Our Desk | An Image (should be) worth more than 1,000 words

Renato Marques

The expression is not new; in fact, you probably don’t have a clear idea about how old it is. According to some sources the idea expressed by the phrase “Use a picture. It is worth a thousand words” appeared in the early 20th Century in a newspaper article from the editor Tess Flanders.
Flanders’  purpose was apparently to discuss matters of interest to journalism and publicity, and even without any “social networks” as we see them today (of the internet kind) the expression went “viral” suffering a number of transformations according to its new “editor”  but without losing its character; its essence.
And why is that? Why is an expression over 100 years old still so incredibly “up-to-date”? Apparently we could not yet find a more effective way to deliver a message than by using an image.
In fact, the “image” itself (the word) is so important that we gave it a wide range of meanings, including being a representation of ourselves, our character or our reputation – our own image.
But an “image” is far more than a representation of the external form of a person. In fact, it does not need to be a person; it can be a group, a company, a country, a society, or even a stone or any other object.
Can you conceive society without images? It is difficult, I guess…
Have you ever tried to use the Internet-based social networks without images? What was the result?
In a fast pace society, like the ones we all have, people hardly read more than a warning sign. On social media we are taught our paragraphs should be short and present only one idea so people that read it do not get lost, confused or distracted.
In Macau, most information is written in Chinese that I (most of the time) cannot decode. Sometimes we find information written in English and Portuguese, still an official language. And some other times we even find information, signs, leaflets and other material written in other languages.
For some, a society is considered more global as more languages can be found being spoken, written and read. For me, the most global of all societies is the one that exempts translations. Images can replace the written word in this society – not because they are more expressive, but because the latter is no longer necessary.
Several sources point-out that the term “visual literacy” appeared in the early 21st century.
Apparently we took about 100 years to give a name to that idea of Tess Flanders, how many years more will we need to really understand it?
What I do know is that “image” is important and maybe, if we are required to “read” those, maybe, just maybe, we do not need to write another 1,000 words to explain what is already “written” there.
Saying this, I assume that we all know that we should care about our “image” and images, and by care I mean to protect, to expose, to nurture, to cultivate and even to flaunt them.
In the information age, some people have already learned this lesson. Contrarily a few others have chosen not to follow the advice and are apparently trying to “swim against the tide.” But what impresses me the most is the attitude of the majority that are still drifting; waiting for the “latest trend” to come.
Today I wrote about “image” but I guess the same applies to many other things in our society.