Visuals Do Talk

Words and images remain side by side with one another when conveying massages. Both are pervasive in books, posters, magazines, newspapers, and on television. However, means of communication nowadays tend to be faster, easier and briefer; that is, visual communications are a much preferable option than verbal ones. Indeed, to illustrate an idea, one picture can worth thousands of words.

Visuals are capable of arousing people’s emotions and reactions to the raised issue effectively. In fact, many people are influenced by the subject that is brought up in the visual they have encountered. For instance, the political cartoon figure, Uncle Sam, who wears a top hat with white stars on the blue band and red-and-white striped trousers, has encouraged the 38% of the population of the United States to join the army during the Second World War. Today, Uncle Sam represents a national embodiment of the United States successfully. Another successful visual propaganda is the pictorial warning printed on cigarette packages. According to World Health Organization, using graphic images are more effective than text-based health messages. There are 15,000 smokers involved in the study which compares cigarette labels. 60% of the smokers from Canada, where pictorial warning labels are required, said they had noticed the warning and 15% of them said the visual warning had deterred them from lighting up. On the contrary, countries like the United States and Australia, where requires text warnings, only 30% of the smokers from the US and 45% of that from Australia noticed the warning labels.

People relying on visuals do not necessarily have poor literacy skills. Due to a lack of texts, visuals are often regarded as a medium that performs no functions for a person’s ability to read, write, and communicate. In fact, visuals serve as a tool for learning purposes. By using visuals like graphs and illustrations, people are able to link symbols representing ideas and information to clarify meanings. For example, Comic Book Project, a program, runs in Teachers College at Columbia University, has developed a comic-based curriculum for primary education: pupils create their own comic strips as an alternative pathway to literacy. So far, the program has applied to 860 schools across the United States. As a result of the program, the positive reading and writing outcomes show the effectiveness on children’s literacy skills. According to The Comic Book Project’s survey, collected from 546 youth, 82% of the youth knew more words, 78% of them spend more time reading for fun, and 70% of them like to read. For writing skill, 80% of the youth spend more time writing for fun, 74% of them like to write, and 70% of them need less help with writing.

In all, Visuals have the power of carrying messages effectively. Since visuals are pictorial expressions of words, they are able to decode connotations of words and to help people receive messages immediately. In other words, one picture is capable of telling a-thousand-word story and facts.