Showing papers in "Visual Communication in 2011"
TL;DR: Lakoff and Johnson as discussed by the authors claim that metaphors play a crucial role in systematically structuring concepts, not just language. Probing the validity of this far-reaching claim requires an investigation of m...
Abstract: Lakoff and Johnson claim that metaphors play a crucial role in systematically structuring concepts, not just language. Probing the validity of this far-reaching claim requires an investigation of m...
162 citations
TL;DR: There is a growing need to study the influence of ubiquitous technologies on the authors' use and understanding of the semiotic potential of resources such as texture, and parameters for describing tactile surface texture and visual texture are proposed.
Abstract: The term ‘texture’ is often applied beyond the tactile, to describe visual and aural qualities. While tactile, visual and aural texture have been studied separately in various fields, the relations...
68 citations
TL;DR: This article isolates different modes, investigating the interdependent relationships, illustrating that the visual mode of gestures can take up a hierarchically equal or a super-ordinate position in addition to the commonly understood sub-ordinate positions in relation to the mode of spoken language.
Abstract: Taking the action, rather than the utterance or the text, as the unit of analysis, this article isolates different modes, investigating the interdependent relationships, illustrating that the visual mode of gestures can take up a hierarchically equal or a super-ordinate position in addition to the commonly understood sub-ordinate position in relation to the mode of spoken language. Building on McNeill, Birdwhistell, Eco, and Ekman and Friesen, and using a multimodal interaction analytical approach (Norris), I analyse in detail three separate everyday (inter)actions in which a deictic gesture is being performed and spoken language is used by the social actor performing the gesture. With these examples, I build on previous work in multimodal analysis of texts and multimodal interaction analysis, illustrating that the verbal is not necessarily more important than the visual (Kress and Van Leeuwen; Norris; Scollon), demonstrating that verbal and visual modes can be utilized together to (co)produce one message...
59 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that sociological analysis of visual data is necessary to understand how urban vernacular neighborhoods are changing as a result of globalization and present visual data on vernocal neighborhoods in Antwerp, Berlin, Brooklyn, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Lisbon, London, Manchester, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, St Petersburg, Stockholm, and Tirana.
Abstract: Ordinary people living ordinary lives inhabit meaningful spaces; in globalized urban environments, these spaces are vernacular landscapes. Urban spaces are also subject to the effects of social inequality. Class, racial/ethnic, religion, and citizenship hierarchies mark urban territories with differential meanings. Spatial semiotic analysis makes it possible to see even the most powerless of urban dwellers as social agents in the local reproduction of urban culture. The authors argue that sociological analysis of visual data is necessary to understand how urban vernacular neighborhoods are changing as a result of globalization. They present visual data on vernacular neighborhoods in Antwerp, Berlin, Brooklyn, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Lisbon, London, Manchester, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, St Petersburg, Stockholm, and Tirana. These images are among the 9000+ photographs from more than 40 global cities available from their online archive. Urban spaces are filled with signs of collective identity. In the physic...
52 citations
37 citations
TL;DR: Digital storytelling (DST) is being increasingly used in a range of contexts to exploit current technological capabilities of capturing and reproducing community stories as discussed by the authors, and it can be used to capture and reproduce community stories.
Abstract: Digital storytelling (DST) is being increasingly used in a range of contexts to exploit current technological capabilities of capturing and reproducing community stories. Methods of storytelling co...
31 citations
TL;DR: The challenge of public education campaigns has always involved the need to simultaneously respect and trans... as mentioned in this paper The challenges of these campaigns have always involved respecting and transgating people's identities.
Abstract: Combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Uganda has involved massive public education campaigns. One of the challenges of these campaigns has always involved the need to simultaneously respect and trans...
31 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse multimodal TV advertisements and show how intertextual voices are exploited in advertising discourse to enhance persuasive power, taking as their point of departure the...
Abstract: By analysing multimodal TV advertisements, this study aims to show how intertextual voices are exploited in advertising discourse to enhance persuasive power. Taking as their point of departure the...
26 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of teen video makers on YouTube illustrates how youth in the United States may approach their video making in more fluid ways that do not fit comfortably within analytical binaries.
Abstract: Certain binaries have dominated scholarly approaches to research on digital video creation. The first is concerned with comparing videos made by professionals versus amateurs. The second is the binary contrasting the use of images for memory preservation versus sharing experiences and negotiating identities. The present case study of teen video makers on YouTube illustrates how youth in the United States may approach their video making in more fluid ways that do not fit comfortably within these analytical binaries. The study draws on a range of ethnographic evidence such as interviews, text comments posted to videos, and visual analyses of two videos that are live-action instantiations of a video game. The study suggests that investigating the interaction between aesthetics and technical knowledge in video-mediated, parodic forms of nostalgia may be a rich and productive area to explore. These constructs are particularly fruitful when trying to understand meanings behind video creation and communication. ...
24 citations
TL;DR: The findings indicate that feedback from the software in the filmmaking process becomes a resource in the semiotic work of rethinking the visuals and soundtrack in the editing practices.
Abstract: This article analyses how novice users explore the interface of sophisticated editing software ( Final Cut Express) when working with filters and special effects. Inspired by a multimodal and phenomenological perspective, the author seeks to elaborate a sociocultural approach in order to scrutinize these editing practices by using mediated action as a unit of analysis. The aim of the article is to understand how the editing software and its users work in tandem during the editing practice. The findings indicate that feedback from the software in the filmmaking process becomes a resource in the semiotic work of rethinking the visuals and soundtrack in the editing practices. As a result, the novice students could address more precisely how they wanted to communicate a specific scene visually and aurally.
24 citations
TL;DR: The authors describe a use of visual imagery in research reporting that helps to emphasize the human and social dimensions of research issues and encourage different ways of thinking about the findings and implications of research.
Abstract: This article describes a use of visual imagery in research reporting that helps to emphasize the human and social dimensions of research issues and encourage different ways of thinking about the findings and implications. During the literature review, in order to establish the authors’ longitudinal research into adult literacy, they observed that research participants’ own perspectives and rich life-worlds were usually invisible in final reports and articles, submerged under layers of governmental or scholarly discourse. An irony was that, while literacy theory was moving towards acknowledging multi-literacies, reporting of literacy research remained heavily mono-modal. The authors of this research wanted to differ from this trend by giving people who were affected by adult literacy policy a vivid presence within their reports. They were intrigued by the use of visual means to foreground interviewees’ own words both as a way to register their importance to readers and to try to signal the multi-modal natu...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply the methods of analysis more typically used to study variation in biological forms, and produce 30 portrait drawings based on 30 pose photographs, and analyse how the portrait drawings differed from the photographs using three different measures: visual assessment, anthropometric measures, and geometric morphometric analysis.
Abstract: Traditional portraiture aims to produce a life-like representation of an individual’s unique facial features, but there are a number of perceptual factors that may affect how an artist sees and depicts a sitter’s facial shapes. The anatomical accuracy of a portrait is predominantly ascertained subjectively, and not through quantitative methods. To see if it was possible to apply the methods of analysis more typically used to study variation in biological forms, the authors produced 30 portrait drawings based on 30 pose photographs, and analysed how the portrait drawings differed from the photographs using three different measures: visual assessment, anthropometric measures, and geometric morphometric analysis. Of the three methods, geometric morphometric analysis was found to be the far better technique to account for patterns of depiction common to one artist, and our study indicates this method may have broad research applicability to the face as it is variously represented across a range of visual media.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe how tourists' encounters with/in places, while powerfully represented and organized by visual imagery, are also experienced through material exchange, social interaction and physical movement.
Abstract: Tourists’ encounters with/in places, while powerfully represented and organized by visual imagery, are also experienced through material exchange, social interaction and physical movement. We offer...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the terrains within which day-to-day sexualness and subjectivity are conceived, experienced and imagined visually and explored sexualities as phenomenologically apprehended.
Abstract: This article explores the terrains within which day-to-day sexualness and subjectivity are conceived, experienced and imagined visually Photographic research conducted with people of transgender and men who have sex with men in West Bengal, India, explored sexualities as phenomenologically apprehended This, in turn, offers some critical insights into the representation of male-to-male and trans-sexualities within HIV prevention work and within analysis of social change in India
TL;DR: This article explored the extent to which colour functions as an independent mode in a particular context and explored the culturally produced regularities in the uses of colour in this context, and showed that colour can be used as a mode of expression in a variety of contexts.
Abstract: This article explores the extent to which colour functions as an independent mode in a particular context and explores the culturally produced regularities in the uses of colour in this context. Dr...
TL;DR: In 1984, the creators of Miami Vice, a famous NBC detective drama, added pop and rock hits to the original themes of the soundtrack, later defined as "MTV-inspired" as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In 1984, the creators of Miami Vice — a famous NBC detective drama — added pop and rock hits to the original themes of the soundtrack. This new use of music, later defined as ‘MTV-inspired’, has pr...
TL;DR: In this article, a comparative study of visual and written communication in Tokyo and London using Google Street View is presented, showing that Tokyo has a higher density and diversity of visuals at a wider range of heights than London.
Abstract: This visual essay provides an overview of a comparative study of visuals in the urban landscapes of Tokyo and London, using Google Street View to make these comparisons. The data were analysed using Visual Content Analysis and colour coding. The findings are that Tokyo has a higher density and diversity of visuals at a wider range of heights. Visual and written communication also appear to be confined to more separately definable spaces with more equal weighting in the use of written and visual modes.
TL;DR: The Badminton Horse Trials provides a multitude of associations: an internationally renowned sporting event, geographically and culturally located within the English countryside; an affiliated and substantial ‘pop-up’ shopping village, which makes the Trials a retail and fashion event as much as an equestrian event; a landscape setting that supports a temporarily constructed space, embracing aspects of both the rural and the urban(e); and a frame/stage for a series of socially codified interactions informed by dress and communicated through visible appearance and self-presentation as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This visual essay offers a perspective designed to extend and complicate the dialogue surrounding rural fashion through a consideration of just one of the spaces it (recognizably) inhabits. As a case study, the spectacle of Badminton Horse Trials provides a multitude of associations: an internationally renowned sporting event, geographically and culturally located within the English countryside; an affiliated and substantial ‘pop-up’ shopping village, which makes the Trials a retail and fashion event as much as an equestrian event; a landscape setting that supports a temporarily constructed space, embracing aspects of both the rural and the urban(e); and a frame/stage for a series of socially codified interactions informed by dress and communicated through visible appearance and self-presentation. The combination of word and image presented here invites interrogation of the field of fashion and the overlapping contingencies of visual/verbal communication, with a view towards opening up a discourse within ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the praxis of prominent photographers who were professionally active during the 1980s in South Africa, based on 26 personal interviews and find that the majority of photographers operated on the level of strategic social actions with low levels of practitioner autonomy, using photography in the first instance as a "weapon" in the fight against apartheid, actively forming collectives to assist with the distribution of resistance images internationally.
Abstract: This article examines the praxis of prominent photographers who were professionally active during the 1980s in South Africa, based on 26 personal interviews. The authors look at issues concerning practitioner autonomy, or the photographer’s freedom to make independent communication-related choices while working within social documentary or photojournalism genres. The data suggest that the majority of photographers operated on the level of strategic social actions with low levels of practitioner autonomy, using photography in the first instance as a ‘weapon’ in the fight against apartheid, actively forming collectives to assist with the distribution of resistance images internationally. In contrast, those photographers who opted to operate primarily as independent social commentators remained in the minority.
TL;DR: Pipilotti Rist's colorful and sensuous video installations enliven the new media landscape and offer a fresh paradigm for conceptualizing color in electronic media art.
Abstract: Electronic artist Pipilotti Rist’s colorful and sensuous video installations enliven the new media landscape and offer a fresh paradigm for conceptualizing color in electronic media art. This artic...
TL;DR: Analysis of a PowerPoint presentation, created by two 13-year-old students, suggests the students’ ability to operate as sophisticated, multimodal sign-makers, using the resources of digital technologies in ways that are not acknowledged within the domain of schooled literacy.
Abstract: Research data gathered from a sequence of English lessons in a London secondary school are used to interrogate the ways in which reading is conceptualized in policy and realized in practice. Analysis of a PowerPoint presentation, created by two 13-year-old students, suggests the students’ ability to operate as sophisticated, multimodal sign-makers, using the resources of digital technologies in ways that are not acknowledged within the domain of schooled literacy.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors briefly illustrate Grant's method for creating these drawings and his systematic and deliberate use of photography in the process, and explain the reasons for Grant's use of black and white images, and examine the specific illustration techniques used by these artists.
Abstract: The onset of the Second World War created a temporary crisis in the North American medical community when the supply of medical textbooks from Europe, used to train physicians and surgeons, was threatened. In 1941, Dr J.C.B. Grant of the University of Toronto proposed a new anatomical atlas, comprising both tonal and line drawings, to address this need. In this visual essay, the authors briefly illustrate Grant’s method for creating these drawings, and his systematic and deliberate use of photography in the process. They explain the reasons for Grant’s use of black and white images, and examine the specific illustration techniques used by these artists. A series of close-ups of the original drawings produced for the Atlas in the 1940s highlight the visual communication strategies deployed by these skilled illustrators. In so doing, they make an argument for the importance of examining how images are produced for medical publication, and not merely examining what is produced.
TL;DR: The I love Basildon project as mentioned in this paper was an art project conceived in 2009 as a response to a public art commission to investigate the spirit of place in the town of London.
Abstract: ‘I love Basildon’ was an art project conceived in 2009 as a response to a public art commission to investigate the spirit of place. Over a three-month period the public encountered the author’s int...