As the knowledge-based information society accelerates, not only a written language but also multimedia
literacy becomes significant. The capacity to utilize multimodal symbol systems has become a central part
of convergence education. At the same time, there is an increasing attention to the notion of visual literacy,
which used to be emphasized in visual culture art education. In response to this social demand, this study
purports to investigate the extended concepts of visual literacy for convergence education as an alternative
way. This study investigates how the concept of literacy has expanded from the traditional view of being
literate as reading and writing in the era of digital media that has rapidly changed daily life. Then the concept
of visual literacy is reconstructed based on the historical review of visual culture art education in Korea
as well as the current discourses of visual literacy in various fields. The significance of this study can be
found in that it lays the ground for teaching visual literacy from the broadened perspective of convergence
education.