We live in a mediated blitz of images. They fill our newspapers, magazines, books, clothing, billboards, computer monitors, and television screens as never before in the history of mass communication. We are becoming a visually mediated society. For many — especially those who have been raised and nurtured in a television/Internet culture — understanding the world is being accomplished, not through reading words, but by absorbing and digesting images. Reading is losing to watching because viewing requires little mental processing.We live in an image-hungry society with screens embedded into airplane chairs and phones doubling as cameras. Images compel us to look at them, and their message is instant, unlike text which requires some time and effort on our part. Consequently, when images and words compete, the consensus is generally to go with the image because often it’s the image people will remember the next day, the next week, and perhaps for the rest of their lives.
Media images have tremendous power. Often, they define how we see ourselves, and they can define what others think of us as well.
Why do images have such power? It is part of the human condition. We are visually oriented systems, programmed to store more pictures than text in our long-term memories. According to research cited by educational psychologist Jerome Bruner of New York University, the average person remembers only 30 percent of what is read but nearly 80 percent of what is seen.
Actually, it was Johann Gutenberg’s magic printing machine that disrupted the harmonious balance between words and images. With his machine, text-based communications had a quick and easy method of dissemination. The development of an equally efficient means of reproducing the color, depth, form, and movement of visual communication languished far behind. Words sped out of printer’s blocks and left images in a cloud of ink. In a race for cultural superiority, text crossed the finish line first, and pictures came in a distant second.
The intellectual valuing of words over images was passed on from generation to generation. It is just this history and precedent that causes educators to bemoan the pervasiveness of the visual culture. They blame TV for the decrease in analytic ability and students’ poor writing skills. It is true that the sheer weight of time students spend immersed in television, computer games, and other visual distractions keeps them from other educational activities.
The shift from words to images began with television which emphasizes the moving image over written and spoken language. Television is image-driven, image-saturated, and image-controlled. This is precisely what television does that books, recordings, and pictures cannot do; it brings us visual action. Now, television programs can be watched from direct broadcast, from cable and fibre optics, from satellites, from VCRs, from laser disks, and from hand-held receptors. On some television sets you can watch more than one program at a time. In a television commercial for Kodak’s Photo CD technology, the announcer reports, “Pictures have never been so powerful.”
But just because we are moving toward a visual orientation, does not mean we should be moving in this direction. The problem is that when the image dominates the word, rational discourse ebbs. These technologically animated images move and combine in ways unknown only a few decades ago, thus increasing their power to mesmerize.
The visionary reality of connected images doesn’t allow for critical discourse, explanation, duplication, or reflection — all rational activities required for separating truth from error. This is because images require viewers to be continually involved in the action. Images keep words in check because words strip images of their hypnotic and magical power.
When images overwhelm and subjugate words, the ability to think, write, and communicate in a linear and logical fashion is undermined. Television images have an immediate effect on us, but the effect is seldom to cause us to pursue their truth or falsity. Often television images are shorn of their overall context and meaning and are reduced to factoids (at best). That is, ideas located within historical and logical settings are replaced by impressions, emotions, and stimulations.
Images communicate narrative stories and quantitative information such as graphs and charts. Words are required for more linear, logical communication. Propositions and beliefs can be true or false; images don’t have truth value. Images are arresting, alluring, and entrancing, but because they shrink events into factoids or create outright falsehoods, viewers are manipulated by their normal way of operation and presentation. Viewers then assume that what they saw on television is something they saw with their own eyes.
What viewers don’t realize — because they are so totally consumed by images — is that every television minute is edited. Viewers don’t see events, they only see edited symbols or edited images of events. An aura and illusion of objectivity and truth is built up which cannot and does not exist. Despite that, reality becomes the image even when that image does not correspond to any objective state of affairs.
Think about the effect this can have on viewers during a political campaign. Truth and logic are socially constructed, and they can be deconstructed and reconstructed at whim.
What is the remedy? If truth is to prevail, image consumption must be replaced by word devotion. Teachers are correct: the desire to read, the ability to read and write all suffer under the ruthless regime of television, the Internet, computer games, and other image-dominated media.
Print, on the other hand, demands to be understood. Written sentences call upon readers
to know the importance of what is said. To read effectively, readers must come to print in a serious state of intellectual readiness not necessary with images. The mental act of reading is active, engages the mind and imagination, and makes truth possible and knowable. When language is the principle medium for communication, ideas, facts, and claims occupy a central place in our thoughts and require mental processing — little mental processing is required with images.
In the essay,“Wordplay: The Importance of Language,” Rochelle Siegel at The Sandspur (the oldest college newspaper in Florida - Founded in 1894) distinguishes among language, speech, and communication, and she emphasizes the importance of learning and understanding the non-linguistic properties of speech. Her essay can be found at: http://media.www.thesandspur.org/media/storage/paper623/news/2005/11/11/LifeTimes/Wordplay.The.Importance.Of.Language-1053959-page2.shtml
In this WebQuest, designed for 11th graders, entitled “Images and Influence,” designed by Carol Boehm, there is a wonderful lesson on the influence of images in advertising. Boehm discusses specific images and their influence, and then she asks critical questions to get students thinking such as, “What are the social and political implications?” This website offers important information and insights: http://eprentice.sdsu.edu/J03OW/boehm/INDEX/Images_Influence.htm
Contact Richard L. Weaver II
