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Insights in Visual Communication: 2022

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As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, the field of communication studies plays a more crucial role in understanding the contemporary world than ever before. Analyzing the role of modes and means of communication in areas as diverse as politics, culture, healthcare, advertising, the environment, ...

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Visual Communication

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Visual Communication by Michael Griffin , Kevin Barnhurst , Robert Craig LAST REVIEWED: 05 May 2017 LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0034

The study of visual communication is inherently multidisciplinary, comprising the wide-reaching and voluminous literature of art history and the philosophy of art and aesthetics; the development and use of charts, diagrams, and cartography; the history and theory of graphic design and typography; the history and theory of photography, cinema, and television studies; the perceptual physiology and cognitive psychology of visual apprehension; the impact of new visual technologies (including digitization, multimedia, and virtual realities); the concepts and teaching of visual literacy; and the boundless social and cultural issues surrounding practices of visual representation. Such an eclectic and newly developing field has reached little consensus about canonical texts. Its boundaries remain indistinct. Even the concept of visual imagery is loose, aggregating everything from mental reproductions of perceptions in eidetic imagery, dreams, and memory to the physical creation of pictorial material. Images are the most obvious of the wide-ranging forms of visual communication, which extend beyond “pictures” or icons into realms of abstract symbols, indexical signals, designs, and ideas humans use to communicate experience. The following bibliography focuses on visual elements and images in communication media. It acknowledges literature from other disciplinary traditions that influenced the rise of visual studies, but centers primarily on the developing visual studies literature within communication as a discipline and field.

General overviews of visual representation and visual communication studies are available in encyclopedias of communication and in recent journals of communication and communication yearbook surveys. These include in the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Communications ( Summers 1989 ) and Blackwell International Encyclopedia of Communication ( Griffin 2008 ). Most of the reviews are products of the 2000s, as communication media scholarship came to acknowledge and incorporate visual analysis as a central component of media studies. Summers 1989 reviews the history of scholarly attention to the visual image, Griffin 2001 and Griffin 2008 attempt to trace the multidisciplinary roots of visual scholarship and the eventual convergence of work from the humanities and the social sciences in visual communication studies. Barnhurst, et al. 2004 contributes particularly on the emergence of academic and institutional networks supporting visual studies in communication and media studies departments and professional associations. Jewitt 2008 surveys associated theoretical developments and syntheses.

Barnhurst, Kevin G., Michael Vari, and Ígor Rodríguez. 2004. Mapping visual studies in communication. Journal of Communication 54.4: 616–644.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2004.tb02648.x

Charts the main currents and topical categories of the visual communication literature, correlating them with underlying institutional and organizational connections and loci. Assesses the coalescence and formation of visual studies as a disciplinary area within scholarly societies such as the International Communication Association.

Griffin, Michael. 2001. Camera as witness, image as sign: The study of visual communication in communication research. In Communication yearbook . Vol. 24. Edited by William B. Gudykunst, 433–463. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

A historical review of the study of lens-based media representation and the multiple streams of theory and scholarship that have contributed to the emerging field of visual communication studies. Surveys contributions from film studies, the psychology of art and visual representation, semiotics, the anthropology and sociology of visual communication, and mass media studies.

Griffin, Michael. 2008. Visual communication. In International encyclopedia of communication . Vol. 11. Edited by Wolfgang Donsbach, 5304–5316. Oxford: Blackwell.

An overview of the multidisciplinary field of visual studies in communication, with attention to key interdisciplinary and theoretical cross-currents and issues. The entry focuses on the study of media and pictorial forms, still and moving, and the epistemological and political implications of mediated visual representations. Available online by subscription.

Jewitt, Carey. 2008. Visual representation. In International encyclopedia of communication . Vol. 11. Edited by Wolfgang Donsbach, 5319–5325. Oxford: Blackwell.

A brief summary of modernist and postmodernist approaches to the study of the visual that have increasingly conflated “looking,” “seeing,” and “knowing.” Highlights the role of cultural theories that connect visual representation with fundamental questions of reality, ideology and power, as well as procedures of signification and potentials for interpreting meaning. Available online by subscription.

Summers, David. 1989. Visual image. In International encyclopedia of communications . Vol. 4. Edited by Erik Barnouw, 294–305. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

An overview of scholarship on visual images prior to 1990, from ancient uses of images to European art history and the historical relationships between image and reality in pictorial representation. Attempts to specify the conceptual role of the picture plane in defining the visual image.

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Charting a Sustainable Future of ASEAN in Business and Social Sciences pp 33–41 Cite as

Visual Communication, Photography-Based Research: A View from Case Study of Phototherapeutic Influence in Malaysia

• Ellyana Mohd Muslim Tan 3 ,
• Ruslan Abdul Rahim 4 ,
• Muhammad Fauzan Abu Bakar 3 ,
• Noraziah Mohd Razali 3 &
• Safrina Muhammad Azmi 3  
• Conference paper
• First Online: 24 July 2020

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The field of visual communication is an important structure of visual studies. The branches of visual communication literally sum up to all visuals as projection to every element of communication form. The study develops these vertical integrations into a powerful tool for viewers or creators to advocate the diversity of visual meaning metaphorically. Underneath this layer of understanding, the study researches the possible benefits of the phototherapeutic technique as an alternative therapeutic treatment for case study in Malaysia. The study focuses on analysing the trend of phototherapy as a visual meaning approach, and its benefit and prospects for Malaysia health departments. This study is narrowed into the source of understanding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda THREE (3) on section non-communicable diseases and mental health, mainly discussing the national apprehension.

• Phototherapeutic technique
• Visual communication

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all researcher specialists for these three (3) research projects: Professor Dr. Mustaffa Halabi Haji Azahari (UUM), Dr. Mastura Jarit (UiTM), Dr. Wan Samiati Andriana Wan Daud (UiTM), Dr. Nagib Padil (UiTM), Clement A/K Jimel (UiTM) and Noorhaslina Seni (UNIMAS). Their commitment to the project helped us to get results of better quality. Thank you so much.

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Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sarawak Branch, Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysia

Ellyana Mohd Muslim Tan, Muhammad Fauzan Abu Bakar, Noraziah Mohd Razali & Safrina Muhammad Azmi

Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Ruslan Abdul Rahim

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Correspondence to Ellyana Mohd Muslim Tan .

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Mohd Muslim Tan, E., Abdul Rahim, R., Abu Bakar, M.F., Mohd Razali, N., Muhammad Azmi, S. (2020). Visual Communication, Photography-Based Research: A View from Case Study of Phototherapeutic Influence in Malaysia. In: Kaur, N., Ahmad, M. (eds) Charting a Sustainable Future of ASEAN in Business and Social Sciences. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3859-9_4

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School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Visual communication quarterly, visual communication quarterly special issue call for papers:  , the state of visual evidence  .

Abstract submission deadline:

March 19, 2024

Notification on submitted abstracts:

March 22, 2024  

Full manuscript submission deadline:

May 1, 2024  

“Pictures provide a point around which other pieces of evidence collect.” — American Film Director Errol Morris  

Morris’s sentiment emphasizes the role of images—especially photographs and videos—to help galvanize evidentiary claims and to help create the foundations from which societies can construct notions of truth or fact. Although this role is socially constituted rather than being an inherent quality of the medium (Tagg, 1988), it has been instrumental in both emancipatory and oppressive projects since its inception. Yet, with the surge in visual misinformation, disinformation, and evolving artificial intelligence (AI), the epistemic role of still and moving images to convey truth has reached a crucible. This prompts a critical inquiry: What theoretical and interpretive frameworks, technologies, and practices can identify, categorize, and preserve images’ evidentiary value? To delve deeper, what precisely is worth preserving?   

Thus far, the literature on visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals has primarily explored the social impact of deceptive or augmented visuals. This includes individuals’ ability to detect deception (meleers et al., 2023; Köbis et al., 2021; Korshunov & Marcel, 2021; Shahid et al., 2022), public perceptions of deepfakes and their engagement (Ahmed, 2023; Ahmed et al., 2023; Ahmed & Chua, 2023), their impact on news credibility (Jin et al., 2023; Shin & Lee, 2022; Vaccari & Chadwick, 2020), detection methods (Sohrawardi et al., 2020), and the construction of deepfakes through meta-journalistic discourse (Gosse & Burkell, 2020; Yadlin-Segal & Oppenheim, 2021).

One component this literature lacks, however, is theoretical and interpretive frameworks that can redefine and reorient the epistemological role of image-based news in a networked society. To fill this gap, we invite contributors to critically evaluate the challenges, opportunities, and dynamics surrounding visual representations influenced by misinformation, disinformation, and/or evolving AI technology. The special issue welcomes empirical studies utilizing diverse approaches—qualitative, quantitative, computational, and mixed-methods—and theoretical contributions assessing the contemporary state of visual evidence.  It considers topics such as:

• Spectacle, simulation, and the social construction of truth in visual media
• The role of embodied witnessing and authorship in credibility
• Visual mis/disinformation intervention strategies (technological/social)
• Political economy of synthetic visual media
• Journalism’s role in addressing visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals
• Ethics in evaluating and reporting visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals
• Theoretical and interpretive frameworks in examining visual misinformation, disinformation, and AI-generated visuals

We also invite portfolio submissions that have used generative visual AI technology in any capacity for storytelling purposes. Portfolios should be submitted to foster discussions on the utility of synthetic visual media and associated ethical, ontological, and epistemological implications. Submissions may encompass endeavors to visualize abstract social processes, reimagine past events, or explore speculative futures.    

Information about Submissions  

Abstracts of no more than 1,000 words (not including references) should be submitted to  [email protected] in a PDF document by March 19, 2024. Please use the special issue title (“ The State of Visual Evidence” in the subject line of the email and in the body include a brief biography that includes your previous and current research and how it relates to the special issue theme. Accepted abstracts are expected to have a completed draft (of no more than 8,000 words inclusive of references) by May 1, 2024. 

Portfolio submissions should include 7 to 11 color or black and white images, a 150-1,000-word artist statement, and a biography of 50 or fewer words. Please compress these files into a single .zip folder and submit this to  [email protected] by March 19, 2024. See the journal’s instructions to authors for complete details.

Special Issue Editors      

Dr. Alex Scott ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication specializing in the qualitative examinations of non-fiction practices of photography. His research is informed by his experiences as a photojournalist and focuses on the construction of social differences and the production of visual knowledge.   

Dr. Sang Jung Kim ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication specializing in the computational examination of visual content. Her research focuses on how multi-modality (visual, text, audio, video) exacerbates the devastating consequences of mis- and disinformation.   

Dr. Bingbing Zhang ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication specializing in studying the effects of visual content on audiences’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Her research also investigates the impact of algorithms and AI-related technology on these message effects.   

The special issue editors are affiliated with the  Visual Media Lab , which aims to examine the (1) attributes, (2) prevalence, and (3) impact of visuals in journalism and social media in the digital age. Additionally, they are organizers of the symposium ‘State of Visual Evidence,’ addressing the challenges and opportunities that synthetic media pose for the contemporary media environment, which is highly relevant to the VCQ special issue.   

State of Visual Evidence Symposium  

This special issue corresponds with The State of Visual Evidence virtual symposium, which will be held on April 8, 2024. The symposium features keynote talks by Dr. T.J. Thomson, senior lecturer at RMIT University, Dr. Cindy Shen, Professor at the University of California-Davis and Dr. Bryce Dietrich, Associate Professor at Purdue University. Attendance to the symposium is encouraged regardless of intent to submit abstracts to this special issue.  

Ahmed, S. (2023). Examining public perception and cognitive biases in the presumed influence of deepfakes threat: empirical evidence of third person perception from three studies. Asian Journal of Communication , 33 (3), 308–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2023.2194886

Ahmed, S., & Chua, H. W. (2023). Perception and deception: Exploring individual responses to deepfakes across different modalities. Heliyon , 9 (10), e20383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20383

Ahmed, S., Ng, S. W. T., & Bee, A. W. T. (2023). Understanding the role of fear of missing out and deficient self-regulation in sharing of deepfakes on social media: Evidence from eight countries. Frontiers in Psychology , 14 (March), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1127507

Gosse, C., & Burkell, J. (2020). Politics and porn: how news media characterizes problems presented by deepfakes. Critical Studies in Media Communication , 37 (5), 497–511. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2020.1832697

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Psychological Impact and Influence of Animation on Viewer's Visual Attention and Cognition: A Systematic Literature Review, Open Challenges, and Future Research Directions

C. k. praveen.

1 VIT School of Design, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632 014, India

Kathiravan Srinivasan

2 School of Computer Science and Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore 632 014, India

Associated Data

The original contributions generated for this study are included in the article; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Animation is an excellent method to associate with the audience in a fun and innovative manner. In recent span, animation has been employed in various fields to enhance knowledge, marketing, advertisement, and age groups from infants to adults. The present communication expounds the systematic review on the impact created by animation on the viewer's visual attention. For this review, a database such as Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Taylor & Francis, and IEEE Xplore were pursued for publications on the impact of animation on viewer's visual attention from January 2015 to December 2021. The search results showcased 175 titles with 114 full articles, out of which 35 were related to viewers' visual attention towards animation. These reviewed studies comprised of physical outcome ( n = 9), psychological outcome ( n = 15), and cognitive outcome ( n = 11) from which the attention-related factors, physical effects, and cognitive effects of animation were assessed. The animation has influenced the viewer's visual attention through the integration of the different stimuli and the highly organized presentation. Furthermore, the animation has also aided the viewer in attaining greater conceptual understanding, thereby facilitating their cognitive response. As a result, the animation was found to be helpful in enhancing learning skills, food marketing, and teaching strategy. Furthermore, the drawbacks and future recommendations of the studies were elaborated. In addition, challenges and open issues faced during the studies were discussed. Finally, the priority areas in animation identified for promising future directions to visualize large pool data, provide smart communication, and design 3D modeling structures were highlighted.

1. Introduction

Animation is a comprehensive introduction to animated films, from cartoons to computer animation. In layman's terms, it can be described as a state of being full of life. It brings the life of unanimated objects to moving objects, thereby attracting the modern world with its features [ 1 ]. In other words, it is a form of pictorial presentation that has become the most prominent feature of technology-based learning environments. In the modern world, it has become an essential tool for presenting multimedia materials for learners to understand them better [ 2 ].

Animation techniques have been developed over a while, either in 2D drawings or 3D objects like clay, stop motion, or motion graphics. It has become a reliable and significant platform for various fields that have impacted viewers' visual attention through its magic. The animation need not be a full-length movie to attract the viewers' visual attention; rather, it can be a clip of a few seconds comprised of just a few frames. The animation videos can be processed as represented in Figure 1 .

Process of animation.

An idea of integrating traditional animation with the digital 2D animation technique was proposed by Purwaningsih [ 3 ]. It provides an alternative pipeline for hand-drawn 2D animation shorts, thereby optimizing the production time.

The impact of animation on viewer's visual attention and attention span was reviewed and reported either with respect to animated characters or character motion. The research on considering both as influencing factors for viewer's visual attention is insignificant. The present survey focuses on how animated characters and their motions create an impact on the viewer's visual attention. Also, it emphasizes the physiological and cognitive impact created by the animation on the viewers.

1.1. Need and Objectives of the Study

Animation is capable of attracting a large audience in every field. As a result, most people are exposed to this interesting field of knowledge. The major objectives of this systematic review are summarized as follows:

• To exemplify the impact and influence of animation and animated characters on viewers visual attention and cognition
• To elucidate the various approaches and techniques used in attention based animation studies
• To elicit the standards, regulations, guidelines, and best practices that could assist the animation professionals in understanding the viewers' cognitive behavior
• To exemplify the current trends and open issues of the impact of animation on viewers' attention and cognition
• To elucidate the future research directions in animation-based attention studies

1.2. Related Work

Etemad et al. [ 4 ] have analyzed the motivating factors for processing motion features and their relative degrees of significance in a general paradigm called the perceptual validity (PV) model. The PV consists of four components: association, contextual dependency, internal consistency, and external consistency with underlying elements (bodily action, bodily expressions, facial action, and facial expression). A case study was conducted with this paradigm based on the contextual dependency and finally discussed with Disney's principles of animation. Zong et al. [ 5 ] have discussed the importance of character expression shaping in animated films. The features of facial expression design, such as exaggeration, accuracy, and virtuality, were briefed. Likewise, the expression techniques such as association, personification, exaggeration, and deformation were discussed. Finally, a case analysis of animation expression shaping with respect to every character depicted in the Kung Fu Panda film was carried out in-depth.

Kim et al. [ 6 ] studied character-audience similarity's impact on evaluating public service announcements (PSAs). The characters of smokers and persuaders are differentiated to explore their different roles in message effectiveness. Shao [ 7 ] has discussed the performance of visual humor in animation from the point of view of image, color, action, and rhythm. The image of an animated character is suggested as a bearer of visual humor. It suggested that the humor can be enhanced/created either in the form of body proportion (genius rat in Ratatouille) or structural reorganization (Pigsy's head in Journey to the West). The animated character's color is considered to render emotional visual humor (Panda Po in Kung Fu Panda). The action of the animated character is proposed to be surreal humor (Tom cat and Jerry mouse in Tom and Jerry). Finally, the rhythm of animated films was proposed to affect the audience's visual and psychological feelings.

Shah et al. [ 8 ] studied the application of animation in pharmaceutical advertisements and its impact on consumer perception of the risks and benefits of the drug. Two sets of studies have been carried out for the analysis. Rotoscoping was used to test the effects of animation in this study. Study 1 was carried out to assess whether any shift in perception exists and whether it agrees with a memory effect. In study 2, the findings from study 1 were extended by including consumer implications in order to demonstrate the downstream consequences of the use of animation in pharmaceutical advertisements. Smith and Neff [ 9 ] have investigated the influence of animated gestures in controlling personality perception. A sequence of four diverse gestures with twelve motion adjustments was selected as stimuli for the study. The correlation in personality perception was determined. In addition, the potential and possible limits of motion editing approaches were discussed. Two constellations of motion adjustments were selected for the study.

Vijayakrishnan et al. [ 10 ] analyzed the importance of animated cartoon characters in product marketing through advertisement. The preference of children over products having cartoon characters was scrutinized. The strategies used in the global market for selling the products using animated characters were also discussed. Geal [ 11 ] has explored how animation can manipulate a reflexive intertextual framework related to religious prohibitions on artistic mimesis that might replicate and threaten God's creative act. The limitations of the existing survey are listed briefly in Table 1 .

Comparison of existing surveys with the current review (✓: yes; x: no).

This paper is divided into seven sections and its general layout is depicted in Figure 2 . The first section introduces the animation, its impact on the viewer's psychology, and attention span. It also briefs the objective of this study, the limitations of the existing research, and the present study's contribution. The second section explains the application of the PRISMA protocol to evaluate the reviewing of other types of research. The evaluation is based on the survey's selection criteria, its information sources and search strategies, data collection process, and risk of bias in individual studies. The third section elaborates on the selection of the present study, its characteristics, selected data items, and the risk of bias within the studies. It also assesses animation's attention-related factors and physical and cognitive effects. The fourth section briefly presents the summary along with the limitations and recommendations. The fifth section elaborates on the challenges and open issues the researchers face during the study. The sixth section highlights the future research directions in the field of animation. Finally, the last section summarizes all the facts and concludes the reviewed results.

Structure of this review.

2. Methodology

2.1. prisma protocol.

The present study is reviewed based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) Protocol [ 22 , 23 ]. It is a set of recommendations designed for reporting systematic reviews. These guidelines aid authors in improving the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses and ensuring the accuracy and transparency of the studies reported [ 24 ]. The present study's reporting quality can be optimized by completing the review report based on the PRISMA–P statement and checklist. Moreover, it also improves the efficiency of the peer review process and enables the readers to get a clear view of the author's work.

The steps followed in the PRISMA protocol are represented in Figure 3 . It is provided briefly as follows: (a) Identification, the records are identified through database searching and additional sources. (b) Removal of duplicates, the records that appear more than once should be removed to avoid reviewing the duplicate records. The entire list of records is exported to a citation manager to remove the duplicate records. The remaining records are entered in the second top box. (c) Screening, the number of screened articles are entered in the following box. Furthermore, this value will be the same as that of the number entered in the duplicate removed box. Further, the articles are screened based on their titles and abstracts. The number of articles excluded in this screening process is recorded in the relevant box. (d) Eligibility, the number of excluded articles after the screening process is subtracted from the total number of records screened. Full-text articles are assessed for eligibility. All these full-text articles are eligible for the final reviewing process. The number of excluded articles at this point is recorded in the appropriate box. (e) Inclusion, the number of excluded articles is subtracted from the total number of articles reviewed for eligibility. Furthermore, this number is entered in the qualitative analysis box. The number of studies list is entered in the quantitative synthesis box to perform the meta-analysis.

Flow diagram of PRISMA protocol.

2.1.1. Selection Criteria/Eligibility Criteria

The criteria selected were defined before undergoing screening of any articles. The selection criteria are listed in Table 2 .

Selection criteria.

The criteria selection helps to limit the broad topic to direct relevance for the research questions. The language is selected as English as it is the primary publication language for scientific articles. The year of publication is limited to providing a review based on recently published research works. Finally, peer-reviewed articles are considered to provide good quality of work and confirmed results. Also, published thesis work is considered, providing more detail about the research work introduced in peer-reviewed articles by the same or similar authors. Animation-based attention-creating articles were selected for the reviewing process.

2.1.2. Information Sources and Search Strategies

The search databases selected for article retrieval should have good coverage of the body of the relevant work. For this purpose, the two major exiting multidisciplinary databases, Web of Science and Scopus, were selected. Also, scientific databases like Google Scholar and ResearchGate are included as they cover good reporting of animation-related attention-creating articles. In recent times, these research articles can also be retrieved from general databases. However, Google Scholar gains superiority due to its positive correlation with the citation counts from various sources. Many of the works relevant to animation-based attention-creating articles can be retrieved from this database. The publishers such as IEEE, ScienceDirect, Springer, and SAGE also provide direct access to their publications, and their databases were also assessed for their yield of additional relevant results. All the relevant papers can be expected to be available online as the year of publication selection is from 2015 and above. So the analogue search was not conducted separately. Therefore, the electronic database searches were executed from January 2015 to the year 2021 until the preparation of the review. The reference list of all the relevant articles was analyzed for their significance with the research objectives and screened accordingly. The same selection criteria were applied here.

The search strategies need to be fine-tuned to get a better search of articles. Meanwhile, it should expose all relevant research works under a manageable level with no increase in the overall workload of the reviewing process. For the given research objective, the attention-creating articles published in the field of animation were chosen. The research terms for the search were used in either form of individual keywords or a combination of keywords. And specifically, the research terms used were ‘animation' OR ‘impact of animation' ‘Animation' AND ‘psychology' OR ‘animation' AND ‘audience' OR ‘animation' AND ‘cognitive psychology' OR ‘animation' AND ‘audience visual attention'.

2.1.3. Data Collection Process/Data Extraction Process

The title of the articles retrieved from the databases is evaluated for their significant relevance to the research objectives. Furthermore, their respective abstracts are read thoroughly. Based on this, the most relevant articles were segregated and organized in a Microsoft Excel sheet.

(1) Inclusion Criteria . Inclusion criteria for this study include the year of publication, country of origin, methodological base, experimental context, sample characteristics, study duration of existing articles, outcome measures, and exposure to animation duration.

(2) Exclusion Criteria . The criteria excluded for this study comprise lack of access to the full article, unsuitable research articles, letters to the editor, and retraction articles review articles.

The study's key findings mainly focused on how effective the animation in the existing articles. And no attempts are made to contact the authors for missing details in their respective articles.

2.1.4. Risk of Bias in Individual Studies

All the articles were independently evaluated based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria to assess the risk of bias in individual studies. The information extracted from each study is evaluated using the quality assessment tool. For the effective quality assessment, the checklist is made based on the following criteria: yes, no, not applicable (NA), and not reported (NR). The checklist of quality assessment tools includes the following criteria mentioned in Table 3 .

Design quality analysis.

3.1. Selection of the Study

3.1.1. summary of retrieved articles.

The summary of the search databases visited and the number of articles obtained from the respective sources is presented in Table 4 . Further, this table shows the percentage of articles retrieved from each academic database and reveals that the highest number of articles were retrieved from Google Scholar ( n = 199). It comprises research articles, conference papers, and students' dissertations. Other databases like Springer, Science Direct, and Taylor and Francis account for 6.76%, 6.41%, and 6.05% of the total number of articles. The rest of the articles were retrieved from IEEE Xplore (4.27%), ResearchGate (3.20%), and Wiley Online Library (2.49%).

Article sources and number of articles.

3.1.2. Exclusion of Retrieved Articles

The number of articles retrieved from the search database was reduced with the following eliminated procedure based on PRISMA protocol.

• (i) Elimination of the articles based on language ( n = 6), irrelevant titles ( n = 75), and reduction of duplication ( n = 25) from various search databases, leading to reduction from 281 to 175
• (ii) Elimination of articles after the examination of abstracts, leading to the reduction of articles from 175 to 114
• Report on animation impact, 37
• Not focused on animation, 18
• Report on animation application, 14
• Case study, review, and others, 5
• Not enough information, 5

The procedure flow for selecting articles for the study is depicted in Figure 4 , which shows the elimination procedure.

Elimination process of articles based on PRISMA protocol.

3.2. Characteristics of the Study

Based on the selection process, 35 articles were shortlisted for the systematic review. Each article was reviewed, and the information gathered from it was tabulated. The following information was extracted from the articles: description of the study, sample and design applied in the study, type and duration of animation used in the study, and outcome and findings of the study and case-control applied within the study. The study's characteristics, as itemized above, are summarized in Table 5 .

Summary of animation studies.

3.3. Data Items

The study participants' ages ranged from 30 months to 30 years, and most of the studies included both sex samples, with the exception of three studies with female samples alone and gender not mentioned in eight studies. In addition, most of the studies included 3D animation ( n = 10) followed by 2D animation ( n = 6) and flash ( n = 4), and the remaining studies included motion graphics, VR, and AR. Further, the outcomes reviewed from all these studies, namely, physical outcome ( n = 9), psychological outcome ( n = 15), and cognitive outcome ( n = 11), are presented in Table 5 .

3.3.1. Physical Outcome

The importance and necessity of physical exercise was easily delivered to the primary grade students. The results showed a significant difference in self-efficacy, learning, benefits, importance, personal best, and fun between the control and experimental groups ( p ≤ 0.05) [ 31 ]. The hand manipulative tasks was made better with the help of animation. The results showed that the animation groups ranked their difficulty levels (cognitive load) significantly lower than the static groups. Moreover, viewing hand or not made no difference for the animation group [ 36 ].

The effects of visual cueing depend on the subject matter and the learner's learning strategies [ 40 ]. The pretest scores revealed insignificant scores between the test and control groups. However, there is a significant difference between the test and control group in the sequential memory test [ 55 ]. The microintervention study revealed the positive impact of animation on creating awareness on body image among the adolescents. It helped them to understand the importance of telling a bully to stop. The study results showed a significant difference in body satisfaction between the groups. However, it is insignificant to media literacy and self-efficacy [ 29 ]. There is a significant difference in the learning outcomes between each PK (prior knowledge) group for reading comprehension. The animation annotation was easily noticed by the low PK group, whereas the text zone was noticed by the high PK group [ 38 ]. The results obtained from SPQ and BMI revealed the following results: Pororo - So-Yang type boy, Petty - So-Yang type girl, Loopy - So-Eum type girl, Pobby & Harry -most obvious contrast [ 50 ]. There is a significant difference between lip-syncing and gaze to target for perceived speech intelligibility [ 43 ].

3.3.2. Psychological Outcome

Food marketing industries have efficiently utilizing animation as a tool to attract the children, and they were assessing their attention towards healthy/unhealthy food items. Children are attracted to the food and beverages product with or without animated characters. Children were significantly chosen the less healthy product with or without character. Children significantly preferred more or less healthier products irrespective of character [ 51 ]. Children's pupil diameter increased on watching the candy condition. However, no significant difference was observed in the children's visual attention or emotional arousal towards candy or food conditions. There is a significant difference in children's emotional arousal to unhealthy products due to the parent's restriction of candy at home [ 32 ].

The children recalled the story and more content words significantly from animated conditions than a static conditions. Children's visual attention was significant with animated conditions compared to static conditions [ 57 ]. The children were able to recognize the facial identity through dynamic facial animation. However, they failed to learn the facial expression. There is no significant difference observed between the pre- and post-familiarization tests [ 47 ].

The animation has delivered a better opportunity to have self-awareness and knowledge on the health issues without any hesitation. The implementation of computer-animated agent provides assistance to deliver personally relevant information on breast cancer. It helps to reduce anxiety, support psychological needs, and boost confidence. The results showed a significant difference in the proportion of participants with unanswered questions for the post-intervention period [ 30 ]. The health awareness regarding the conditions of glaucoma was perceived by the patients through animation video. There is a significant difference in the patients' knowledge scores between pre- and post-intervention ( p ≤ 0.001). Rural residence, low income, and unemployment were identified as influencing factors for acquiring glaucoma knowledge [ 45 ].

There is a positive correlation between the learning experience between the VR simulation and traditional practice [ 52 ]. There is no significant difference between the real and hybrid CG characters ( p = 1.00). A less significant difference existed between real and CG characters ( p < .001) as well as between CG and hybrid characters ( p < .001). The CGI could feature the actor those who are alive or dead and are capable of enhancing the parasocial interaction and relatability [ 25 ]. The animated character influenced the viewer's attention. There is a significant difference in eeriness between the Pixar character and the Toon character ( p < 0.05). There is a significant difference in eeriness between the photorealistic human character and the Toon character ( p < 0.05) [ 48 ].

The prior knowledge about the techniques behind the making of stop motion films may influence the impact of viewer's attention towards the technical aspects rather than focusing on the story. However, the viewer's attention can be engrossed in the film, and it may develop a deeper connection with the story [ 26 ]. The level of exaggeration in animated cat is insignificant to the audience's perception of the appeal of the realistic feline character. Moreover, the significance of believability is higher for high exaggeration clips than for low exaggeration clips [ 37 ]. The frequency of exposure to animated television cartoons is higher among females, and it is greatly influenced based on their level of education. The perception of such cartoons varies with the level of education [ 56 ]. The viewer's pleasantness feeling toward animated character design aesthetics is insignificant to their gender and age group [ 44 ].

The animated virtual ads attracted the participants than the static ads. The virtual ads presented in the nonbattle scene attracted the participants than those ads in the battle scene. The interaction effect between ad animation and in-game context on fixation count is insignificant [ 41 ]. The animation intensity and animation color on the sponsorship signage showed negative effect on the viewer's attention. The arousal of the viewer's confusion due to increased levels of animation intensity was explored. And the results showed an insignificant effect of animation intensity on viewer confusion [ 46 ]. Also, there is no significant difference in color [ 59 ].

3.3.3. Cognitive Outcome

The studies reported that animation played an essential role in the cognitive development of children ( n = 6). The children who read the AR storybook were more confident in retelling and recalling the story when compared to those who read its printed version [ 27 ]. The mother's video prompted larger pupil dilations and a more smiling and cheerful eye blinking rate among the infants. The highest value cartoons prompted long looking time, reduced blinking, but no increased smiling or pupil dilation [ 34 , 40 ]. Animated films positively affect a child's involvement in symbolic mediation and the level of arbitrary behavior [ 54 ]. Also, it was observed that the executive functions of the preschoolers were disrupted after watching the animated fantastical events [ 28 ]. A significant effect of animated features in ebooks (motion and sound) was observed on children's vocabulary acquisition, story retelling, and visual attention [ 35 ]. There is no significant difference in birth weight, age, parental educational level, or preintervention performance levels between the groups. The trained group showed tremendous results immediately after the training and at 6 weeks follow-up [ 42 ].

Some of the studies reported the role of animation in the teaching field ( n = 5). The adoption of 3D animation as a teaching tool for illustrating surgical skills in medical education was investigated. The test scores showed higher significance for the 3D animation group when compared to the traditional teaching group ( p < 0.0001) [ 33 ]. The animation lecture with instructional design helps in guiding learner's attention, thereby making them focus on the important instructions in the instructions. The animated group required less cognitive load, and they outperformed on the open-ended questions. It was further confirmed with insignificant differences between the two groups in the Genetic Foundation Test [ 39 ]. Idioms learning can be made easier by watching an English animated movies. There is a significant effect on learning idioms through English animated movies ( p < 0.05) [ 49 ]. The spatial features of the animations and the simulations facilitated the development of spatial ability of the 12th grade students. The experimental group's spatial ability and reasoning skills have higher significance than the control group ( p < 0.05) [ 53 ]. The cueing by pedagogical agents positively affected learning performance and instructional efficiency. The cognitive load measures between the two groups were insignificant [ 58 ].

3.4. Risk of Bias within the Study

The risk of bias assessment within the studies is summarized in Table 6 . The criteria for the assessment were based on the study design and data analysis. Nearly all the study participants were randomly selected ( n = 28) with control group ( n = 15) assigned. Some of the studies were conducted in isolation ( n = 31), and the pretest and post-test ( n = 16) method was employed to assess the significance of the hypothesis developed. The participants' visual perception of the animation was determined by their capability to recall or retell ( n = 27). The data obtained in most of the studies were analyzed using power analysis ( n = 12), validity measures ( n = 10), and baseline comparisons ( n = 7) and were employed in some studies. Follow-up on the influence of the animation was further assessed in a few studies ( n = 3), and missing data were reported in a few studies ( n = 5).

Risk of bias within the studies.

3.5. Attention-Related Factors

Some of the studies reported in this review are solely concentrated on the visual attention of the participant's towards animation ( n = 12). The attention-related factors among these studies are animation's interactive features ( n = 3), intensity ( n = 1), design ( n = 1), motion ( n = 3), sound ( n = 1), annotation ( n = 1), and character ( n = 3). The factors that are insignificant with the viewer's visual attention was animation's color.

In twelve out of thirty-five papers, eye-tracking technology was employed to assess the participants' visual attention to the animation. The pupil movement and fixation time was observed to assess the viewer's attention towards the animation.

3.6. Physical Effects of Animation

Animation has created awareness among adolescents about their body images and provided knowledge about the necessity of physical activity. It also helped women get a detailed report on mammographic procedures without hesitation. Moreover, it also delivered a knowledge on the health issues related to glaucoma.

3.7. Cognitive Effects of Animation

As mentioned earlier, the animation has created some cognitive effects towards infants to adults. The animated ebook has helped the children understand the story's structure and content. Furthermore, animation made it easy to learn the surgical procedures like intercostal drain insertion and suprapubic catheter insertion. Also, the concepts of genetics, such as cell division, mitosis, and meiosis, were presented in animation, and the participant's performance was found to be improved. Moreover, the student's spatial ability and reasoning skills were improved by watching the animation lectures.

4. Discussion

4.1. evidence summary.

From the overall studies, it was evident that the animation was employed in various applications to attract and assess the viewer's attention. Among thirty-five studies, five briefed about the animated characters and one study about the animation motion.

The rest of the studies described the perception of audience towards implementing animation in the following phenomenon: learning skill improvement ( n = 15), teaching strategy ( n = 2), health awareness ( n = 5), advertisement ( n = 3), food marketing ( n = 2), validating hearing aid ( n = 1), and political awareness ( n = 1).

4.2. Limitations and Recommendations

Although the studies reported in this survey showed a significant difference and the hypothesis generated was accepted, some limitations still exist. The common limitations identified in the studies are short period of time for implementation [ 53 ], smaller sample size [ 27 , 37 ], nongeneralizability [ 25 , 27 , 32 , 39 , 53 ], nonrandomization trials [ 52 ], and no control group and post only group [ 45 ]. Few other studies have reported the possibility of cross-contamination among the control and experimental group [ 33 ], increased dropout of participants before completing the post-test questionnaire [ 52 ], and underestimation of participant's knowledge of expressing words which might directly affect the animation [ 57 ].

Arshad et al. [ 44 ] have examined the “Pleasure” as a sole emotional response to describe the pleasure level of human emotion towards the Malaysian animation cartoon characters. In contrast, the PAD (pleasure, arousal, and dominance) model utilized in the study has two other dimensions: arousal and dominance.

The audience could not feel the warmth of the real human character in the animated short film as the animation span is too short [ 48 ]. In another study, there is a possible way for the audience to have different perceptions regarding the meaning of the word “believability.” Moreover, the cat's exaggerated motion alone studied might express the intrinsic characteristics of its particular character design [ 37 ]. While studying the viewer/character relationships, the PSI (parasocial interaction) scores remained low, which may be due to the cause that it features nonhuman characters in all-CGI conditions. At the same time, the other conditions featured only humans [ 25 ].

Some of the typical future recommendations mentioned in the studies are an extension of the study period [ 53 ], increasing the study sample size [ 37 ] and implementing a randomized sample approach from various situations to overcome the limitation of result generalization [ 37 , 52 , 53 ].

The audience's perception of various anthropomorphic animal characters performing various actions in different situations should be examined [ 37 ]. In addition to the animation, the story's narration is more concentrated when designing a storybook app [ 57 ]. Moreover, TV animated cartoons can be designed to attract people with tertiary education for political promotions and political mobilization [ 56 ].

5. Challenges and Open Issues

The challenges and open issues faced by the researchers during the study are elaborated in this section, and it is shown in Figure 5 .

Challenges and open issues.

5.1. Methodological Issues in Data Interpretation

The methodological issues in data interpretation may occur due to animation completion time, fixation duration, and other confounding variables. Fixation duration may be employed to determine the participant's eye or head movements. Mostly eye-tracking devices and gaze movement trackers are utilized for this purpose. Any fault with these devices will affect the data quality, data loss, and data interpretation bias. Li et al. [ 28 ] have suggested that fixation data points showed the preschooler's more significant mobilization and limited processing capacity. Tummeltshammer et al. [ 34 ] have determined the unfiltered eye movement data using SMI's BeGaze analysis software to overcome the error caused by the tracking device or participants in attention.

5.2. Results Generalization Based on Small Sample Sizes

The generalization of results based on small sample sizes may not be appropriate for all the cases. Most of the studies mentioned it as a limitation due to various concerns such as participants' demographical features and socio-economical features. Al-Balushi et al. [ 53 ] have reported improving logical thinking and spatial thinking skills of 12th grade students of Oman. He has also stated that further investigations are required due to the small sample size. Danaei et al. [ 27 ] have reported that the children who read the AR storybook were more confident in retelling and recalling the story.

The specific format or instructions employed in the research can also affect the generalization among the same or different populations. For instance, a specific pedagogical agent format that shows attraction towards the younger population might not show the same effects on adolescents and adults [ 58 ]. Similarly, the instructions designed to visualize in animation may not be appropriate for visualizing the same in real phenomena [ 39 ]. Binder et al. [ 32 ] suggested conducting more eye-tracking experiments with integrated food cues to attract children's attention toward healthy foods.

5.3. Loss of Participants' Data due to the Restless Audience

The audience becomes restless when the study duration is too long. This may be overcome by regular contact with them or follow-up studies. In some cases, participants find it difficult to spare their free time voluntarily. For instance, many students find it difficult to complete the questionnaire in their free time due to the stressful semester [ 52 ]. Sometimes, it is difficult to compel the participants to make things if they are children or infants. Among 39 children, one refused to retell the comprehensive stories learned through animated storybooks, so the corresponding data was removed from the study [ 57 ]. Two children in an experimental group refused to participate during the middle of the study [ 55 ].

In some cases, the data will be collected indirectly through random websites or by issuing pamphlets to random people. For example, Okoro and Onakpa [ 56 ] have collected data from selected towns in North Central Nigeria by issuing 385 copies of the questionnaire. Among these, 2% of the questionnaire were not received due to the restless audience.

5.4. Issues Associated with Calibration

The calibration of devices employed for measuring participants' visual attention plays a vital role in acquiring good quality data and aids in providing a better focus on the participants. Unfortunately, due to poor calibration (> 1) of the eye-tracking device, deviated results were obtained from five children, which may negatively impact the overall results [ 32 ].

5.5. Audience Requiring Assistance

The most important challenge faced in the study is to find the audience who requires assistance to participate in the study. Furthermore, this might help in acquiring better and more appropriate results. For example, Danaei et al. [ 27 ] have identified and helped the children who had struggled to start retelling the story learned through AR story book. And they were encouraged to continue the story.

5.6. Technology Issues and Mechanical Constraints

The technological issues may be caused due to unavoidable faults in the devices employed in the study. Due to this issue, the data points measured will be low, resulting in removing those data points. For example, in a study by Hendrikse et al. [ 43 ], the electrodes reached saturation due to the loose connection in the EOG (electrooculogram) electrodes for some participants. This, in turn, affected the data quality, and the corresponding data point was removed until it was adjusted to drift compensation. Similarly, two children were excluded from the study due to the problem that occurred in the stimulus presentation of fruit and candy [ 32 ].

5.7. Anxiety among Audience

Anxiety among the audience is another challenge faced during experimenting with new ideas. For example, al-Balushi et al. [ 53 ] have attempted to teach the critical concepts of 12th grade chemistry through animation. However, the students facing stressful periods due to the important exam in 12th grade made them anxious about the adoption of new teaching technology, which negatively affected the results. Nevertheless, the study still showed healthier results with improved spatial ability and reasoning skills of those students.

5.8. Maintaining Audience Attention

Another challenge in making animation successful is maintaining the viewer's attention. Attention can be influenced by various factors like animation span, animation intensity, animated character, the motion of the animated character, and sound. Likewise, it may be affected by intervening factors such as restlessness of the audience in the real-time study settings and eye irritation. This situation can be overcome by conducting studies in a silent room where the audience can focus on the visual animation without getting distracted by external factors [ 49 ]. In some cases, the audience may get distracted by the instructions provided in the animation video [ 39 ].

5.9. Issue of Data Quality

One of the significant issues faced while carrying out studies is the quality of data obtained. And it may be influenced by the missing data due to an error in the instruments employed. It can either affect the result or may be corrected. For instance, due to the eye-tracking device's problem, children's eye movements were not clearly captured, which resulted in extremely low fixation time [ 57 ]. Similarly, 31.4% of EOG data were missing due to some error in the device. However, the missing data points are adjusted by entering them as not-a-number in the analysis [ 43 ]. Figure 5 illustrates the open challenges associated with this research.

6. Future Research Directions

The priority areas identified for future research directions are elaborated to strengthen the body of evidence. These include the advanced applications of animations that may make life easier and are listed in Figure 6 and are elaborated below.

Future research directions.

The foremost application could include artificial intelligence (AI) that may generate 3D motion from video without any capture equipment [ 60 ]. The AI and advanced hardware can bring breathing life into animation by blurring the lines between the virtual and real characters. The application of AI into animation has reduced the post-production time, limited the need for character design, and aids in improved lip-syncing [ 61 ]. The explainable AI is an artificial intelligence operation that runs on deep neural networks. The practical applicability and promotion of the AI tool are enhanced by developing computational help [ 62 ]. The major challenges in AI are to succeed explainability in its program, which can be facilitated with animation techniques [ 63 ]. The explainable AI can be adopted in autonomous car decision-making and energy efficiency in smart homes [ 64 ] and medical imaging [ 65 , 66 ]. Meanwhile, generative AI is a machine learning algorithm that can generate new content through text, images, and audio content. In addition, it can generate human-like language output [ 67 ].

Analyzing a large amount of fragmented data can be simplified by converging the big data and augmented analytics. Moreover, it helps to provide simplified statements to the customers in an understandable manner [ 68 ]. The visualization of a large pool of data can be made easier with the help of animation. Moreover, the data visualization can be integrated with augmented and virtual reality [ 69 ]. The big data and augmented analytics play a major role in video gaming. For instance, Pokemon Go is a location-based Japanese video game franchise. This game transforms the gamer's physical location into an augmented world where the characters are superimposed on the reality seen through their mobiles. The Global Positioning System (GPS), a major staple of big data, makes this possible by allowing data collection and storing it upon the crowd-sourced data [ 70 ].

Quantum computing deals with pulling together the theoretical ideas of computer science and fundamental physics. It has been the focus of many large companies such as Google, IBM, and Microsoft. The algorithm created from quantum computing concepts can be employed to design a 3D modeling [ 71 ]. It is based on the qubits that give rise to new logic gates, which enable constructing a new algorithm. However, it is still in its emerging phase, and for future development, it is necessary to overcome the obstacles like decoherence and scalability issues [ 72 ].

The collaboration of robots and machines to perform a day-to-day task will be the perception of the modern era. However, its ethical issues are yet to be analyzed and eradicated [ 73 ]. Internet of Everything (IoE) provides interconnection of physical items to frame an information network that provides smart communication services to the users. The IoE finds applications in the fields like health care, smart grids, smart cities, smart homes, manufacturing, and transport [ 74 ].

Digital twin technology provides a virtual representation of a physical product consisting of information from the product's origin to its life cycle management. The general applicability of the digital twin lies in physical entities like agricultural supply chains, automotive wiring harnesses, smart cars, and farms, and virtual entities like health monitoring and scheduling [ 75 ]. The animation concepts play a vital role in mirroring the design concepts and visualizing them during the conceptual designing stage of the digital twin [ 76 ]. For instance, while designing the speed of the machines, synchronization can be achieved by controlling the rate of animation frames [ 77 ].

Another major industrial revolution is the cyber-physical system (CPS), composed of highly integrated computation, communication, control, and physical elements. The CPS research is emerging in education [ 78 ], agriculture [ 79 ], and manufacturing. For instance, in the manufacturing sector, the CPS may bridge the gap between design and manufacturing [ 80 ]. It extends the manufacturing process with a communication interface that mimics the worker assistance system. Furthermore, the animation is used to assist the operation flow of instruments in the worker assistance system [ 81 ]. However, the CPS development is still in the embryonic stage as it faces challenges such as security, privacy, efficiency, and interoperability [ 82 ].

The interaction and fusion between the physical space and virtual space are facilitated with the advancements in the 3R technology (virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR)). The VR is a simulated environment designed in real time using computer graphics and pictures of the scene in 3D. It will immerse the viewer into the virtual environment, closing them completely away from the outside world. Meanwhile, AR is an interactive environment that is designed by increasing this fusion between the physical and virtual space. The viewers can interact with the animated data and instructional information superimposed over the real-world view through devices such as mobile phones or tablets. At the same time, the MR simulation environment is designed from the fusion of real-world and virtual space comprising the co-existence interaction of physical objects and digital objects. Two or more viewers can be networked together in a virtual environment where they can interact with computer-generated objects on the real world [ 83 , 84 ]. In recent span, the AR, VR and MR applications have been widely used in health-care monitoring [ 84 , 85 ], clinical applications in oral and maxillofacial surgery [ 86 , 87 ], improvising nursing skills [ 52 ], and enhanced teaching strategy [ 27 ].

7. Conclusions

This paper highlighted a systematic review of 35 publications about animation's importance and its impact on viewer's visual attention and cognition. These publications were collected from 2015 to 2021 and are grouped into 3 categories. The risk of bias in the study design carried out in these publications was briefed. The attention-related factors such as animation motion, animated character, color, and intensity were assessed in the field of food marketing, teaching, entertainment, and advertisement. The animation motion and animated character are significant, whereas color and intensity are insignificant. The cognitive effects developed in the viewers are executive function, comprehension, spatial ability, and symbolic mediation. Meanwhile, the physical effects included confidence in their own body image and the importance of physical exercise. The limitations and recommendations associated with these 35 publications were elaborated. Also, the open challenges and issues under each category were summarized. The identified future research directions ideas may further strengthen the necessity for improving the visual quality of the animation.

The major limitation of this study is that the recently published articles were not included (i.e., publications in 2022). Several important animation research fields, such as gaming, medical, and entertainment, were not covered in this paper. Future research should include the recently published articles to enhance the quality and validate the findings in this study. In addition, the future study focuses on assessing the influence of animation motion and animated characters on the viewer's visual attention.

Data Availability

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Communication

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Visual communication.

The study of visual communication comprises such wide-reaching and voluminous literatures as art history, the philosophy of art and aesthetics, semiotics, cinema studies, television and mass media studies, the history and theory of photography, the history and theory of graphic design and typography, the study of word–image relationships in literary, aesthetic, and rhetorical theory, the development and use of charts, diagrams, cartography and questions of geographic visualization (images of place and space), the physiology and psychology of visual perception, the impact of new visual technologies (including the impact of digitalization and the construction of “virtual realities”), growing concerns with the concept and/or acquisition of “visual literacy,” and the boundless social and cultural issues embedded in practices of visual representation.

Amid such an eclectic field no consensus has emerged regarding canonical texts. Even the concept of “imagery” itself seems to have no clear boundaries, encompassing concepts of the image that extend from the perceptual process, through the mental reproduction of perceptions in eidetic imagery, dreams, and memory, to the realms of abstract symbols and ideas by which we mentally map experience, and the physical creation of pictures and visual media. Consequently, the study of imagery is as integral to the study of language, cognition, psychoanalysis, and ethology as it is to the study of pictorial or graphic representation.

Social Relevance of the Field

This article notes key themes and theories in this cross-disciplinary area of study. For purposes of manageability the focus is on pictures rather than the broader concept of the visual , and with a bent toward the study of twentieth-century mass communication media rather than the larger history of art and visual representation. The term “picture” is used here in a sense that is similar to the Albertian definition of a picture noted by Alpers: “a framed surface or pane situated at a certain distance from a viewer who looks through it at a second or substitute world” (1983, xix). I do not, however, wish to limit my definition to a strictly Renaissance model of picture-making but rather would include all types of visual image-making that address viewers in a picture-like manner. The choice to concentrate on the pictorial directs the emphasis toward the production and interpretation of communication media and avoids the insurmountable problem of addressing a diffuse and boundless range of the visual. The focus on recent history reflects the concern for contemporary media and cultural environments that is such a prominent part of communication studies.

In this context the study of visual communication as an institutional interest area has grown primarily in response to perceived gaps in the more widely established field of mass communication research. The relationship to mass communication may not be readily apparent, for visual communication study did not emerge within established traditions of mass communication research, nor was it bound by the same theoretical or methodological paradigms. Yet the study of visual communication (as opposed to the study of art, art history, design, or architecture) has been defined in relation to the mechanical reproduction of imagery that has characterized modern mass media (Ivins 1953; Benjamin 1969; Berger 1972).

Those intrigued by the role and influence of visual imagery in mass circulation publications, television, and the entire range of commercial advertising have often been disappointed by the lack of attention given to pictures in established traditions of mass communication research. Prominent strains of mass communication research – public opinion and attitude research, social psychological studies of behavior and cognition, experimental studies of media exposure, marketing research, correlational studies of media effects, content analysis, studies of media uses and gratifications, agenda-setting research, or sociologies of media organizations and media production – have only sparsely and inconsistently incorporated the analysis of visual forms and their role in communication processes. For years content studies of television news were conducted solely from verbal transcripts, and audience studies often documented viewer responses to program stories and characters without attending to the nature of the specific visual presentations of those programs (Griffin 1992b).

Even studies of political communication , where one might expect a keen interest in the role of visual images, focus overwhelmingly on rhetorical strategies, issue framing, and a concern for the tactical effect of linguistic symbols and slogans, and lack a sustained attention to the contributions of the visual. A 1990 survey of political communication literature, for example, found that only five out of more than 600 articles and studies actually examined the concrete visual components of televised election coverage and advertising, and that when the term “image” was used it most often referred to conceptual interpretations of the public ethos of political candidates rather than specific concrete visual attributes of media presentations (Johnston 1990). Consciousness of the importance of visual images in political communication expanded greatly in the wake of the Reagan presidency, when such Reagan advisers as Michael Deaver averred that the control and manipulation of images overpowered anything that the public heard or read (Deaver 1987). Following the 1988 campaign, prominent political rhetoricians, such as Kathleen Hall Jamieson, began for the first time to explicitly call for the visual analysis of political spots and contemporary political discourse (Jamieson 1992).

Against this background the growing interest in visual communication throughout the 1970s and 1980s was often perceived as a corrective response. The increasingly ubiquitous visual appeals of advertising, both commercial and political, and the alarming number of hours most people spent watching television, had certainly made media researchers aware of the potential impact of images and triggered interest in some to include visual analysis in their work. Yet, few examples of research specifically focused on the visual mode could be found in the mass communication literature, and those hoping to pursue such research needed to look beyond the boundaries of communication scholarship for theories, templates, and inspiration.

Often, this meant foraging purposefully among literatures institutionally separated from communications: aesthetics, anthropology, art history, graphic design, electronic and video arts, film theory and history, the philosophy of perception and knowledge, literary theory, linguistics, semiology. Sometimes it meant opening the door to the developments within communications that were more attentive to the impact of images: to feminist scholars, and others, interested in gender portrayals; to those concerned with representations of homosexuality; and to those concerned with the stereotyping of various racial, cultural, and social groups. And sometimes it meant reframing or redefining entrenched areas of professional and technical training: in film and video production, photography and photojournalism, broadcast journalism, typography and publication design.

By the 1980s this trend led to movements within academic communication associations to provide expanded forums for visual communication research presentations. In the International Communication Association (ICA) nondivisional paper sessions were organized around visual communication themes, eventually leading to the establishment of a Visual Communication Interest Group. In the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) attempts were made to encourage the presentation of scholarly research in the Visual Communication Division, a division previously focused almost exclusively on professional training in graphic design and photojournalism, and seen largely as an area of technical support for the primary work of writing and editing. In the Speech Communication Association (SCA) in the US, an interest group on “visual literacy” was formed. These developments have continued to have a bearing on the place of visual communication studies within the larger field of communication research. However, primary sources of new theory and new research have continued to originate from outside these institutional parameters.

History and Theory

The rise of contemporary visual communication studies was, of course, preceded by centuries of thought and writing concerning the arts and the visual image. Yet the last decades of the twentieth century have seen a renewed philosophical concern with the visual that Mitchell (1994), following Rorty’s (1979) notion of “the linguistic turn,” has called “the pictorial turn.” In Picture theory (1994) Mitchell argues, “The simplest way to put this is to say that, in what is often characterized as an age of ‘spectacle’ (Debord), ‘surveillance’ (Foucault), and all-pervasive image-making, we still do not know exactly what pictures are, what their relation to language is, how they operate on observers and on the world, how their history is to be understood, and what is to be done with or about them” (1994, 13). He adds, “while the problem of pictorial representation has always been with us, it presses inescapably now, and with an unprecedented force, on every level of culture, from the most refined philosophical speculations to the most vulgar productions of the mass media” (1994, 16). In this, Mitchell echoes the challenge described by Worth in the early 1970s (Worth 1981). An extensive body of literature explores the ontology and epistemology of photography and the cinema , the foundations of contemporary lens-based media. Writings on photography since the middle of the nineteenth century have continually explored, and revisited, the nature of the photographic image as art vs science, pictorial expression vs mechanical record, trace vs transformation. Meanwhile, the practice of photography has been dogged by the ongoing contradictions between the craft of picturemaking and the status of photographs as “reflections of the real” (Sekula 1975; Brennen & Hardt 1999). Similarly, the extensive literature of film theory , going back at least to the treatises of Lindsay, Munsterberg, Arnheim, and Balazs, has struggled with the nature of cinema and its proper aesthetic and communicational development (Andrew 1976). A wellspring of analytic concepts regarding the composition and juxtaposition of images have been applied to sophisticated analyses of mise-en-scène (the construction of the shot) and montage (the structuring of sequences of shots through editing). The synthesis of realist theories of mise-en-scène, formalist theories of montage, and structural theories of narrative in the work of Jean Mitry (1963–1965), and the subsequent application of linguistically based semiotic theory to cinema by Christian Metz (1974) pushed film analysis into new territories of narrative and syntactical exegesis in the attempt to identify a “language of film.” We are still looking.

Film Studies

An important foundation for the development of visual communication studies, film theory comprises a body of concepts and tools borrowed from the study of art, psychology, sociology, language, and literature. Work in visual communication has often returned to these various sources for new applications to photography, design, electronic imaging, or virtual reality. A central theoretical parameter of debate has involved the distinction between formative and realist theories (Andrew 1976; 1984), but has also involved questions concerning the scope and centrality of narrative, an issue that has preoccupied the philosophy of representation across numerous fields.

Formative film theories treat cinematic presentations as wholly constructed visual expressions, or rhetoric, and seek to build schematic explanations for the semantic and syntactic capacity and operation of the medium. Realist theories argue that there is a natural relationship between life and image. They assert that photographic motion pictures inherently mirror everyday perception and moreover that the goal for filmmakers should be to employ that essential capacity to create the most realistic possible simulations of actual experience. All film students learn about the concepts of film art posited by early formalists such as Munsterberg, Arnheim, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, and Balazs, and countered by realists such as Bazin and Kracauer. Many aspects of this theoretical opposition have re-emerged repeatedly as visual communication studies have come to encompass parallel issues in television, photojournalism, news, advertising, and most recently digital image creation and manipulation.

The heart of the matter, and arguably the central question of all visual communication study, is the precise status of the image as a copy or analogue . As Andrew writes of the work of Bazin and Mitry, “Bazin spent his life discussing the importance of the ‘snugness’ with which the filmic analogue fits the world, whereas Mitry has spent his life investigating the crucial differences which keep this asymptote forever distinct from the world it runs beside and so faithfully mirrors” (1976, 190). Historically, film and photographic theory and criticism were absorbed with these questions as they pertained to the properties of the image-text itself. As will be discussed at a later point, visual communication studies turned the question toward the manner in which images were utilized and interpreted by media production institutions and viewing audiences.

The key point here, to be revisited throughout this article, is that the study of pictures brought into even greater relief questions of reflection and construction in human representation. And although these issues are not confined to modern visual media, and perhaps are questions that cannot be asked of pictures as if they were a purely visual medium, somehow outside of intertextual contexts, they have become defining issues for visual communication study in an era of constant photographic reproduction when it is so often taken for granted that visual media technologically mimic reality. These issues relate as well to spatial and temporal constructs in literature and the earlier plastic arts, and were raised by writers at least as early as the eighteenth century (Mitchell 1986).

Various technical advances have seemed to provide an inexorable progression toward ever more convincing recreations of the “real world” and have consistently raised the ante on illusion and simulation. Yet film theory has persistently directed attention toward the processes of constructing visual representations, constantly reminding us of the inherent tension between the craft of picture-making and the perception of pictures as records. Against the commonsense assumptions so often made that visual media give us a window on the world with which to witness “reality,” film theory from the beginning has interrogated the ways in which such “windows” are created and structured to shape our view. Even in the practice of documentary film, theorists such as Nichols (1991) identify patterns or “modes” of representational strategy that make each documentary a formal and rhetorical articulation. Writers on still photography, perhaps ironically, followed the development of film theory in fully theorizing the ontology of the photograph, but in the last 50 years have also contributed an extensive literature on the relationship of photo images to their subjects.

The fact that film studies provided an important stock of conceptual tools for the study of pictorial communication of all types was not lost on communication scholars who hoped to better understand the growing prominence of visual mass media in late industrial society. British cultural studies also borrowed freely from film studies (much of it centered around the British Film Institute and its sponsored book and journal publications) and the resulting sensitivity to the culturally constructed nature of visual representation in much cultural studies work made it attractive to visual communication scholars in America. Writings on visual media by British and Australian cultural critics and scholars such as John Berger (1972); Raymond Williams (1974), Laura Mulvey (1989), Judith Williamson (1978), and John Fiske and John Hartley (1978) drew the attention of those tuned into what the British increasingly called “lens theory.”

The influence of this brand of cultural studies on the American scene fueled a nascent interest in semiotic analysis and the interpretation of media texts, and it was not a far leap to imagine the incorporation of visual analysis into studies of representation, meaning, and ideology. An early example of the incorporation of visual analysis in the study of representation and ideology is Stuart Hall’s essay “The determination of news photographs” (1973). In this essay he attempts to apply the cultural and ideological analysis derived from Birmingham Center studies of popular culture to news photographs in order to demonstrate how pictures enhance and frame the ideological positions of accompanying linguistic text. In the mid 1970s the Glasgow University Media Group (1976; 1980) carried out some of the first detailed visual analyses of television news footage in order to expose the ideological nature of BBC reporting on industrial labor disputes. Moreover, the fastgrowing popularity of cultural studies often helped to open up additional curricular space for addressing the nature of visual symbol systems and processes of meaning construction. A convergence of interest in the study of photographically mediated culture was building from several directions, including anthropology, sociology, and the psychology of art.

The Psychology of the Visual: Language and Image

The work of E. H. Gombrich serves to represent the essential themes of this tradition, although its roots lie in the earlier work of Panofsky (1991; 1st pub. 1924) and others. In his highly influential book Art and illusion (1960) Gombrich makes a powerful case for the conventionality of schemes for visual representation. With an art historian’s knowledge of the traditions of western art, and particularly the development of linear perspective, he argues that picture forms of all kinds are conventionally constructed according to learned schemata, not copied from nature. Building from the idea that perceptual gestalts are not necessarily innate but often learned (a concept fully developed in the perceptual research of R. L. Gregory [1970]), Gombrich argued that perceptions of visual representations in art operate by means of gestalts that are culturally based and that, in this sense, pictures are read on the basis of prior knowledge of cultural conventions.

Gombrich develops the metaphor of “reading images” in his article, “The visual image,” written for Scientific American (1972). Here he reiterates the ways in which images are intertwined within cultural systems of language and function and depend upon “code, caption, and context” for understanding. Pictures rarely stand alone, and rarely communicate unambiguously when they do. The mutual support of language and image facilitates memory and interpretation, making visual communication (as separate from artistic expression) possible. Without using the same structuralist paradigm or terminology, Gombrich comes very close to reproducing the semiological notions of icon, index, and symbol in his analysis. Most images seem to combine all three qualities of signification in some measure, although it is most often the iconic prevalence and/or limits of images that preoccupies scholars of the visual, the iconic being that which most clearly distinguishes visual signs from lexical, mathematical, musical, and socio-gestural (Gross 1974).

Although a substantial body of research by perceptual psychologists contradicts Gombrich’s suggestion that visual apprehension is culturally learned – providing evidence instead that many aspects of visual perception derive from a natural, hard-wired set of sensory, neurological, and perceptual processes – the impact of Gombrich’s analysis has still been enormous. His writings provide a strong case against the equation of art and communication, and help to lay a basis for the study of visual communication as distinct from the study of art. They also demonstrate the need to understand the history of art, and the various traditions of depiction and symbolization that have influenced visual practices, before we can hope to explain the role of visual communication in modern media systems.

Together with film theory, semiotics, the social history of art, and anthropological concerns with art and visual representation, the psychology of visual representation has contributed to an eclectic body of theory and research on which communications scholars began to draw for conceptualizing approaches to visual communication analysis.

Other strains in the history of art and aesthetics that have contributed much to contemporary thinking about visual communication include the social history of art and aesthetic theories regarding the relationship between pictures and language. The social history of art, particularly in the work of writers such as Michael Baxandall (1972) and Svetlana Alpers (1983), offers models for investigating relationships between the production of images and the social contexts of their sponsorship, use, and interpretation. Alpers has explored the relation between picture-making and description, from the ekphrastic tradition of the Sophists in which they used the subject matter of paintings as jumpingoff points for discursive monologues and storytelling, a model, she argues, for Vasari’s famous descriptions of Renaissance paintings (Alpers 1960), to the seventeenth-century tradition of Dutch painting, when northern European painters broke with the narrative tradition of Italian painting to create a new “descriptive pictorial mode.”

Baxandall’s (1972) study of painting and experience in fifteenth-century Italy provides an example of what reviewer Larry Gross (1974) called a historical “ethnography of visual communication,” demonstrating how patronage and contractual obligations, on the one hand, and viewer expectations and understandings of convention, on the other, combined to make of painting a currency of social communication. Becker’s Art worlds (1982) applies a similar approach to twentieth-century social worlds of artistic production with specific attention paid to painting and photography, among other arts. Gross’s On the margin of art worlds (1995) follows in this vein with a collection of studies explicitly devoted to the social definitions and boundaries that have emerged among worlds of visual art and communication.

Related to these extra-textual studies of visual communication practice and meaning is a long history of attention to the intertextual relationships between word and image . Whether in studies of the relationship between religious painting and scripture, pictures and narrative, or in attempts to pursue the study of iconology (the general field of images and their relation to discourse), the existence of pictures within larger multi-textual contexts has led to several rich traditions of scholarship (Panofsky 1939; Mitchell 1986; 1994). Here the dispersed boundaries of visual communication studies become especially apparent. Its coherence as a field diffuses into myriad strains of philosophy, literary theory, linguistics, cultural theory, art history, and media studies – the concerns with the subject/spectator (the look, the gaze, the glance, observation, surveillance, and visual pleasure) and with the interpreter/reader (decipherment, decoding, visual experience, “visual literacy,” or “visual culture”) running through numerous disciplines and theories.

The Sociology and Anthropology of Visual Communication

This tradition of research emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in the US largely in association with the work of Sol Worth, Jay Ruby, Richard Chalfen, Larry Gross, Howard S. Becker, and their students. It was carried forward by scholars particularly interested in the cultural codes and social contexts of image-making within particular communities, sub-cultures, and social groups. This movement was influenced by work in the psychology of art and representation, film theory, semiotics, and the social history of art. For example, attempts to assess and compare the types of psychological schemata suggested by Gombrich in image-making and image interpretation across different cultures suggested that processes of visual communication were not universal and needed to be explored within specific socio-cultural settings.

The anthropology of visual communication was also heavily influenced by new approaches to the study of linguistics, not only by structuralist tendencies and the semiological theories and methods that structural linguistics engendered, but in particular by the rise of sociolinguistics (Hymes 1964). Sociolinguists had begun to examine the differing uses of language across sub-cultures, social classes, and ethnic groups, and provided exemplars for the similar study of visual “languages” in varying social contexts. A key figure in adapting these influences to the study of visual communication was Sol Worth. The collection of his writings, Studying visual communication (1981), edited posthumously by his colleague and co-author Larry Gross, is perhaps the best starting point for those interested in gaining a sense of the origins of the field of visual communication research. “The central thread that runs through Worth’s research and writings is the question of how meaning is communicated through visual images” (Gross 1981).

This interest led to the landmark Navajo Filmmakers Project, in which Worth collaborated with anthropologist John Adair and graduate assistant Richard Chalfen to study film made not as records about Navajo culture, but as examples of Navajo culture, reflecting the value systems, coding patterns, and cognitive processes of the maker (Worth & Adair 1972). The Navajo films (now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York), and the published results of the project, were praised by such commentators as Margaret Mead as a “breakthrough in cross-cultural communications” (Mead 1977, 67).

The critique of documentary practice led Worth to propose “a shift from visual anthropology to the anthropology of visual communication” (1981) suggesting the need to abandon taken-for-granted assumptions about the capacity of film and photography to portray culture from the outside. Instead, he suggested, it would be better to study the forms and uses given to visual media by the members of different cultures and social groups themselves. Worth vigorously distinguished this work from traditional “visual anthropology,” much of which he considered naïve and unreflective in its reliance on photographic records about culture, and increasingly became identified with the alternative of studying all forms of visual communication as examples of culture, to be analyzed for the patterns of culture that they reveal.

Interdisciplinary Cross-Currents

Worth’s idea of an “anthropology of visual communication” dovetailed with the work of numerous students, colleagues, and scholars working along cognate trajectories, leaving a fruitful legacy. These included, among others: ground-breaking studies of family photography and home moviemaking (Chalfen 1987); explorations of the nature and limits of documentary representation (Ruby 2000); the study of pictorial perception, learning, and interpretation (Worth & Gross 1974; Messaris & Gross 1977); children’s socialization to visual forms (Griffin 1985); the nature of visual rhetoric and persuasion and questions of visual literacy (Messaris 1994; 1997); institutionalized standards and practices in picture-making and use; the study of social worlds of visual production and legitimization – from art to advertising, to news (Tuchman 1978; Rosenblum 1978; Schwartz & Griffin, 1987); and the ethics of visual representation (Gross et al. 1988; 2003).

It also led to the establishment of the first scholarly journal in the US devoted specifically to visual communication research, Studies in Visual Communication . The journal published contributions from a wide range of disciplinary sources, representing the new critical histories of photography, work on the visual languages of science and cartography, research on caricature and political cartoons, essays on public art, new interpretations of the documentary tradition in photography and film, and a greater emphasis on television and media events. The pioneering study Gender advertisements (1976) by Erving Goffman was first published as a special issue of Studies in Visual Communication , and for a time the journal provided impressive evidence that scholarly attention to visual imagery was growing across the social sciences and humanities. An attempt to extend this attention led directly to the organization of a Visual Communication Interest Group in the International Communication Association, which in 2004 became the Visual Communication Studies Division of the ICA.

By the 1980s traditional notions of visual media were being re-evaluated across programs of art, communications, and journalism. A few journalism schools attempted to recast their photojournalism and publication graphics tracks into more integrated and multidisciplinary visual communication curricula. Communication scholars increasingly pointed out that, given the pervasively visual nature of contemporary mass media, it was no longer tenable to study mass communication separately from visual communication (Griffin 1992a), and that even a medium such as the newspaper needs to be understood as an inherently visual phenomenon (Barnhurst 1994).

Key Issues and Current Trends

The key issues for visual communication in the new millennium are surprisingly similar to those of 30 years ago. The major difference is that greater attention is being paid to these issues within communications scholarship itself, and the application of these ideas is being made across an even greater diversity of media forms and technologies, including digital ones. Recent attempts to examine the state of visual research, and its application to new media, remind us that the kinds of questions asked by Sol Worth decades ago have not been settled (Manovich 2001; Elkins 2003). We are still exploring “how, and what kinds of things, pictures mean.” And “how the way that pictures mean differs from the way such things as ‘words’ or ‘languages’ mean” (Worth 1981, 162). Barthes wrote that photography, “by virtue of its absolutely analogical nature, seems to constitute a message without a code” (1977, 42–43). This quality not only lends itself to the proliferation of pseudo-events, and the ever new developments and consequences of virtual realities, but makes of images a kind of automatic evidence that is rarely questioned. Therefore, the ontological questions regarding the status of images as simulated reality blur together with epistemological questions concerning the validity of images as evidence.

These compounded theoretical issues continually re-emerge in nearly every area of visual communication studies. A great, but still largely unmet challenge for visual communication scholars is to scan, chart, and interrogate the various levels at which images seem to operate: as evidence in visual rhetoric, as simulated reality bolstering and legitimizing the presence and status of media operations themselves, as abstract symbols and textual indices, and as “stylistic excess” – the self-conscious performance of style (Caldwell 1995). Visual style itself, apart from content-related denotation, connotation, and allusion, can be a powerful index of culture – sub-cultures, professional cultures, political cultures, commercial fashion. Initial forays suggest that scrutinizing visual forms of simulated “reality” tell us a great deal about the nature of media rhetoric, the limits of veridical representation, and the self-conscious performance of style in entertainment, advertising, and news. These issues are perhaps more significant than ever for the processes of “remediation” that characterize “new” digital media and the emphases on “transparent immediacy” and “hypermediacy” that distinguish digital visualization (Bolter & Grusin 1999).

Visual communication research, more than anything else, has been a path into the examination of the specific forms of our increasingly visual media surround. In the early stages of mass communication research Lang & Lang reported on “The unique perspective of television and its effect” (1953). The heart of the study was their comparison of the televised coverage of Chicago’s MacArthur Day parade with the reported observations and experiences of informants on the scene, a comparison that found the representation of the parade on television, the “TV screen reality,” to be very different from, even contradictory of, the “reality” seen and experienced by those attending the event. They concluded that television’s need to create a coherent presentational structure from separate, fragmented, and often only indirectly related scenes and activities resulted in a “televisual perspective” or televisual form specific to the nature and workings of that medium. Visual communication research is often distinctive precisely for its attention to forms of representation, forms created by the intersection of aesthetic and pictorial traditions, shifting industrial uses of visual media, and evolving media technologies. To many it seemed that the movement toward visual communication studies in fact best fulfilled cultural studies pioneer Raymond Williams’s exhortation to focus attention on the forms and practices of media production and representation (Williams 1974).

This is not a return to a McLuhanesque essentialism regarding media technology. Rather it is a recognition (following Raymond Williams) that the historically and culturally specific forms of representation that have evolved in particular industrial and commercial systems inexorably shape and delimit the nature of media discourse. This is an issue of particular concern to visual communication researchers as we proceed into an era of increasingly convincing virtual realism on the one hand, and an increasingly systemic textualization of images in cyberspace on the other. More and more visual practices are moving away from the ideal that visual media can and should explore and reveal our social and natural environment and toward self-contained visual lexicons that reduce all visual elements to characters in digital texts. For both economic and technological reasons digital designers and television producers increasingly create “virtual worlds of excessive videographics” in place of the realist style of conventional production techniques (Caldwell 1995). It is as if we seek to follow French structuralist philosophy to its logical conclusion, taming the potential autonomy and power of images and making them subservient to structural linguistic interpretation (Jay 1993). It is not just what we can do with new digital technologies of manipulation but to what purposes we seek to use the production of images in a “post-photographic age.”

Finally, in that emerging condition often referred to as the “global media environment” visual images have become a new sort of transnational cultural currency. Not the “universal language” that promoters such as Eastman Kodak Company claimed for photography earlier in the century, but a currency of media control and power, indices of the predominant cultural visions of predominant media industries.

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Decoding the plant world's complex biochemical communication networks

Visual marker in petunia flowers offers glimpse into little-known process.

A Purdue University-led research team has begun translating the complex molecular language of petunias. Their grammar and vocabulary are well hidden, however, within the countless proteins and other compounds that fill floral cells.

Being rooted to the ground, plants can't run away from insects, pathogens or other threats to their survival. But plant scientists have long known that they do send warnings to each other via scent chemicals called volatile organic compounds.

"They use volatiles because they can't talk," said Natalia Dudareva, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Purdue. "Plants inform neighboring plants about pathogen attacks. It looks almost like immunization. Under normal conditions, you don't see any changes in the receiver plant. But as soon as a receiver plant is infected, it responds much faster. It's prepared for response."

Plant scientists have long known about this immunization-like priming, but until a few years ago, they had no way to study the process. They needed a marker showing that the plants had detected the volatile compounds.

Dudareva and 13 co-authors describe new details of the detection process in the March 22, 2024, issue of the journal Science . The team includes researchers from Purdue, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne in France and the University of California-Davis.

Scientists know little about plant receptors for volatiles. Mammals and insects have them, too, but the way they perceive volatiles is too different to help researchers study the process in plants, Dudareva said.

A research team led by Purdue University scientists has documented new details about how petunias use volatile organic compounds to communicate.

In 2019, in the journal Nature Chemical Biology , Dudareva and her associates published their discovery of a new physiological process, "Natural fumigation as a mechanism for volatile transport between flower organs." The study described how a plant's floral tubes produce volatile compounds to sterilize their stigma, the part of the pistil that collects pollen, to protect against attack by pathogens.

"There are a lot of sugars on the stigma, especially in petunias. It means that bacteria will grow very nicely without these volatiles present," Dudareva said. "But if the stigma does not receive tube-produced volatiles, it's also smaller. This was interorgan communication. Now we had a good marker -- stigma size -- to study this communication process."

Measurements made from photographs showed statistical differences in the stigma size upon exposure to volatiles, said the Science study's lead author, Shannon Stirling, a PhD student in horticulture and landscape architecture at Purdue. "You can see that this is a consistent trend," she said. "Once you've looked at enough stigmas, you can see by eye that there is a slight difference in size."

Combined with the genetic manipulation of the potential proteins involved, the work surprisingly revealed that a karrikin-like signaling pathway played a key role in petunia cellular signaling.

"Karrikins aren't produced by plants," Stirling said. "They're produced when plants burn, and our plants have never been exposed to smoke or fire."

The team also documented the importance of the karrikin-like pathway in the detection of volatile sesquiterpenes. Many plants use sesquiterpenes to communicate with other plants, among other functions.

Surprisingly, the identified karrikin receptor showed the ability to selectively perceive signaling from one type of sesquiterpene compound but not its mirror image, a trait called "stereospecificity." The receptor appears to be highly selective to the compound, said study co-author Matthew Bergman, a postdoctoral researcher in biochemistry at Purdue.

"The plant produces many different volatile compounds and is exposed to plenty of others," Bergman said. "It's quite remarkable how selective and specific this receptor is exclusively for this signal being sent from the tubes. Such specificity ensures that no other volatile signals are getting by. There's no false signaling."

For Stirling, the study required mastering a painstaking method for temporarily altering the levels of proteins of the petunia pistils to identify the signal-receptor protein interactions. "Pistils and stigmas are small. They're a little difficult to work with because of their size," she said. "Even the sheer amount of stigmas you need to get enough sample for anything is quite large because they don't weigh much."

This method involved injecting a certain species of bacterium into the stigma to introduce targeted genes, then isolating the resulting proteins.

"It's not easy to manipulate such a small organ," Bergman noted. "But Shannon was able to gently prick the stigma with a syringe and infiltrate it with this bacterium so delicately. She's quite an expert at this."

Petunias are often brightly colored and smell nice, but the Purdue scientists also value them because they serve as a fertile model system for their research.

"They've proven quite fruitful thus far," Bergman said.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the National Institutes of Health.

• Endangered Plants
• Exotic Species
• Rainforests
• Aromatherapy
• Tropospheric ozone
• Photosynthesis

Story Source:

Materials provided by Purdue University . Original written by Steve Koppes. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Shannon A. Stirling, Angelica M. Guercio, Ryan M. Patrick, Xing-Qi Huang, Matthew E. Bergman, Varun Dwivedi, Ruy W. J. Kortbeek, Yi-Kai Liu, Fuai Sun, W. Andy Tao, Ying Li, Benoît Boachon, Nitzan Shabek, Natalia Dudareva. Volatile communication in plants relies on a KAI2-mediated signaling pathway . Science , 2024; 383 (6689): 1318 DOI: 10.1126/science.adl4685

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