Visual Communication

This article analyses the visual construction of human suffering in war, with special reference to the signifying practices of the photographs published in Greek newspapers during the Second Iraq War. The author carries out a socio-semiotic analysis, arguing that the overall construction of the Second Iraq War in the Greek press — illustrated by two case studies which are examined in detail — combines contradictory elements and assumptions. Representations of the war are `framed' by the `overpoliticization' of the Greek public sphere and the dominant political culture synthesizing themes of `anti-Americanism', `anti-globalization' and `pro-Third Worldism', but also a particular version of what Said called `Orientalism'. More specifically, the insistence on spectacular images of suffering, and the combination of a humanitarian discourse of compassion for the `innocent distant victims of war' with populist and Greek Christian Orthodox conceptualizations of the self are constitutive elements of the newspapers' signifying practices, which aid the Greek press to be critical of the hegemonic western discourse regarding the Second Iraq War without, however, slipping to the other side of `Orientalist binary oppositions'. On the contrary, this persistence on the humanitarian discourse of compassion towards victims is pivotal in identifying with the western moral virtues of `civilized' humanity.

This visual essay describes an exhibition that collected narratives of migration and artefacts from the homes of families of Pakistani origin from Rotherham, South Yorkshire. ¹ The project was collaborative, involving a visual artist — Zahir Rafiq, who designed art work and the website (www.ferhamfamilies.com) — the Clifton Park Museum in Rotherham, Rotherham Central Sure Start and Ferham Primary School.

Illustrations from pre-modern and Renaissance `Anatomies', on the one hand, and late 20th-century digital representations of male and female anatomy, on the other, are contrasted and compared in terms of social semiotic concepts. The title page of On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543), for instance, presents detailed narrativizations and conceptual constructions of the changing worlds and significance of public anatomical demonstrations and their settings in `theatres'. In the early anatomical illustrations discussed, women's bodies were objectified as the locus of male surgeons' practices, revealing the truth of bifurcated gender. Similarly, in popular digital sequences of anatomy composed around mobile microphotographic `fly-throughs' in The Human Body (1998) and in other Wellcome Trust/BBC productions, gender is abstracted in ways that continue to naturalize long-established binaries.

Color is an intrinsic visual attribute of form that functions as language and message. The purpose of this study was to investigate objectively structured color combinations as a means to communicate visual order for the purpose of reinforcing information hierarchy. Controlling the visual relationships of hue, value and chroma contrast can significantly assist a person's cognitive ability to assign importance and dominance to a controlled color structure. This research study provided significant findings supporting the hypothesis that intrinsic color structures can be formulated objectively; represent a visual hierarchy; and be perceived in an understandable order.

Chi-square analysis for 99 participants was calculated for task effectiveness. To analyze task efficiency, three distinct ANOVA calculations were made for time variations. The documented findings of this study presented explicit evidence that addresses specific mechanisms for objective color ordering. The natural inferences of the study support the proposition that there is a natural relationship between objective color ordering principles and human perception.

When pictures become journalistic, historical, and popular icons, there is a common belief that they also have a single, usable meaning, and media, political, and academic elites typically determine it. Yet, research on how people interpret images suggests that believing is seeing: pre-existing prejudices and experiences affect what meanings we draw from pictures. This is especially so when the viewer seeks out information that confirms strongly held notions, what mainstream audiences might think of in some cases as conspiracy theories. This article examines reaction to one of the most famous sets of images of the past century — photos of the 1969 Apollo moon landing — by proponents of the `moon hoax' theory, those who believe that the landings were faked by NASA. Analysis of moon hoax websites shows that the pictures' visual details are used as evidence that the mainstream interpretation is `visibly' in error.