Interesting on how just recently we received two different perspectives on how visuals affect the human conscious; either positively or negatively.
Thompson seems to argue that visualization is not necessarily a bad form of communication; it is simply different, and in some ways more affective.
Yet, with the article on television from Cooper, visualization is the lesser form of communication that shortens our attention spans and distorts our perception of reality.
What does everyone else think of that? Is rhetoric through visuals improving or destroying humanity's ability to communicate, or is it a balancing act that we need to sort out for ourselves? I'd like to hear multiple opinions on this issue.
Another question I wish to raise: in chapter 6 of McCloud's comic ( I have no idea what else to call it), the concern appears to arrise as to whether the written word became to be more appreciated than the image itself. The article seems to argue that the written word was given more attention and detail because more abstract meaning can be discovered from it, whereas the image became more, "representational and specific than abstract or symbolic" (McCloud).
Do you agree with these interpretations or not? (Again, multiple opinions please?)
You know Spence, I was thinking in class today, and again just now reading your post, that as a society, we make a really big deal about learning how to read and write. We have encouragement bording on hounding for everyone to get literate, and this seems to me to only mean reading and writing, with the pictures ignored. I have kids, so I hear all the time how teachers say, "Oh wow, look, you *wrote* your letters!" But I've yet once to hear any make a big, approving deal out of a child drawing a picture. Yes, of course, if affirming type of people, they affirm that the children do anything positive, but reading and writing are set apart as something entirely other and better than all else they do. (Because of who I am, I love that there's a push to read and write, but it *is* curiously lacking an emphasis that shows value in the drawing or picture.)
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