In "Visual Communication: Perception, Rhetoric and Technology," Diane Hope sets a standard for theoretical exploration far too few scholars attempt. Not only does this leader in visual communication scholarship spotlight the illusory but significant power of the visual, but she also calls for attention to the visual as "a foundational core within the discipline of communication." Her clarifying introduction effectively outlines the sometimes conflicting but nevertheless contingent intersections of cognitive, discursive and mechanical forces at work in visual communication, whether those forces be visual artifacts, visual practices, or most important, the role of the visual in meaning making and identity formation. In the heart of the book nestle more than 200 pages of thought-provoking chapters by visual scholars Hope has pulled together from her seminal conferences on "Visual Communication: Rhetoric and Technology." Appropriately, the list of scholars proves as eclectic as the field of visual communication itself, following the full circle from experts in cognitive processing to economists.
