Book Preview: The Age of the Image, by Stephen Apkon

The Age of the Image CoverChristopher Caldwell writes in the Weekend FT about a new book, The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens, by Stephen Apkon (available tomorrow on Amazon).

Apkon argues that there is a new kind of global literacy, based not on words, but images. This looks like a significant book for anyone involved in executive communications, speechwriting or professional speaking. The Amazon review states:

We live in a world that is awash in visual storytelling. 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 five hundred years. And yet we are not popularly cognizant of or conversant with visual storytelling’s grammar, 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 an exhortation and a plan to seize the potential we’re poised to enjoy. The rules that define effective visual storytelling—much like the rules that define written language—do in fact exist, and Stephen Apkon has long experience in deploying them, teaching them, and witnessing their power in the classroom and beyond. In The Age of the Image, drawing on the history of literacy—from scroll to codex, scribes to printing presses, SMS to social media—on the science of how various forms of storytelling work on the human brain, and on the practical value of literacy in real-world situations, Apkon convincingly argues that now is the time to transform the way we teach, create, and communicate so that we can all step forward together into a rich and stimulating future.

Caldwell quotes Elizabeth Daley, Dean of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, who believes writing today is like Latin on the eve of the Renaissance–the language of scholars. YouTube clips are now the street language and the medium of creative thinking–the equivalent of vernacular Italian.

Apkon’s book includes chapters on why the brain sees pictures first and the rules of grammar in the age of images.

This sounds like a fascinating and provocative book and I’ve just pre-ordered my copy. I’ll overlook the fact that this is 260-page printed book and not a 120-minute movie. I’ve always considered myself more of a scholar like Cicero than some street-smart guy haggling on the Via Salaria.

5 Comments so far
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Globalization which requires effective communication is driving this change. Pictures (eg. international symbols for road signs) cross cultures and cultural bias.

I agree Tom. This is something executives need to be aware of when they craft their presentations. It’s rare that here in Silicon Valley audiences are mono-cultural and, as you observe, pictures cross cultural barriers.

There are, however, differences in the way people from different cultural backgrounds interpret the same image, as shown in the series of well-known HSBC ads like this:

HSBC Ad

I am hoping Apkon’s book will discuss this topic as part of his explanation of the “grammar” of images.

Apkon is biting off a big chunk by taking on viz literacy and trying to define an age. With a forward by Martin Scorsese, I’d say he’s employed a powerful but irrelevant advocate. With Goodfellas, Casino, Departed, etc. he is hardly the voice for educational /youth centered advocacy in the viz lit area. More like a “Master of sociopahthic storytelling”.(Hugo exception)
Yes, ironic the book is the grand summation of the image, in at 50,000 words. Summary seems to be a great example of Taleb’s “Lecturing Birds on How to Fly”. Society already gets Youtube, propaganda, and image manipulation. Photoshop is a verb and every phone has a camera. The better title would be “The Age of Sharing” Redifining Literacy in a world tied together by all literacies.
On that front “What Technology Wants” and “The Information” define our age beyond the narrow scope of “image”. I’ll pass on this one.

Cosner: I’m over half-way through the book now and I’m finding it a fascinating read. While there might be some hyperbole in his argument, he recognizes that for the first time since the invention of the moving image at the end of the 19th Century we all now have the means of producing these at our fingertips. I’ll be writing a full review (as opposed to my brief preview) in the near future.

Thank you for bringing this article to my attention, it is appreciated.



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