This book is about the expanding realm of visual culture: in everything from architecture and art to computer imagery and virtual reality, this is the age of the visual image, and whatever excites and attracts the eye the most is king. Visual Culture is also about visual culture studies, a relatively new academic discipline, or rather range of disciplines, that scholars employ to analyze visual artifacts. Unlike many other texts on the same subject, it places the "visual" in the foreground and is systematic and accessible. The volume provides an overview of the subject that pays attention to the achievements of both traditional and new theory while directing the reader to a large body of literature via references and an extensive bibliography. John Walker and Sarah Chaplin discuss the concepts of "the visual" and of "culture" as well as the field and origins of Visual Culture Studies; coping with theory; models of production and consumption; institutions; pleasure; the canon and concepts of value; visual literacy and poetics; modes of analysis; culture and commerce; and new technologies.