HANDBOOK OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION (2ND EDITION) EDITED BY SHEREE JOSEPHSON, JAMES D. KELLY, AND KEN SMITH. NEW YORK: ROUTLEDGE, 2020. 591PP. ISBN: 9781138590311 BOOK REVIEW

Abstract

Sheree Josephson, James D. Kelly, and Ken Smith edited the Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media (2020), the second edition. This book was published by Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group) in New York, United States of America. The first edition of this book was released in 2004.  The key theoretical areas and research methods of visual communication are reviewed in this Handbook of Visual Communication. This volume brings together important and influential work in the discipline, with chapters attributed by many of the most well-known and highly regarded researchers in visual communication. The second edition of this already-classic text has been totally modified to reflect the evolution of communication over the last 15 years, as well as the prevalence of visual communication in our modern mediated lifestyle. There are 13 major visual communication theories described by leading experts in their fields namely perception, cognition, aesthetics, visual rhetoric, semiotics, cultural studies, ethnography, narrative, media aesthetics, digital media, intertextuality, ethics, and visual literacy. Each chapter of this book covers a theory followed by an exemplar study or two in the relevant field, displaying the different methods used in visual communication research and also the research strategies appropriate to particular kinds of media. The Handbook of Visual Communication is a theoretical and methodological handbook for visual communication researchers, as well as a collection of most of the theoretical foundation required to comprehend visual communication. This book is an essential reading material for scholars, investigators and students in visual communication, because it may have an impact on many other fields like advertising, persuasion, and media studies. This book is useful especially for the media practitioners who want to comprehend the visual aspects of how viewers use media in order to make good use of each medium.