Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Imagination and society: the role of visual sociology

  • Review
  • Published:
Cognitive Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The paper presents the field of Visual Sociology as an approach that makes use of photographs, films, documentaries, videos, to capture and assess aspects of social life and social signals. It overviews some relevant works in the field, it deals with methodological and epistemological issues, by raising the question of the relation between the observer and the observed, and makes reference to some methods of analysis, such as those proposed by the Grounded Theory, and to some connected tools for automatic qualitative analysis, like NVivo. The relevance of visual sociology to the study of social signals lies in the fact that it can validly integrate the information, introducing a multi-modal approach in the analysis of social signals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Banks M (2008) Using visual data in qualitative research. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateson G, Mead M (1942) Balinese character. A photographic analysis. New York Academy of Sciences, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauer MW, Gaskell G (eds) (2000) Qualitative researching with text, image and sound. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker HS (1982) Art worlds. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker H (1995) Backup of visual sociology, documentary photography, and photojournalism: it’s (almost) all a matter of context. Vis Sociol 10(1–2):5–14

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger P (ed) (1977) Facing up to modernity. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Bogaart NCR, Katelaar HWER (eds) (1983) Methodology in anthropological filmmaking. Edition Herodot, Goettingen

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu P (sous la direction de) (1965) Un art moyen. Essai sur les usages sociaux de la photographie, Minuit, Paris; Photography. A Middle-b Row Art, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1990

  • Canevacci M (2001) Antropologia della comunicazione visuale. Meltemi, Roma

    Google Scholar 

  • Castells M (1996) The rise of the network society. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiozzi P (1993) Manuale di antropologia visiva. Unicopli, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Deacy C, Arweck E (eds) (2009) Exploring religion and the sacred in a media age. Burlington (USA), Ashgate

  • De France C (1982) Cinéma et anthropologie. Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Durkheim É (1895) Les règles de la méthode sociologique, Alcan, Paris; The elementary forms of the religious life. The totemic system in Australia, Free Press, New York, 1995

  • Ekman P, Rosenberg EL (2005) What the face reveals: basic and applied studies of spontaneous expression using the facial action coding system. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Faccioli F, Harper D (eds) (1999) Mondi da vedere. Verso una sociologia più visuale. Franco Angeli, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Faccioli F, Losacco G (2003) Manuale di sociologia visuale. Franco Angeli, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Faeta F (2003) Strategie dell’occhio. Saggi di etnografia visiva. Franco Angeli, Milano

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaser B, Strauss A (1967) The discovery of grounded theory. Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Grady J (2001) Becoming a visual sociologist. Sociol Imagin 38(1/2):83–119

    Google Scholar 

  • Harper D (1998) An argument for visual sociology. In: Prosser J (ed) Image based research. A source book for qualitative researchers. Routledge, London, pp 24–41

    Google Scholar 

  • Harper D (2010) Visual sociology. An introduction. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Heath C, Luff P, Hindmarsh J (2009) Audio visual methods in social research. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Henny L (1980) Raising consciousness through film (II). The use of the audiovisual media in international development education. Sociological Institute, University of Utrecht, Utrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Henny L (1983) Video and the community. In Dowrick PW, Biggs SJ (eds) Using video. Psychological and social applications. Wiley, London, pp 167–177

  • Henny L (1986) Theory and practice of visual sociology. Curr Sociol 34(3):1–76

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoover SM (2001) Visual religion in media culture. In: Morgan D, Promey S (eds) The visual culture of American religions. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 146–159

    Google Scholar 

  • Kissmann UT (ed) (2009) Video interaction analysis. Methods and methodology. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main

    Google Scholar 

  • Knoblauch H, Schnettler B, Raab J, Soeffner H-G (eds) (2006) Video analysis: methodology and methods. qualitative audiovisual data analysis in sociology. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main

  • Kwan MP (2008) Methods in feminist geography. In: Nagy Hesse-Biber S, Leavy P (eds) Handbook of emergent methods. Guilford Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Lash S, Featherstone M (2001) Recognition and difference: politics, identity, multiculture. Theor Cult Soc 18(2–3):1–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Losacco G (2003) Godstock. I papa boys al giubileo del 2000, Franco Angeli, Milano (with video-cassette)

  • Lyon D (2000) Jesus in Disneyland. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Mattioli F (1991) Sociologia visuale. ERI, Torino

    Google Scholar 

  • Mattioli F (2007) La sociologia visuale. Che cos’è e come si fa. Bonanno, Acireale-Roma

    Google Scholar 

  • May C (2002) The information society. Polity Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Mellor PA (2004) Religion, culture and society in the ‘information age’. Sociol Religion 65(4):357–371

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milic N (2008a) Balkanizing taxonomy. www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/balkanizing-taxonomy/exhibition.htm

  • Milic N (2008b) To memory and back. www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/balkanizing-taxonomy/essay.htm

  • Mitchell C (2009) Doing visual research. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Morency L, de Kok I, Gratch J (2008) Context-based recognition during human interactions: automatic feature selection and encoding dictionary. In: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on multimodal interfaces, pp 181–188

  • Morgan M (2007) The Lure of images. A history of religion and visual media in America. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan D (2008) Key words in religion, media and culture. Routledge, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Pauwels L (2008) A private visual practice going public? Social functions and sociological research opportunities of web-based family photography. Vis Stud 23(1):34–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pink S (2005) The future of visual anthropology. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Pink S (2007) Doing visual ethnography: images, media and representation in research. Sage, London (1st ed. 2001)

  • Pink S (2009) Doing sensory ethnography. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Rich M, Chalfen R (1999) Showing and telling asthma: children teaching physicians with visual narratives. Vis Sociol 14(1–2):51–71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson L (2000) Writing: a method of inquiry. In: Denzin NK, Lincoln YS (eds) Handbook of qualitative research. Sage, London, pp 923–948

    Google Scholar 

  • Rieger J (2003) A retrospective visual study of social change: the pulp-logging industry in an upper Peninsula Michigan country. Vis Stud 18(2):157–178

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose G (2006) Visual methodologies. An introduction to the interpretation of visual methods. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruby J (2000) Picturing culture. Explorations of film and anthropology. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Russell JA, Bachorowski J, Fernandez-Dols J (2003) Facial and vocal expressions of emotion. Annu Rev Psychol 54:329–349

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Saukko P (2003) Doing research in cultural studies. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Schnettler B, Raab J (2008) Interpretative visual analysis. Developments, state of art and the pending problems. Forum Qual Res 9(3):art. 31. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0803314

  • Secrist C, De Koeyer I, Bell H, Fogel A (2002) Combining video digital technology and narrative methods for understanding infant development. Forum Qual Res 3(2):24. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0202245

  • Sooryamoorthy R (2007) Behind the scenes. Making research films in sociology. Int Sociol 22(5):547–563

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stanczak G (ed) (2007) Visual research methods. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Teddlie C, Tashakkori A (eds) (2003) Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research. Sage, Thousand Oaks

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright MJ (2007) Religion and film: an introduction. J. B. Taurus, London

  • Zeng Z, Pantic M, Roisman GI, Huang T (2009) A survey of affect recognition methods: audio, visual, and spontaneous expressions. IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell 31(1):39–58

    Google Scholar 

  • Zizek S (2002) Welcome to the desert of the real. Verso, London

    Google Scholar 

Videos and films

  • De La Torre S, Funari V (2006) Maquilàpolis. Mexico/USA. www.maquilapolis.com

  • Peeva A (2003) Chia e tazi pesen? (Whose is this song). Adela Media Film and TV Production Company, Belgium/Bulgaria

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Roma Tre, Rome, Italy

    Roberto Cipriani

  2. University Niccolò Cusano of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Emanuela C. Del Re

Authors
  1. Roberto Cipriani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Emanuela C. Del Re
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roberto Cipriani.

Additional information

This article is part of the Supplement Issue on “Social Signals. From Theory to Applications,” guest-edited by Isabella Poggi, Francesca D’Errico, and Alessandro Vinciarelli.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cipriani, R., Del Re, E.C. Imagination and society: the role of visual sociology. Cogn Process 13 (Suppl 2), 455–463 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-012-0433-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-012-0433-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation