Navigating Visual Culture: Theoretical Perspectives on Visual Media

Navigating Visual Culture: Theoretical Perspectives on Visual Media brings together an eclectic collection of theory-driven readings to help students understand and navigate the visual culture in which they live. 

The selections in Section I explore the nature of the visual and how people identify what they see around them, ranging from basic color to visual codes translated by the brain. Section II features readings that address the way people interpret, explain, and understand visual culture, while the readings in Section III give an overview of the various ways people participate in visual culture, whether as members of a particular media tribe, consumers of advertising, or users of personal computers. 

Each reading is framed by an original introduction that explains its place and relevance in visual culture, and discerning questions to facilitate classroom discussion or serve as writing prompts. The anthology also provides recommendations for supplemental reading and viewing. Navigating Visual Culture is well-suited to undergraduate courses in mass media, and can also be used for upper division and graduate courses in visual culture and new media.

Amy Mattson Lauters holds a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Minnesota. A former journalist and freelance web designer, Dr. Lauters is an associate professor and chair of the mass media department at Minnesota State University, Mankato where she teaches courses in mass communication, visual mass media, writing, ethics, and press criticism. She is a prolific author, whose work includes numerous book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and articles in peer-reviewed journals including American Journalism: A Journal of Media History. Dr. Lauters is also the editor/author of the book The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane, Literary Journalist, and author of More than a Farmer’s Wife: Voices of American Farm Women 1910-1960. She is a current member and past president of the American Journalism Historians Association.