Fovea: Bringing Visual Communication into Focus

In this episode, we explore Umberto Eco's argument that semiotics offers a powerful explanation for how culture shapes perception. We see color, it seems, naturally and automatically. You look, you recognize, and that's the end of it. We assume everyone else sees the world in exactly the same way we do--even if they label it differently. Yet we know from the study of history and from anthropological evidence that different cultures organize perception and the visible spectrum of light in different ways. We consider Eco's argument for how our perception of color is conditioned by culture, and we explore the implications of this argument for a variety of other situations in which our lumping and sorting of the world changes the way we see. So tune in and get ready to focus!

We bring you another installment in the "Why We Read" series. Did you know that researchers estimate we are exposed to as many as 5,000 advertisements a day? They are talking to us, not just about products and brands and sales, but about the way the things are--or at least how they would like things to be. Our focus in this episode is Chapter 2: Narrative Representation from Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen's book, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. We explore the semantics of structure, the stories images tell and how they tell them. And we talk about the deeper, ideological or cultural messages which is being reinforced So get ready to focus!

In this installment of Why We Read, we focus on Borgersen and Schroeder's (2002) essay, Ethical Issues of Global Marketing: Avoiding Bad Faith in Visual Representation. What is bad faith? Why is it bad for you and other people around you? How do bad faith advertising images create ontological harm? Tune in and find out!

In this inaugural episode of the "Why We Read" series, we focus on James Carey's argument for a "cultural approach to communication." What does he mean when he says communication isn't about information, it's about ritual? What was so important about this argument? Why was it so influential on communication studies? And what does it have to do with visual communication? Tune in and find out!