Visual Cultural Arts as a Gateway to Digital Literacy

Societies increasingly use visual arts to communicate and teach about their cultures. Therefore, both visual and digital literacies are needed in order to better understand and appreciate cultural arts. With advances in reproduction and other technologies, visual messages cross traditionally defined cultures in different contexts, thus opening themselves to different cultural interpretations, further pointing out the need for visual and digital literacy to address the content, format, and context. The chapter uses a communications cycle framework to trace the intersection of visual and digital literacies, noting their universal and culturally-defined aspects. Because of the increased awareness of the importance of cultural identity and the impact of globalization, higher education needs to embrace visual cultural arts, both in terms of resources as well as instruction. The chapter provides several teaching strategies and resources to help students gain these important skills.