The age of the image

We live in a world awash in images. The recent technological revolutions in video recording, editing. and distribution are more akin to the development of movable type than any other such revolution in the last 500 years. And yet we are not popularly cognizant of or conversant with the grammar of visual communication, the coded messages of its style, and the practical components of its production. We are largely, in a word, illiterate. But this is not a gloomy diagnosis of the collapse of civilization; rather, it is a celebration of the progress we've made and a plan to seize its potential. Now is the time, Apkon argues, to transform the way we teach, create, and communicate so that we can all step forward together into a rich and stimulating future.--From publisher description.