International, innovative, multimodal and representative? The geographies, methods, modes and aims present in two visual communication journals

Abstract

This comparative review seeks to explore how international, innovative, multimodal and representative the scholarship published in two visual communication journals, Visual Communication (VC) and Visual Communication Quarterly (VCQ), is over a 25-year period (from VCQ’s founding in 1994 and from VC’s founding in 2002 through 2019). Through examining all 544 research articles published in these journals over this timeframe, an understanding can be achieved regarding which countries and geographic regions have received attention, the methods and means used to advance the authors’ arguments, the visuals under consideration and the authors’ focus and aims, which sometimes overlap with the visuals under consideration and are sometimes distinct from them. The results inform areas of potential future exploration, focus and attention for these two journals but are grounded in an understanding that systemic conditions also influence the types and designs of research that can be published and recognized.