The few general studies of the form have emphasized its strictly formal characteristics, offering either historical reviews or taxonomies based on the kinds of graphic elements included as well as uses of the page space. Practiced throughout the world but with an efflorescence from the 1960s to the present, visual writing has nevertheless not been graced with a comprehensive, culturally sensitive theory. Because of its unusual physical properties, visual writing has run up against the negative consequences of not being fit for the normal channels of distribution.
Visual writing falls in betweeen.
These social conditions governing the distribution of visual writing have contributed to a poverty of criticism of the primary material. What is lacking in those general treatments mentioned above is a convincing account of the politically challenging dimension of visual writing. In order to break out of this bind, one must complement formal analyses with attention to historical context as derived from a cross-cultural or comparatist methodology. Hence the importance of the international networks which have arisen for the circulation and review of the various forms of visual writing. The visual examples make possible the kinds of comparisons called for above.