Visual Literacy Defined – The Results of a Delphi Study: Can IVLA (Operationally) Define Visual Literacy?

Abstract

A relatively new approach to visual thinking and the grammar of imagery is visual literacy. Visual messages have existed before text-based messaging in the forms of prehistoric pictured communications and other symbols, however, a definition of visual literacy that enjoys the consensus of the visual literacy scholarly community does not exist. The purpose of this study was to solicit a first generation definition of visual literacy as a result of a Delphi study. Inconclusive results lead the authors to challenge the International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA) to construct and adopt an operational definition of visual literacy