17 Introduction *************************************************** The rationale for this book begins with the commonly held belief that there is a shift toward the image from the written word. This is often stated in introductions to books on visual culture as an accepted feature of contemporary society and part of the context for their discussion. This book is a chance to pause on this idea and discuss it more broadly. The book is introductory in that it is not intended to be a definitive text on `word and image' ­ it would be foolish to assume that the huge range of this topic could be covered in a single publication ­ instead the book aims to provide a series of doorways into different examples, and attempts to draw these together to form a useful discussion. The discussion is limited context