Visual Literacy: A Critical Discourse Analysis Framework

Abstract

       The influence of media on our lives, which can be massive, must be understood to guide our future. Scholars have demonstrated that media can create division among people. Media literacy can help learners achieve awareness, studying how media is produced, circulated and consumed. Media literacy, semiotic and non-semiotic, is necessary in post conflict Iraqi EFL classroom to manipulate the impact of media on our lives. This study is limited to visual communication, which is completely neglected in Iraqi EFL classroom. It highlights the importance of visual media awareness in classroom, introducing EFL teachers with a framework of critical visual analysis. This framework depends on the linguistic analysis of media semiotic discourse within its contexts. Consequently, it attracts the attention of teachers to the importance of visual media discourse into Iraqi EFL classroom in an attempt to cope with the development in education in western universities. Visual media literacy can help create aware citizens.