Visual Communication Images with Messages

by Paul Martin Lester

Visual Communication Images with Messages, 9th Edition offers students, academics, professionals, and consumers of mass communication a way to better see and understand mediated images that persuade, entertain, and educate. By looking at illustrations through six perspectives-personal, historical, technical, ethical, cultural, and critical-there is a better understanding of why many pictures are forgotten and why some are always remembered by those who create and others who appreciate visual messages. Specifically, the chapters devoted to typography, graphic design, data visualizations, cartoons, photography, motion pictures, television, computers, and the web offer detailed reasons why images are important to mass communication through a six-perspective framework. Other chapters detail the general topics of visual cues and their importance in noticing pictures, visual theories that help explain image effects, visual persuasion for commercial and political purposes, visual stereotypes that injure, but others that offer positive examples, and visual analysis in which readers learn how to deconstruct images and appreciate illustrations that are seen in the mass media so their work is more lasting and meaningful.

Genres: Nonfiction, School, Journalism

458 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Paul Martin Lester (born March 21, 1953) is a tenured, full professor of Communications at California State University, Fullerton.

Reviews

[Hannah]

In mentally listing all the ways this book (well, the chapters I read, at least, for class--4 and 5) fails, I realized that it doesn't, totally. All the ways in which Lester royally fails at expository writing in chapter 4 are the exact same ways he succeeds (for the most part) in chapter 5.

Reading this has made me rethink my own always-interdisciplinary approach to stuff, because clearly it's hard to do well. In chapter 4, Lester first confused me because he said that the primary colors were red, blue, and green, and I know that to be totally incorrect--then, after checking with my art teacher mother, and continuing to read, I realized he was talking about the primary colors of light, which are different from the primary colors of pigment. Problem solved, except throughout the chapter he keeps using theories and vocabulary from art/aesthetic theory and practice and mixes them in with neuroscience talk and color/light spectrum stuff without ever being clear on what he's referring to, and it's a big ol' mess. I know just enough about two of the three of those things above to have a flickering lightbulb of "Wait? Huh? Is he sure about that?" every time, so it made for really obnoxious reading on an already physically obnoxious low-quality PDF.

In chapter 5, though, he does a better job of incorporating a great amount of disciplines and theoretical schools and uses them to illuminate, inform, and expand his scientific points, rather than obfuscate them. I was right along for the ride with Barthes, de Saussure, psychology, linguistics, advertising. Aside from some bad metaphors and examples (we can't be experts in all fields, after all), he really did a good job of connecting and/or comparing his topic to ones that various types of readers would be more familiar with. More science writers should strive for chapter 5 style, but NOT chapter 4.

[Jrobin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be honest this was for school, but the book is really informative. I enjoyed my course and this book helped.

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that this is the first time since I was at University that I have actually read a text book on a specific subject from cover to cover. And I did this because I was unfamiliar with the discipline of communication....although I knew many of the elements. In fact, I found as I worked my way through the book (and it took significant time) that I already knew most of what they covered. It starts off with sections about light and the eye and how we see ...relating to pathways in the brain etc. I was impressed by the depth of the coverage in each of its sections given that they were really just snapshots and I've read whole books just devoted to the physiology of seeing.
Obviously, one huge limitation in reading this book is that it is really dated. It was printed in 1995 and there have been massive advances since that time. I recall that around 1992/3 I was working on a project for my organisation and we were looking at ways to increase the availability of information throughout the organisation. (This was pre-internet). So we were working with the same kind of limitations and promises of future technological developments as the author of this book. Amazingly enough, the author gets most of his predictions right ...although the terminology might have changed a bit.
I was impressed that throughout, there is a section about the ethical implications of working in this field ...and these are quite insightful and thoughtful sections.
There is, however, a very USA bias throughout....especially notable with the section on movies. The roles of European movie makers ...especially in the UK and France seem to be underplayed as far as I understand the development of the movie industry. (Also the penetration of US movies into Europe post war when the local industries had collapsed). I guess, the bias is to be expected: this is a text book clearly written for US students.
Was it worth my while investing so much time in an out of date text book? On balance, I think so. First of all it only cost me $4 whereas a new version probably sells for about $100.......and I wouldn't pay this much. Second, although the information in many cases is outdated it seems to me to be accurate up to the time of publication ...and so is interesting history apart from anything else. It was also interesting to see the predictions that were being made and to compare them to what has actually happened.....and mostly the predictions were fairly accurate. And some of the sections ...such as on light and the physiology of seeing and the psychology of seeing are all still relevant..though knowledge might have increased somewhat.
Overall, an interesting exercise. If I was reviewing the book when it was printed (1995) I would give it five stars but hard to justify more than 3.5 stars at this timer of reviewing (when the book is 25 years old).

[Maria Cornejo]

It good textbook. You learned a lot of photos and ads in the media.

[Iceky · Rating 5 out of 5]

awesome