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A central component of media literacy should be an understanding of the representational conventions through which the users of media create and share meanings. This paper analyzes the representational conventions of visual communications. It distinguishes between semantic and syntactic conventions and focuses on those characteristics that most sharply differentiate visual language from other modes of communication. It examines the impact of visual literacy on viewers' cognitive growth and on their development as informed consumers of visual media.
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Paul Messaris (1998) studied this question.
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