Suggests that verbal and visual literacy are interdependent and that English departments should take on the task of heightening visual literacy. (AEA)

The unfounded and sometimes absurd attacks on television have tended to obscure many of the medium's obvious personal, social, and aesthetic benefits. It is easy to watch, and if its content does not always provide viewers with much to think about, television does not ask much of them either: they may eat, sleep, and unwind in front of it,…

Semiotics addresses the question of how people derive meaning from a text, and meaning stems from considering phenomena as signs and from looking at the relationships among these signs. Thus, a semiological analysis of the television series "Cheers" reveals that the title suggests happiness, good spirits, and companionship. The show…

The revolution brought about by computerized technology, in general, and television imagery, in particular, challenges the perceptual habits and alters the television viewer's means of expressing appreciation of the aesthetic merits of such television images. This study speculates on several perceptual and aesthetic drawbacks of future massive…

Based on the notion that technological and artistic developments in the area of television production affect viewers' comprehension and appreciation of televised programs, this essay examines the impact of telecommunication advances on the industry. The first section briefly considers the technological advances of the last decade in major TV…

An experiment was conducted in which the relationships of basic television and film codes to particular literacy mental skills were examined. Different versions of the same film, each focusing on a different code, were produced and shown to fifth graders. It was found that children with initially better mastery of the relevant skills extract more…

Research has shown that producers and consumers of television programs are still uncertain about the nature of the "grammar" or "lexicon" that makes up the language of television. Although attempts have been made in experimental television ("video art"), systematic studies on the idiosyncratic nature, unique features,…

For centuries artists have explored the uses of color in their compositions. Believing that colors have innate symbolic, expressive, and aesthetic qualities, artists have been aware that these properties can be magnified or subdued by organization within a compositional space, and artists have suggested that certain positions within a framed field…

The process and effects of visual communication are examined in this paper. The first section, "Visual Literacy," discusses the need for a visual literacy involving an understanding of the instruments, materials, and techniques of visual communication media; it then presents and discusses a model illustrating factors involved in the…

At present, television production curriculum is too often confined to a token course or two, with content limited to the efficient operation of equipment and facilities and to routine producing and directing techniques. So that each course might integrate all of the elements involved in production, the number of required courses should be expanded…

After considering evidence of the importance of television in the lives of children, the background and directions of the visual literacy movement are explored. The effects of television on the child are then considered within a framework based on the work of Piaget, whose studies suggest there must be significant differences in the way television…

One approach to the study of the televised image is through the combination of signs, created through production choices. Just as a linguistic sign does not carry exclusively the thoughts of its author but interposes its own material form (thus affecting reading of the text), so does the production choice (technique) infect the thought of the…

Unlike the linear, serial process of reading books, learning to "read" television is a parallel process in which multiple pieces of information are simultaneously received. Perceiving images, only one aspect of understanding television, requires the concurrent processing of information that is compounded within a symbol system. The…

Television has become such an important factor in our culture that it must be made a part of the educational curriculum if our free and democratic society is to survive. Those who know how to use the television medium are able to brainwash the rest of us easily, for most of us are television illiterates. The development of print literacy, opposed…

Students who are learning techniques for producing television programs and films often require guidance in three areas: acquiring knowledge of traditional art forms, obtaining audience feedback to their productions, and assessing their own capabilities and creative potential. This paper describes a programmed course of self-instruction that may be…