A visual narrative (also visual storytelling) is a story told primarily through the use of visual media. This can be images in the mind, digital, and traditional media. The story may be told using still

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation, or visual explanation of a text, concept, or process, designed for integration in print and digitally published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vi ...

, or

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

, and can be enhanced with

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of the data, as in design and manufa ...

, music, voice and other audio.

Overview

The term "visual narrative" has been used to describe several genres of visual storytelling, from news and information (

photojournalism Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

, the

photo essay A photographic essay or photo-essay for short is a form of visual storytelling, a way to present a narrative through a series of images. A photo essay delivers a story using a series of photographs and brings the viewer along a narrative journey. ...

, the

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

) to entertainment (art, movies, television,

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

s, the

graphic novel A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

). In short, any kind of a story, told visually, is a visual narrative. It can also be used as a form of visual communication as people naturally use stories to understand the world and express their stories. In some circumstances, visual narrative can be misleading, misinformative, or disinformative. Visual narratives are of interest to the academic community to understand the impact and power of image and narrative in individuals and societies. The corresponding discipline is called visual

narratology Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. The term is an anglicisation of French ''narratologie'', coined by Tzvetan Todorov (''Grammaire du Décaméron'', 1969). Its theoretica ...

. Visual narrative might include: *stories from a point of view *images, still or moving *glimpses on a specific subject *an appeal for transformation in attitudes and behaviors

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Visual Narrative Visual arts Narrative forms

Overview

See also

References