Abstract

Applying Carney and Levin’s (2002) functional classifications of images, the researchers evaluated four educational websites. Implementing visual rhetoric as a means of determining the function of images provides researchers with a means to evaluate images (Foss, 2004; 2005) and assess symbolic processes found on recommended educational websites (Kenney, 2005). Scholars must evaluate both text and image, thus assisting students in comprehending what they are reading, especially on the internet (Walker, Schloss, Fletcher, Vogel, & Walker, 2005). Levin (1981) identified five functions pictures serve in text processing now relevant when viewing pictures on computers (Carney & Levin, 2002). The functions the researchers implemented in evaluation of images are decoration, representation, organization, interpretation, and transformation. Levin (1981) describes how these functions “focus on the concreteness, relatedness, meaningfulness, and memorableness of pictures” (p. 214), thus increasing comprehension of reading material. Images on the websites analyzed for this paper fulfill all of the functional categories described by Carney and Levin (2002). Careful image choices made by designers of these websites aided in understanding textual information on the websites.