Most individuals view the world through images and many share memories through social networking sites (SNSs) and other online spaces continuously. Due to the immense amount of communication through images, it is increasingly important to develop competencies in visual, media, and privacy literacy; therefore, this article presents Photovoice 2.0,…

In my university classroom teaching, I draw on my interdisciplinary background as both a humanistic scholar and a documentary filmmaker, presenting an approach to learning that integrates scholarship with a digital storytelling practicum. Questions that scrutinize the relationship between written and visual discourses, the possibilities and limits…

When visual literacy ethics instruction in higher education focuses only on teaching academic citation styles and fair use, students are unprepared for professional environments with less-defined ethical rules and harsher consequences. Instructors should look to visual literacy, metaliteracy, and disciplinary information literacy to identify…

This article describes a current project by Liverpool organisations Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), Whitby High School (Ellesmere Port), recent partners Liverpool Hope University and Curious Minds. The school is in an area of high socio-economic deprivation and low level of cultural engagement. The project seeks to support students' photographic and…

While some journalists analyze and verify "open source" materials such as social media, eyewitness video, and satellite imagery to hold leaders and institutions accountable, many journalists and students are not learning basic digital verification skills. Research shows that journalists find this work challenging and that newsrooms do…

The importance of images and visual media in today's culture is changing what it means to be literate in the 21st century. Digital technologies have made it possible for almost anyone to create and share visual media. Yet the pervasiveness of images and visual media does not necessarily mean that individuals are able to critically view, use, and…

Courses: This unit activity is suited for courses with research and source citation components, such as the Basic Communication; Interpersonal, and Organizational Communication courses. Objectives: Students will (a) visually interpret and analyze instances of plagiarism; (b) revise their work to use proper citations and reduce instances of…

Social media environments and online communities are innovative collaborative technologies that challenge traditional definitions of information literacy. Metaliteracy is an overarching and self-referential framework that integrates emerging technologies and unifies multiple literacy types. This redefinition of information literacy expands the…

An important topic of current brain research is "cognitive overload." It is about the capacity of a person's working memory and the strategies employed when that capacity is taxed. The most common strategy for coping with cognitive overload is shutting down, like that point in a conversation with a non-English speaker when everything one…

Graphic design's messages can reach across streets and across the globe; they can bring together countries, communities and strangers for a common cause; they can also serve to divide otherwise amenable neighbors. Design students must fully understand this potential reach and thus the responsibility they have to create tolerant, informed messages.…

In a time when adolescents are continually inundated by provocative multimedia campaigns that coax them to buy more, think less, and do so in a passive environment that provides little to no opportunities for them to reflect on who they are in the world, the author of this article offers one way to engage adolescents and their teachers with a…

Recent appeal to the concept of design in composition studies benefits teaching writing in digital media. Yet the concept of design has not been developed enough to fully benefit composition instruction. This article develops an understanding of design as a matter of resolving wicked problems and makes a case for the advantages of this…

The introduction of techniques for digitizing photographic images, as well as the subsequent development of powerful image-editing software, has both broadened the possibilities of altering photographs and brought the means for doing so within the reach of many. This article is an informal review of the ways image-editing software can be used to…

Visual criticism is a major component of the new visual communication. Visual communication has changed through the advent of new technology which allows images to be combined and manipulated with relative ease. Visual criticism analyzes the forms and practices of image production and examines the roles of images in society creating a new dialogue…

Entertainment films are being increasingly used as a means of stimulating discussion of contemporary problems, ethical issues, and cross generational dialog. In order to help teachers and organizations deal fully and responsibly with such films, this directory references 100 "entertainment" films under categories such as sex and marriage, justice…