Visual sociology is an area of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

concerned with the visual dimensions of social life.

Theory and method

Visual sociology can be theoretically framed around three themes. Luc Pauwels suggests that the framework is based on the origin and nature of visuals, research focus and design, and format and purpose. There are at least three approaches to doing visual sociology:

Data collection using cameras and other recording technology

In this context, the camera is analogous to a

tape recorder An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

. Film and

video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of oth ...

s are particularly well suited as data gathering technologies for

experiment An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome oc ...

s and small group interactions, classroom studies, ethnography, participant observation, oral history, the use of urban space, etc. The tape recorder captures things that are not preserved in even the best researchers' field notes. Similarly, tape recordings preserve audible data not available in even the most carefully annotated transcripts:

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...

, the music of a voice, inflection, intonation, grunts and groans, pace, and space convey meanings easily (mis)understood but not easily gleaned from written words alone. By opening another channel of information, visual recordings preserve still more information. For instance, the raised eyebrow, the wave of a hand, the blink of an eye might convert the apparent meaning of words into their opposite, convey irony,

sarcasm Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...

, or

contradiction In traditional logic, a contradiction occurs when a proposition conflicts either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle's ...

. So, regardless of how one analyzes the data or what is done with the visual record, sociologists can use cameras to record and preserve data of interest so it can be studied in detail. Visual recording technology also allows us to manipulate the data. Visual recording can be used to represent other forms of recording technology and non-digital multimedia. Visual recordings have long been employed by natural

scientists A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...

because they make it possible to speed up, slow down, repeat, stop, and zoom in on things of interest. It is the same in the social sciences, recordings facilitate the study of phenomena that are too fast, or too slow, or too infrequent or too big or too small to study directly "in the life." Most importantly, through editing visual sociologists can juxtapose events to produce meanings. Sociologists may also be able to put cameras in places where one would not put a researcher: where it is dangerous, or where a person would be unwelcome, or simply to remove the observer effect from particular situations, e.g., studying social behavior among school children on a playground.

Photo elicitation Photo-elicitation is a method of interview in visual sociology and marketing research that uses visual images to elicit comments. The types of images used include photographs, video, paintings, cartoons, graffiti, and advertising, among others.Elisa ...

is another technique of data gathering. This methodological tool is a combination of photography as the visual equivalent of a tape recorder, and ethnography or other qualitative methods. Photo elicitation techniques involve using photographs or film as part of the interview—in essence asking research subjects to discuss the meaning of photographs, films or videos. In this case the images can be taken specially by the researcher with the idea of using them to elicit information, they can belong to the subject, for example family photographs or movies, or they can be gathered from other sources including archives, newspaper and television morgues, or corporate collections. Typically the interviewee's comments or analysis of the visual material is itself recorded, either on audio tape or video, etc. Photo voice is a related research method in which researchers give those being studied still or movie cameras. Research participants are taught to use the image making technology but are then responsible for making photos or movies which are subsequently analyzed either by the researchers or the participants, or both. The first use of photo voice was by Wang and Burris (published in 1994), where they defined it as "a method through which knowledge would be generated by people who were normally passive objects in the research process." In any case, in this first sense visual sociology means including and incorporating visual methods of data gathering and analysis in the work of sociology. This method has recently been transferred to other academic disciplines, notably having been pioneered in contemporary religious research.

Studying visual data produced by cultures

Visual sociology attempts to study visual images produced as part of culture.

Art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

, film,

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

fonts In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

advertisements Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

computer icons In computing, an icon is a pictogram or ideogram displayed on a computer screen in order to help the user navigate a computer system. The icon itself is a quickly comprehensible symbol of a software tool, function, or a data file, accessible on th ...

, landscape,

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

machines A machine is a physical system using power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecul ...

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion i ...

makeup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

hair style A hairstyle, hairdo, haircut or coiffure refers to the styling of hair, usually on the human scalp. Sometimes, this could also mean an editing of facial or body hair. The fashioning of hair can be considered an aspect of personal groomi ...

facial expressions A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are ...

tattoos A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing pr ...

, and so on are parts of the complex visual communication system produced by members of societies. The use and understanding of visual images is governed by socially established symbolic codes. Visual images are constructed and may be deconstructed. They may be read as texts in a variety of ways. They can be analyzed with techniques developed in diverse fields of literary criticism,

art theory Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

and criticism,

content analysis Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic ...

semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...

, deconstructionism, or the more mundane tools of ethnography. Visual sociologists can categorize and count them; ask people about them; or study their use and the social settings in which they are produced and consumed. So the second meaning of visual sociology is a discipline to study the visual products of society—their production, consumption and meaning.

Communication with images and media other than words

A third dimension of visual sociology is both the use of visual media to communicate sociological understandings to professional and public audiences, and also the use of visual media within sociological research itself. In this context, visual sociology draws on the work of

Edward Tufte Edward Rolf Tufte (; born March 14, 1942), sometimes known as "ET",. is an American statistician and professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University. He is noted for his writings on information design ...

, whose books ''Envisioning Information'' and ''The Visual Display of Quantitative Information'' address the communication of quantitative information. Qualitatively, visual sociology can be analyzed through content analysis, semiotics, and conversation analysis. Visual sociology considers the logics of presentation of sociological and anthropological documentarians and ethnographers like Robert Flaherty,

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarde ...

Margaret Mead Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard C ...

and Gregory Bateson, and

Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman (born January 1, 1930) is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director. His work is "devoted primarily to exploring American institutions". He has been called "one of the most important and original filmmakers wor ...

. Visual sociology also requires the development of new forms—for example, data driven computer graphics to represent complex relationships e.g., changing social networks over time, the

primitive accumulation of capital In Marxian economics and preceding theories,Perelman, p. 25 (ch. 2) the problem of primitive accumulation (also called previous accumulation, original accumulation) of capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore of how class distinctio ...

, the flow of labor, relations between theory and practice.

References

External links