My library button
  • Book cover of Visual Communication

    Visual communication is just as important as verbal communication, if not more so. VISUAL COMMUNICATION: IMAGES WITH MESSAGES, 6E, International Edition shows you how visual perception is used in all forms of communication, whether it's graphic design, photography, television, video, or interactive media. In addition, this 6th edition is presented in full color from cover to cover. And because it's packed with study and review tools, it not only clearly explains the theories you need to know, it helps you prepare for tests and will help you succeed in the class.

  • Book cover of Visual Ethics

    Visual Ethics addresses the need for critical thinking and ethical behavior among professionals responsible for visual messages in photography and photojournalism, film, and digital media. From the author of Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach, published more than 20 years ago, this book goes beyond photojournalism ethics. It discusses crucial contemporary concerns, including persuasion, stereotyping, global perspectives, graphic design decisions, multimedia production, social media, and more. Written for an ever-growing discipline, author Paul Martin Lester gives serious ethical consideration to the complex field of visual communication.

  • Book cover of The Zen of Photography

    The Zen of Photography: How to Take Pictures with your Mind's Camera is a collection of 100 sayings that the author has written over a 25 year period. By merging the study of photography and the study of Zen philosophy, one learns to use a camera a way of connecting more fully with the world. Consequently, a camera is not used as a wall between what is seen and what is experienced, but is a tool that serves to unite the photographer with what is experienced through the photographic process. This book teaches that photography is much more than f-stops, shutter speed and aperture settings, film choices, and camera purchases. If photography were merely a technical operation, robots could take great pictures. Learning is about readiness. Because you are a loving, thinking person who found this book, you want to be inspired to elevate your picture taking to a level in which you learn from the moments you observe and teach others to be moved by those moments. This book is ready for you. AUTHOR BIO: Paul Martin Lester is a Professor of Communications at California State University, Fullerton. After an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and employment as a photojournalist for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. Lester received a Master's from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. from Indiana University in mass communications. He is the author or editor of seven books.

  • Book cover of Visual Ethics

    An indispensable guide to visual ethics, this book addresses the need for critical thinking and ethical behavior among students and professionals responsible for a variety of mass media visual messages. Written for an ever-growing discipline, authors Paul Martin Lester, Stephanie A. Martin, and Martin Rodden-Smith give serious ethical consideration to the complex field of visual communication. The book covers the definitions and uses of six philosophies, analytical methods, cultural awareness, visual reporting, documentary, citizen journalists, advertising, public relations, typography, graphic design, data visualizations, cartoons, motion pictures, television, computers and the web, augmented and virtual reality, social media, the editing process, and the need for empathy. At the end of each chapter are case studies for further analysis and interviews with thoughtful practitioners in each field of study, including Steven Heller and Nigel Holmes. This second edition has also been fully revised and updated throughout to reflect on the impact of new and emerging technologies. This book is an important resource for students of photojournalism, photography, filmmaking, media and communication, and visual communication, as well as professionals working in these fields.

  • Book cover of Photojournalism

    Originally published in 1991. "A photojournalist is a mixture of a cool, detached professional and a sensitive, involved citizen. The taking of pictures is much more than F-stops and shutter speeds. The printing of pictures is much more than chemical temperatures and contrast grades. The publishing of pictures is much more than cropping and size decisions. A photojournalist must always be aware that the technical aspects of the photographic process are not the primary concerns." This book addresses ethics in photojournalism in depth, with sections on the philosophy in the discipline, on pictures of victims or disaster scenes, on privacy rights and on altering images. As important and interesting today as when it was first in print.

  • No image available

  • Book cover of Digital Innovations for Mass Communications

    In every field of mass communications—advertising, entertainment studies, journalism, public relations, radio-television-film, tourism, and visual reporting—professionals understand the importance of storytelling. Regardless of whether the finished product is a commercial, an in-depth investigative piece, a public service campaign, an independent documentary, a travelogue, or a collection of photographs, effective storytelling requires a combination of creativity, empathy, and expertise. Through the innovative technologies and techniques described in this textbook, students will learn how to turn passive readers and viewers into engaged and regular users. The sixteen chapters each include a brief introduction, assignments, simple-to-follow step-by-step exercises, and sources for additional information in which users will learn to produce apps, informational graphics, quick response codes, quizzes, simulations, smartphone and table icons, social media campaigns, three-dimensional pictures, and video. Students will work with the following programs: Blogger, Dreamweaver, Excel, Facebook, GeoCommons, Google Maps, Illustrator, Imgur, iMovie, Infogram, iShowU, JavaScript, JustGive, Kaywa, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Onvert, Photoshop, Pixel Resort, QuickTime, Reddit, Second Life, SurveyMonkey, TheAppBuilder, Twitter, Vizualize, Wikipedia, Word, WordPress, and YouTube. When digital innovations are added to traditional print and screen presentations, a media user is not only allowed to interact with the information but can also physically engage with the story displayed. Giving students the tools they need to transform their storytelling in this manner is the ultimate goal of this textbook.

  • No image available

  • Book cover of Images That Injure

    This expanded collection of new and fully revised explorations of media content identifies the ways we all have been negatively stereotyped and demonstrates how careful analysis of media portrayals can create more beneficial alternatives. Not all damaging stereotypes are obvious. In fact, the pictorial stereotypes in the media that we don't notice could be the most harmful because we aren't even aware of the negative, false ideas they perpetrate. This book presents a series of original research essays on media images of groups including African Americans, Latinos, women, the elderly, the physically disabled, gays and lesbians, and Jewish Americans, just to mention a few. Specific examples of these images are derived from a variety of sources, such as advertising, fine art, film, television shows, cartoons, the Internet, and other media, providing a wealth of material for students and professionals in almost any field. Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, Third Edition not only accurately describes and analyzes the media's harmful depictions of cultural groups, but also offers creative ideas on alternative representations of these individuals. These discussions illuminate how each of us is responsible for contributing to a sea of meaning within our mass culture.

  • Book cover of On Floods and Photo Ops

    A close study of the visual record left by political visits following disasters Presidents Herbert Clark Hoover and George Walker Bush were challenged many times during their political careers. On Floods and Photo Ops: How Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush Exploited Catastrophes focuses on the visual record of two such tests: the relief efforts led by Commerce Secretary Hoover during the 1927 Mississippi River flood and the Bush team's response to Hurricane Katrina. By concentrating on these two historic events, Paul Martin Lester discusses political photography, particularly the use of photo ops during catastrophes. He illuminates the evolution of a genre and explores the differences and similarities between these two American politicians. Hoover and Bush reached the pinnacle of political achievement, only to lose in the court of popular opinion. From two photo ops that occurred almost eighty years apart, Lester offers a model for close readings and comparisons of images in practicing visual history. Under Lester's examination, these otherwise unremarkable photographs speak volumes about political response to natural disasters. He offers readers not just a deeper appreciation of these pictures but a methodology for seriously studying photographs and what they can reveal about a historical moment. Paul Martin Lester is a professor of communications at California State University, Fullerton. He is the author of Visual Communication: Images with Messages and Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach and coeditor of Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media.