I do realize that many if not most of the journalists who do these inane news articles on graphic novels are totally unfamiliar with the subject, and that is the reason for the inanity and errors and insulting value judgments. But reporters are also supposed to do research for their articles, and if they think something isn't newsworthy enough to merit enough research to be sure of understanding it, why are they writing about it? "It was my editor's idea, not mine," is a good enough reason for not being wildly enthusiastic about a subject, but not for doing a half-assed job with it.
Aaargh.
There was an article in the New Yorker some months back, discussing Proust and the Squid and the science of reading and the human brain, which, after discussing the science of video games and the brain, gently suggested that mental benefit of reading lay not in it being difficult than other ways of learning, but in being easier--once you are a quick and able reader of words, you have more brainspace free to think critically about what's being conveyed to you than you do with any other kind of communication.
(I find it much, much easier to read critically than to listen critically; when I'm listening to someone talk, I have to concentrate a lot harder just to follow a line thought and remember what was said before. Some people obviously find critical listening easier than I do, but there's a lot to suggest that this is what separates a literate society from a non-literate society--the latter has to spend a lot more time and energy just trying not to forget important things.) For this reason, I will not make overly much of the fact that I find it takes more of my mental energy to read a wordless graphic novel than any kind of writing less complex than the text of a House bill. But hell! Fewer words doesn't mean something's necessarily easier to understand! And anybody who claims it doesn't understand much about the science of communication.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2008-06-20 05:38 pm (UTC)Aaargh.
There was an article in the New Yorker some months back, discussing Proust and the Squid and the science of reading and the human brain, which, after discussing the science of video games and the brain, gently suggested that mental benefit of reading lay not in it being difficult than other ways of learning, but in being easier--once you are a quick and able reader of words, you have more brainspace free to think critically about what's being conveyed to you than you do with any other kind of communication.
(I find it much, much easier to read critically than to listen critically; when I'm listening to someone talk, I have to concentrate a lot harder just to follow a line thought and remember what was said before. Some people obviously find critical listening easier than I do, but there's a lot to suggest that this is what separates a literate society from a non-literate society--the latter has to spend a lot more time and energy just trying not to forget important things.) For this reason, I will not make overly much of the fact that I find it takes more of my mental energy to read a wordless graphic novel than any kind of writing less complex than the text of a House bill. But hell! Fewer words doesn't mean something's necessarily easier to understand! And anybody who claims it doesn't understand much about the science of communication.