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THE 224 Stage Makeup (Moschella, Fall 2024)

Evaluating Images

"Visual literacy is a set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media. Visual literacy skills equip a learner to understand and analyze the contextual, cultural, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, and technical components involved in the production and use of visual materials. A visually literate individual is both a critical consumer of visual media and a competent contributor to a body of shared knowledge and culture"

Critically evaluate the perspective of the creator(s) of a primary source, including tone, subjectivity, and biases, and consider how these relate to the original purpose(s) and audience(s) of the source.

Question Authority: Check for Responsibility

  • Look for the name of the individual or organization responsible for the page. Look for the following information:
  • "About" link — is there an “about,” “background,” or “FAQ” link that names the individual or organization responsible for this information? To find an "about" link or information about the author/organization you may need to find the homepage for the entire site. This may require backtracking a url, i.e. deleting the end of the URL section by section until you find a main page for the site.
  • If no background information about the author is given, try using Google to search the author's name. You can also check with your library to see if the author has written other books or articles on this topic. If there is no personal author, attempt to find information about an organization by Googling the organization name or by checking with your library.

Who is the Intended Audience for the Website? 

  • Was the website designed for a general audience looking for basic encyclopedic information? Or does the website look more like an elementary school report? A scholar, writing for an expert audience, may include citations and will use language that is frequently more academic.
  • Is there a clear purpose or reason for this site? Websites can be created for a variety of purposes: to disseminate information, provide access to collections, support teaching, sell products, persuade, etc. Discerning the purpose can help you determine the quality of the information the site provides. 
  • Some pages explicitly state their purpose, others do not. To find information about the purpose:
  • Check for an “about” or “FAQ” link — these links often provide information about the purpose of the site.

Understand Lack of Inclusion of Represenation

  • Understand that historical records may never have existed, may not have survived, or may not be collected and/or publicly accessible. Existing records may have been shaped by the selectivity and mediation of individuals such as collectors, archivists, librarians, donors, and/or publishers, potentially limiting the sources available for research,

It is important to critically evaluate images you use for research, study, and presentations. Images should be evaluated like any other source, as such as journal articles or books, to determine their quality, reliability, and appropriateness. Consider textual information provided with the image, the image source and original context of the image, and the technical quality of the image. The following questions can help guide your analysis and evaluation.

Content analysis

  • What do you see?
  • What is the image about?
  • Are there people in the image? What are they doing? How are they presented?
  • Can the image be looked at in different ways?
  • How effective is the image as a visual message?

Visual analysis 

  • How is the image composed? What is in the background, and what is in the foreground?
  • What are the most important visual elements in the image? How can you tell?
  • How is color used?
  • Can the image be looked at in different ways?
  • What meanings are conveyed by design choices?

Contextual information

  • What information accompanies the image?
  • Does the text change how you see the image? How?
  • Is the textual information intended to be factual and inform, or is it intended to influence what and how you see?
  • What kind of context does the information provide? Does it answer the questions Where, How, Why, and For whom was the image made?

Image source

  • Where did you find the image?
  • What information does the source provide about the origins of the image?
  • Is the source reliable and trustworthy?
  • Was the image found in an image database, or was it being used in another context to convey meaning?

Technical quality

  • Is the image large enough to suit your purposes?
  • Are the color, light, and balance true?
  • Is the image a quality digital image, without pixelation or distortion?
  • Is the image in a file format you can use?
  • Are there copyright or other use restrictions you need to consider? 
  • Lateral readers don’t spend time on the page or site until they’ve first gotten their bearings by looking at what other sites and resources say about the source at which they are looking.
  • They Open up many tabs in their browser, piecing together different bits of information from across the web to get a better picture of the site they’re investigating.
  • Is the person or organization reputable? Are they known to provide unbiased and factual information?
  • The fact-checkers did not investigate the site, but immediately searched for information on the web about the groups.

Tips for Lateral Reading

1. Look for the original source of the information. When you see "According to xxyNews" or "Research says"... find those sources.

2. Google search a domain: baltimoregazette.com -site:baltimoregazette.com. . This way you'll find articles talking about the site not on the site.

3. Check the waybackmachine for page changes