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Sexy Visuals

Several discussion threads have been exploring the place of digital and electronic mediums in the composing process and composition classroom. David and Richards make some interesting points about the interconnectedness of cultural influences with the discourse of our students, namely in the form of visual communication. And while I acknowledge the importance of understanding cultural influences, I am also wondering about the rationale for our push to do so. Ryan and Lars have both posed questions about integrating visual rhetoric into our course designs, wondering if we do it to make it fun or “sex it up” (Pepper). In “Fields of Vision,” David uses the word enliven to refer to a pedagogy that includes visual elements. I’m wondering now about why we feel this pull? What is behind it, other than wanting to be trendy.

Submitted by Morgan S. on Sun, 2007-04-01 22:47.
Morgan S.'s blog

Trendiness
Ryan's picture
Submitted by Ryan on Tue, 2007-04-03 10:33.

Morgan, some of incorporating visual rhetoric may be done to be trendy, but even that isn't necessarily a bad motive. Part of rhetoric is catering message to the mediums and sensibilities of the audience in context, and right now the context is heavily visual. This doesn't seem to be a trend that will disappear anytime soon (remember that thousand year book trend that really blew up?) Students need to be aware of how to operate within this context (though some argue that they already are, which is one argument for teaching the more writing based genres they are less comfortable in.)


Good points
Morgan S.'s picture
Submitted by Morgan S. on Tue, 2007-04-03 10:43.

Ryan, I agree. I think there is value to having students work with and within mediums that are interesting to them and that comprise such a large part of the ways they receive information and make knowledge. But I was just wondering about other rationales for wanting to incorporate visual communication into our pedagogies.


Variation, Surprise, Perspective
David Blakesley's picture
Submitted by David Blakesley on Mon, 2007-04-02 14:00.

These are important questions. There is the tendency to use visual content to draw the attention, and too often it's done without too much regard for the rhetoric of the visual itself and over-stressing of its difference (creating surprise or interest perhaps). Ideally, I think you want the visual content to communicate information (or perspective) in its own right so that it's not exclusively dependent on or tied to verbal content for its meaning.

Dave