The age of new media and rapid growth of technology has brought about an observable transformation of contemporary discourse especially in the mediums of storytelling and narrative structures.
In a world dominated by visuals, the author, the artist, the filmmaker, and the designer are being compelled to produce newer forms of the narrative to meet the demands of a growing audience who want novelty in everything they consume. It has been argued by many theorists that the study of the narrative is largely tackled on two fronts;
The story
which consists of the content, the chain of events, action, happenings, characters
The discourse
the discourse, that is the expression - the means by which the content is communicated
If the form of the narrative is to be studied along with the content, we
must then find interdisciplinary approaches, drawing on theories and methods
from semiotics, art history, cultural studies, design methodologies and
communication theory.
As such analyzing not only the content of visual narratives but also their
context, production, and reception along with a comprehensive examination that
reveals the power dynamics, ideologies, and cultural narratives embedded within
visual media becomes the need of the hour. Attempting to decipher implicit meanings,
societal implications, we hope this exercise might also challenge the stakeholders
to question how images construct identities, reinforce stereotypes, and shape
political and social realities.
With this in mind, we call for papers from researchers all across the
world, to present their work, with a special emphasis on the design of visual
narratives in the larger context of Visual Discourse- a dialogue between the
makers, the readers and the scholars who study the phenomenon.
