The Visual Culture

The Visual Culture

Over the past few decades, enhancements in the visual fields have greatly improved, giving weight on the importance of visual material in text. Something that is more visually stimulating can usually make a text more convincing or credible. The term “seeing is believing” proves this fact. As humans, we tend to believe something if we can actually see it, which is why Jay David Bolter has referred to this phenomenon of the changed role of text and graphics as the “visual culture” in his book Writing Space. “Mere words no longer seemed adequate; they had to share their space with images.” (Bolter, 69).

As Bolter describes the visual culture that we are immersed in, in this day and age, he discusses various terms and components of this idea of the changed role of graphics and pictures. The idea is that a visual and a text are complementary to each other, however can coexist together or separately to interpret the same thing. “The main point is that the relationship between word and image is becoming increasingly unstable, and this instability is especially apparent in popular American magazines, newspapers, and various forms of graphic advertisements” (Bolter, 49), he says.

An interesting idea that was brought up by Bolter is that of “picture writing,” which is the idea that the signs, symbols, pictures and stylized images comprise their own language allowing no language barriers. Even though the writer and reader many use words to interpret the picture, different people could interpret and explain the same message in different words and people who speak different languages can share the same system of picture writing. Since the Internet is such a visual space,...

... middle of paper ...

...es using the images as a way of “enhancing and conveying meaning.”

It’s really interesting to see the changes that technology has come to. The advancements in technology in just the past decade have been astounding. It’s hard to think that there really was life without high-speed Internet, e-mail, and AOL Instant Messenger. However, not only have there been so many advancements in technology, but also with it came advancements in the visual field, in that our culture and society became so much more driven with such a visual drive.

Works Cited:

Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. London, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

KAIROS: 7.2. Zeliner, M.“New Media and the Slow Death of the Written Word” http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.2/binder.html?sectionone/zeltner/NM. (March, 2004).