| dc.description.abstract | Images are produced, used and distributed on an enormous scale. However, the
skills of understanding, interpreting and using images as well as thinking and
learning in terms of images are taken for granted, and thus, they are not
sufficiently taught and developed, especially in higher education. The need for
introducing visual literacy into the curriculum was identified in late 1960s, but
no concrete guidelines have followed. This study proposes to apply
interpretation of journalistic photographs as an instrument of visual literacy
education. The main focus is on the image interpretation process and the kinds
of meanings viewers apply to a photograph in the interpretation process. In
each of the four articles included in this study, a model or approach to
photography interpretation is proposed. The first method is the model for press
photograph story analysis, immersed in visual semiotics. This model was
simplified and improved and became the model for the interpretation of
journalistic photographs. Both models were created as a synthesis of some of
the visual research methods, including classical theories (elements of visual
semiotics, visual rhetoric, Barthes’ concept of studium and punctum),
approaches having their roots in the analysis of paintings (Barrett’s principles
for interpreting photographs, compositional interpretation, iconological context
analysis), methods dedicated to analysis of photographs in the press
(quantitative content analysis). The concept of context of journalistic
photographs is also critically discussed, indicating a context of production,
context of medium and page context, and arguing for the decontextualized
interpretation of journalistic photographs (proposing an intertextual approach)
with a context limited to the caption. In addition, the study compiles the genre
typology of journalistic photographs as an instrument for visual education. The
study calls for changes in a largely textual higher education curriculum towards
a more visually oriented one, which can serve as a start point for future
research on the assessment of visual literacy skills. | |
