COM 232: Visual Literacy

Broadly, this course is a survey of different visual mediums and methods for examining visual culture. Our world is a visual one, we confront static images, motion pictures, and the world around us demands we be attentive to the visual. We will examine visual politics, the production of cultural meaning through visual rhetoric, visuality and power relations, and how we witness and experience our visual world. In this course, we will primarily focus on photography, photojournalism, social media, and multimedia journalism and we will examine these media texts in their socio-cultural historical contexts and how by considering these histories we can make informed decisions as consumers and producers of visual culture today. We will begin with an overview of the history of visual culture studies and develop a robust vocabulary of theoretical tools to examine visual culture. You will build skills in formal analysis, close reading, and ethnography to examine visual culture artifacts. Throughout the course we will engage in discussions about ethics of producing and consuming visual culture with special attention to power relations and institutions that distribute, archive, and historicize our visual culture. At the conclusion of the course, you will have been exposed to various histories of visual culture, have exercised skills in formal analysis, close reading, and ethnography, and be able to engage in discussions about the ethics and politics of visual culture.

Course Assignments

The course assignments include: Weekly Reading Reflections, 2 Critical Essays, and 3 Projects. Weekly Reading Reflections require you to synthesize course readings to demonstrate you have read and digested course material prior to coming to class so you can be an active participant. Critical Essays assess your skills in formal analysis, close reading, and considering multiple viewpoints of current events in visual culture. Projects ask you to apply course concepts to developing visual assets and assess your skills in visual storytelling and ethnography. For specific course schedule and week-by-week organization please email, I am happy to share upon request.