Street Art and Literacy

A section I found really interesting in the Hamilton article was in the section titled Comparing ethnographic photographs and media photographs. I found part c of this section the most interesting because it talks about how the images for these different outlets are selected. While images for enthographic purposes are selected based on what they define as ‘typical’ or ‘critical’ literacy moments, media photographs are selected based on the values of the newspaper and those of the readers. However I really like the reference that Hamilton pulls in from Stuart Hall that talks about how photos for news agencies are only shocking or newsworthy because we as readers understand that those images are out of the ordinary. Our literary knowledge and knowledge of the world lets us know how and why the image before us is shocking. Hamilton goes on to explain that the media, along with ethnography, show readers about our common cultures and stereotypes.

 

The image of literacy I used this week was a street art mural I saw this summer in London. The text comes from my favorite song by The Smiths and it says “If a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.”

For me, this was such a cool piece of street art because this song means a lot to me. The Smiths are one of my dad’s and mine favorite bands and this song in particular is our favorite to belt out. So finding that image on a wall in London was amazing for me. But street art doesn’t always bring up positive emotions from people. Street art and graffiti are ften looked down on depending on where it is and what is shown. Tagging verses art tends to depend on who is talking about the image. Our different literacy backgrounds effect how we look at street art and how we value the art.