Why do we have to read books?

-Looking at the process and evaluating the importance of reading

-My own work: How can authors make the book object important again?




! Students will not make books in school (there are exceptions).  And how many teachers have written a book?  Therefore, if we value books (or any form) we must communicate this to our students.  


? What happens when we read a book?  How is this unique only to this form?  (Scott McCloud addresses similar questions in Understanding Comics, and may serve as example.)

Visual Literacy in Schools

For Visual Literacy to have a place in schools, educators must convince:

1. Other Teachers and Administrators
2. Parents
3. The students

! Each of these groups is remarkably concervative (including students) in terms of expectations for curriculum and teaching methods.

I will consider teaching TV (for example) when I can explain to parents, principals, teachers, and students:

1. What makes the TV experience unique?
2. What can it do that other mediums can't?
3. What can "reading" TV offer in intellectual development? (Must also consider what exactly is intellectual development, compared to emotional or social for example, and how exactly can this be measured?)
4. What are the limitations of TV?
5. What does it mean to "read" TV? (Most would argue that the TV experience is passive, and unlike reading a text, no training is necessary.)

The items in this list will change according to the medium considered.

Potential and Limitations

-A list of attempting to articulate what different forms of media can and can't do.  Comments, suggestions, additions would be appreciated.

TEXT/PRINT

Examples: Books, comic books*, magizines, zines, newspapers, pamphlets,  


*Comic Books: May require a different catogory, as Scott McCloud suggests that comics (sequential art) function in ways distinct from text or images alone.


Process (All of these terms assume the reader is active. When beginning readers are focused on sounding out words, i.e. decoding, they are not necessarily understanding the content of the text):

1. Visualization: reader creates internal image, which is not literally "seen."  The image is formed from the reader's experience.  This includes what the reader has seen personally, and has seen in other media (such as photos, movies, TV, ads, etc.)

Actions of the active reader

1. Create: Reader creates internal image
2. Building connections: Readers continually make connections to the source text from past experience, and other texts and media.  An initial connection may occur as the reader is scanning the line, and may continue to add connections when not reading.

Potential:

1. 
   

Limitations:

IMAGES

Examples: Photos, digital images, painting and traditional arts, prints (lino, woodblock, lytho, etc.), advertisements

MOVING IMAGES

Examples: Film, video, animation, TV, movies


TV
Process:

1. Reader examines the image projected with light. (Reading a paused image on a TV is different than reading a photo, painting, or other still image.)

Actions of the active reader:

1. Examine: The reader scan around the frame, identifying the familiar (from past experience) and the unfamiliar.  
2. Connect: The reader will connect familiar subjects in the frame to past experience.
3. Question: When readers has identified unfamiliar subjects in the frame, they will continue looking until they find the answer

INTERNET/SOCIAL MEDIA

Examples: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, webcams

MUSIC

Examples: 

ORAL COMMUNICATION

Examples: Lectures, radio news and interviews, 

BODY LANGUAGE/FACIAL EXPRESSION

Traditional Arts Pandering for Youth

-New York Philharmonic (NYP): "the moving image's interjection into the classical concert hall" (From Rosen's The Image Culture).  


-"In 2004, the New York Philharmonic experimented with a 15-by-20-foot screen that projected enormous images of the musicians and conductor to the audience during performances of Wagner and Brahms" (Rosen).


-From the orchestra trustee encouraging the project: "We want to increase attendance at concerts, change the demographics" (from New York Times).  
     "We have to recognize that this is a visual generation."  
     "They are used to seeing things more than they are used to hearing things."


! This is a clear example of overdependance on a medium, as well as failing to consider the essential limitations.


! This problem is not unique to orchestral performance.
     Recognizing declining attendance, and wanting to reach broader audiences, many art museums have developed education programs to reach more people without sacrificing the integrity of the work or the experience of engaging with a work of art. (Though the research and application of museum education programs are largely focused on traditional art, such as drawing and painting, contemporary museums like The New Museum develop approaches to film/video, sculpture, and instillation among others.)  These museums didn't add TV displays next to paintings.
     The NY Philharmonic trustee demonstrates a lack of creativity and underestimates the intelligence of his public.  
     Moving images wil dominate and negatively transform other arts, if we cure our lust or obsession with moving images with more moving images.  (Terms like cure, remedy, or any other term that presumes to fix a problem with the public, assumes to be working from a deficit.)
     
     ! Shitty Movie Adaptations:  Why does it seem that the movie versions of books, even when the books are mediocre, are so consistently lousy?  "The movie wasn't that great.  The book was better."
      ? Did the the directors consider what made the reading experience so unique?  Did the director find a way to capture the narrator's voice in a way that only a film could?
      Examples: Lolita, and Lolita (Novel and Screenplay written by Vladimir Nabokov. 




? A question is not asked: Why must we cure this love for images?
     ! A live performance with images or video is simply a different experience, as reading comics is different than text alone.  The problem with the NYP, and the reason for the lack of success that Rosen describes, appears to be the lack of purpose behind the image presentations, which do not draw our attention back to the music.
     ! Using pictures of space because the piece is called "The Planets" is really stupid, and embarrassingly literal.


-My problem with Rosen and The Image Culture:
     Rosen uses an exceptionally bad example to suggest a wide reaching cultural decline, but offers us nothing but lament and regret.  She fails to consider her own question: "Did things have to happen this way?"

Christine Rosen: The Image Culture

-Reactions and questions raised while reading this essay.  Not intended as an essay or formal response.  This will serve for reference notes for later.




? What is the debate Rosen sets up?
     -Two opposing sides:
               1. Images open new understanding/expression
               2. Images are superficial, create slavish dependance at the expense of deeper truths (which can only be expressed in words)


? What is the purpose of such a debate?  No theorist can rationalize the population from their inclinations.  Clearly we are drawn to images for their power to communicate something that was previously missing. 


? What did we lose of our oral capabilities with the growing dependance on printed text?  Certainly text is less personal and less immediate than an orator? (Considering some lectures that I have seen, this may not actually be true.)


? Why attach value to certain forms?  A hierarchal preference to text will disadvantage the less literate.  Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theory has been generally accepted among teachers and education theorists (not sure of the accuracy of this statement, or how to prove this).  Regardless of whether one accepts Gardner's claims, this theory offers a method for affirming and developing skills in students, considering each as individuals, rather than identifying deficiencies according to impersonal standards.


! We must instead articulate the potential and limitations unique to each form, so that we don't lazily substitute one for another, when a particular idea demands a photograph when an essay would be insufficient.


"Images do not necessarily lead to knowledge.  This is due in part to the fact that photographic images must constantly be refreshed if one's attention is to continue to be drawn to them." (Rosen)
     What is our measure of knowledge here? Facts?
     Would Rosen limit the potential of texts only to the knowledge that can be extracted?  
     Since the public generally recognizes the verisimilitude of images, few expect images to transmit some pure "truth."  And, this skepticism that has developed with the inundation of images can be useful for teaching critical thinking.  Besides, we don't hold this responsibility for communicating truth for all texts.


"Does every cultural trend make a culture genuinely better?" (Rosen)
? How could we possibly determine this?  What is  best culture? Is there a single unified culture anywhere?  
! Lasting trends (TV for example) are successful b/c they successfully fulfill desires.  My question is: How can we use TV (for example) to its full advantage, without becoming overly dependent and ignoring its limitations?


Rosen's normative and exclusive Value system
    -Much of the article's claim depends on exclusive values: 1) assumes a shared understanding for what constitutes knowledge 2) assumes a hierarchy of media forms 3) assumes a shared understanding of what constitutes culture


    -My objection is not that Rosen has preferences, but that these preferences are unexamined, and unacknowledged.  Rosen begins with assumption that text is superior, without ever considering that these values have a history (most of her claims seem to fit comfortably among New Critical Theory).
     Therefore, the conclusions reached are entirely arbitrary, and predetermined.


     -Damien Hirst: "posturing and shallow." (Rosen)
           I have no interest here in critiquing or validating Hirst, whose artistic contribution is subjective.  Rosen is misleading here.  She bolsters her rejection of Hirst, not by evaluating his art, but justifies her opinion because of his preferences.  This is a weakening of substance and argument, the kind of arguments we might find in petty political campaigns.  Rather than evaluating a Senator's history, we question her integrity because she prefers _______ (insert controversial topic of debatable value). 






Rosen's use of Predictions
     -Rosen quotes E. B. White: "If everyone is going to be able to see everything, in the long run all sights may lose whatever rarity value they once possessed, and it may well turn out that people, being able to see and hear practically everything, will be specially interested in nothing."
? Maybe.  But how can we predict the people's behavior, especially in a vacuum of particular conditions?  Why do this?  Why write eulogies for future generations?
! Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages to the various forms of media and presentations of information.  Predicting which form will come to dominate, and which will superannuate seems inconsequential, as predictions serve no practical function in the present.  
? What exactly is there to prepare for?  How could we prepare even if we knew?  Apologists of print should panic and fortify a levee of books and magazines and newspapers?
! For education to remain relevant (considered primarily from perspective of English/Language Arts teacher), teachers must consider how people are currently communicating, if our goal is to prepare students for the world, and the work they want to do in it, we need to consider how people in the world are communicating.






Looking at form in The Image Culture
-Rosen: "But concern about a culture of the image has a rich history, and neither side can yet claim victory."
     ! The existence of fear does not prove the existence of the source, even when that particular fear has a legacy.


     ! This claim here seems to sum up Rosen's method of argument.
1. For the audience to consider forming an opinion, the essayist must establish the problem, and the urgency of this problem.  Rosen does this through use of binary arguments, referencing opposite claims about her topic.  If there is a fight, and there are only two sides, the reader is asked to choose.
2. Rosen appears to be objective because there are references to "both sides" of the apparent argument.  News reporting proves that it is "fair and balanced" by limiting an issue to two choices, and finding two experts for each opposing perspective.  
3. Also like TV news, Rosen's references are almost entirely hyperbole, replacing the dramatic effect of image with shocking claims.  
     Apologists for Text: image culture will lead to illiterate societies and the elimination of books.  These critics appear like war-mongers predicting the apocalypse.
     Apologists for Image: image culture will lead to new languages entirely based on images.  The advocates for technology appear ludicrously optomistic.
      Both of these claims are predictions, and therefore impossible to prove or disprove.
4. Focusing on predictions, there is no real evaluation of ideas or values, which appear to be presented as facts.
5. Common sense wins: The claims of the text apologists seem to ring more true because the claims refer to common sense beliefs, such "TV is bad for you" or literacy is the primary indicator is intelligence.  Common sense is always beyond questioning and therefore not intellectual or academic, and totally emotional.