A Brave New Visual World

I guess no one should be surprised that visual media is becoming dominant in 21st century culture.  The eye is by far the most powerful and influential of the five senses, and it’s easy to see how our world is shaped by forces which capture our visual attention.  I think the Kress article shows a basic cultural trend whereby older forms of literacy (reading and writing) are being transformed into multifaceted discources which are dominated by visual media.  Furthermore, Kress points out that written language itself is tending toward a more informal structure, reflecting a social desire for more  inclusive and easily understandable texts.  In this new and future world, the majority of the information we share will be created and transmitted in the easiest, most appealing, and most marketable ways.  This does not necessarily mean a dumbing down of culture and a reduction of our intellect to the lowest common denominator, ala Fox News.  Programs like The Daily Show prove that the news can be told in funny, creative, intellectual, and satiric ways.  If anything, people of this generation and beyond will have to be more and more creative to be able to market information that is both highly informative and entertaining at the same time.   In an age where so many medias compete for our attention, I hope that there are enough progressive, conscientious, and humane individuals who see that the only way to get their messages across will be to basically outfox Fox news: beating them at their own game. 

Kress correctly points out that this generation and beyond will have to become better designers.  I see a lot of parallels here with Pink.   Those who are able to create appealing and personal multimedia artifacts, whether they be e-businesses, software, websites, video games, tv shows, news channels, radio shows, movies, blogs, and even possibly, books, will be at an advantage in the global marketplace.  Our students will need practice being creators and designers, and we should provide a space for this in the classroom.  Bringing Second Life into the equation, I think there are many opportunities for students (18 and older of course) to gain experience with real world applications of design by building houses, gardens, opening up business, creating advertising etc.  As the New York Times article, “Even in a Virtual World, ‘Stuff’ Matters” mentions, people in a virtual world engage in many of the same activities as the “real” world. Second Life gives people the opportunity to potentially fail at something, such as investing or starting a business, but suffer fewer consequences. Schools should be laboratories for life, where students practice being adults, but with a net.

~ by scrollman on October 18, 2007.