Visualizing Respect: Visual Media Literacy and Students’ Understanding of Globalization and Technology Issues

Abstract

This article explores the process and outcome of engaging university students in a popular culture analysis course in visual analysis activities to reveal their assumptions about globalization as created or reinforced by visual representations in the media. Although Tomlinson (1999) urges us to understand globalization as “complex connectivity ” (p. I), visual media portrayals reinforce the culture of capitalism, myths of technology, and simplistic views of globalization. Through visually analyzing a 30-second TV spot called “The Procession,” students surfaced their pre-existing understanding of the term globalization and the role of visual media representations in creating it. Students became more aware of what Kellner (2002) calls the “contradictions and ambiguities” (p. 285) of globalization as they shifted their perspective in this ad from an unquestioning, comfortable Western one to one that prohlematized this visual media portrayal of globalization, technology, and “others.”.