This is not an apple

PICTURES «Ceci n’est pas une pomme»—as the Belgian surrealist René Magritte put it. This is not an apple, but an image from the Internet. After all, it takes more than just a fleeting glance to understand an image. That is the subject of Christian Doelker’s book.Images are everywhere. In newspapers, magazines, on posters, and on everyday objects. On television and in the movies, they hold absolute power. Nothing works without images. Images—or so we think—are „a given.“ But as in René Magritte’s apple example, a deeper understanding requires more than that. Namely, education, as Christian Doelker explains in his book. In *Bild-Bildung*, the author demonstrates in an engaging way how images are understood—using a wealth of visual examples. Christian Doelker’s visual semiotics takes images seriously in all their complexity: it reveals the possible levels and depths of meaning, the types of connections images form with their immediate context, and the functions they fulfill in the process.From the very beginning of his focus on images, the author’s aim has been to ensure that we understand information correctly and are able to evaluate it independently. It is important, he argues, that participants in media society are able to identify, appreciate, and reflect on the messages relevant to them amid the background noise of the media.