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This book elaborates on various theories and visual methodologies, emphasising the ubiquity of visual materials in today’s culture. (She gives a short, general summary of the “rise” of ocularcentrism in modernism and its evolution into simulacra in postmodern era). Rose systematically analyses a number of theoretical frameworks along with relevant methodologies to describe how, why and when we can use visual technologies as research supporting tools, or even as the foundation of the research itself.

Rose emphasises five major points from current debates about images:
1. Images are sites of resistance and recalcitrance; they produce their own particular effects that elude articulations (for example, Barthes’ (1981) punctum, and the tendency of images and texts to be presented together [Barthes 1977: 25-27]);
2. Images can construct, consolidate, or even disrupt social relations, they “offer very particular visions of social categories such as class, gender, race, sexuality, able-bodiedness, and so on,” a point that has been repeatedly studied in gender and postcolonial studies.
3. “Images of social difference work not simply by what they show but also by the kind of seeing that they invite,” how it positions the spectator in relation to it, a point elaborated by Berger’s (1972) famous BBC documentary and accompanying book.
4. The seeing of an image always takes place within a particular social context with its own particular practices, disciplines and rules that influence how the spectators behave and see the image.
5. Just as images have their own resistance and recalcitrance, so do audiences have their own responses. This particular aspect, usually studied through audiencing or reception studies, is usually neglected, generally preferring to analyse the institutional and media aspect of images. Audiencing or reception studies are more commonly done for mass media such as TV (Ang 1985, 1991; Walkerdine 1990), and radio, with a noticeable lack of research on the audiencing of photography and museum/gallery setting. (Perhaps Bourdieu, but a few recent ones that I’m aware of: Jones (2002) studies the reception of phatological images in museum setting, Rose (2005) herself studies the use of photographs within domestic setting.)

In summary, “an image may have its own visual effects (so it is important to look very carefully at images); these effects, through the ways of seeing mobilized by the image, are crucial in the production and reproduction of visions of social difference; but these effects always intersect with the social context of its viewing and the visualities its spectators bring to their viewing.”

Rose’ originality lies in her proposed analytical framework that is both critical yet at the same time emphasises reflexivity. She emphasises three sites—broadly concurred within the study of visual—where meanings are made: 1) the site(s) of the production, 2) the site of the image itself, and 3) the site(s) where it is seen by various audiences. (For similar emphasis, see Banks (2001); Barthes (1981) with his operator-spectrum-spectator; Pink (2006)).

In each of these sites, it is important to pay attention to three ‘modalities’: 1) technological, that is, ‘any form of apparatus designed either to be looked at or to enhance natural vision, from oil paintings to television and the Internet’. 2) Compositional strategies: content, colour and spatial organization, for example. 3) Social, “the range of economic, social and political relations, institutions and practices that surround an image and through which it is seen and used.”

Dissecting visual materials within here proposed framework, Rose then proceeds chapter by chapter studying various methodologies: 1) compositional interpretation, 2) content analysis, 3) semiology, 4) psychoanalysis, 5) discourse analysis (further divided into two, in its relation to: a) text, intertextuality and context; b) institution and ways of seeing), 6) audiencing, and mixing methods. Each chapter is accompanied by specified case studies, and ended with a summary, as well as its strengths and weaknesses.

Visual Methodologies offers a general and practical condensation of various visual theories and methodologies as well as giving rough outlines of the current debates and developments within various disciplines. Perhaps its weakness is the lack of ethical or applicative discussions of the methods, but otherwise, this book gives one of the most comprehensive analytical and methodological tools for visual research.

Tags:social science
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July 26, 2009 @ 1:13 am  | 1 Comment