The Visual in Communication
The visual as an agent in the communication process has grown in importance as the means or media through which it is transmitted has expanded, but it is rarely explored with the same rigour as that shown for the verbal, as, for example, in linguistics. This state of affairs could be accounted for by its apparent surface level innocence, its engagement with the senses and, thus, it appears closer to the natural order of things.
In terms of measurement, its existence as analogue means that it is based upon a continuous scale, upon degrees of difference, rather than the discrete steps accorded to the digital. Even in the case of half-tones in print and electronically generated images, the digitalized is perceived perceptually as analogue, as continuous, not composed from separate elements, such as dots and pixels. When cast in the register of language, a province of the digital, the visual undergoes loss, the loss, for example, of the subtle gradations that the eye can detect in colour and words cannot explain. Likewise, there is an inability to give full expression in language to an aesthetic experience, for example, the feelings engendered when viewing mountain scenery. To these conditions we can also add the insufficiency of words to express adequately the nuances of visually perceived cues in social encounters, which are echoed in film and television. Be that as it may, on closer inspection it will be seen that a proper understanding of the implications of the visual as a medium in the communication process calls for an awareness that goes beyond the obvious, beyond its place as a medium given to sight.
It calls upon a search for connections and influences that play a part additional to that given to the eye. Thus we are led into fields as diverse as those of, for example, psychology, semiology, information theory and aesthetics. Here we may find a rich source of established research and writing which can be drawn upon and used to uncover the ‘hidden dimensions’ that lie behind the whole enterprise that we call visual communication.
