – Articulates criteria that need to be met by the image (e.g., subject, pictorial content, color, resolution, specific item)

– Identifies discipline-specific conventions for image use. – The visually literate student identifies a variety of image sources, materials, and types.

Visual Literacy Today defines visual literacy as “… the ability to read, write and create visual images

Visual literacy is about language, communication and interaction. Visual media is a linguistic tool with which we communicate, exchange ideas and navigate our complex world.”

For most of us, our sense of sight is one of the primary ways we encounter the world. We begin learning about the world through the visual well before we have the ability to learn to read text, which expands our understanding of the world around us