QualRes Article Review & Summary

Title
Author(s)
Source
(full citation)
Reviewed by
Date
Presented

Summary

Visual Research at the Crossroads

John Grady
FQS Forum: Qualitative Social Research, v. 9, n. 3, Art 28, Sep.
2008
Nik Dholakia
Oct 30, 2014

Summarize the key content. Extract the main themes of this piece in
terms of content, methods, theories, etc. Enumerate or present in the
form of bullets. Make it easy to understand and comprehend.

Author does research on visual sociology. He is a neighbor Wheaton College in

Norton, MA.

Visual tools and methods are fascinating, getting lot of attention; yet they are
distrusted or suspected as not being serious research, and sometimes seen as just a
way to play around. The author, in this article, seeks to correct such impressions and
present a systematic view of visual methods.

Three main issues in the paper: (1) What is special about Visual Methods (VM)? (2)
In what ways can VM contribute in social science research? (3) How can we
strengthen the work using VM research approaches?

Three main ways to express social science data: (1) Pictures (visuals), (2) Words, (3)
Numbers.

VM can be used with anything that can be visualized: physical objects, art, images,
drawings, photos, video and more. In this article, the main focus is on photos but
author says the ideas presented apply to other visual forms as well.

In visual (photo) materials, one finds evidence, directness, immediacy. Often

lacking: narrative or sequence or intent. Thus, more interpretation is needed (in
writing, there already is a first-level interpretation by the ethnographer).

Example presented of Lincoln 2nd inauguration photos, one of which shows his
assassin Booth and many fellow conspirators [Local note: Booths brothers house
is in Narragansett the current owners have preserved a letter of remorse by the
brother]

Pictures are polysemic: multiple, often changing meanings; these meanings are
sometimes very different from the intent of the person taking the photo. The phototaker, however, has epistemological primacy all other meanings are possible
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only because of this primacy and are thus ontologically dependent on the
original photo.

General seeing is scanning, but focused seeing becomes looking or looking at

which has a 5 to 3.5 aspect ratio, with closer objects, specifically those in a circle in
the center of the photo, being the clearest.

Looking requires framing. Risks: (1) Looking (intently) makes us ignore the
surrounding stuff; (2) Scanning but not looking could make us ignore a danger such
as a speeding car or a leopard jumping at us. Looking at a person (or animal)
presents additional problems, since the person can look back at us.

Framing entails assigning importance to an act, scene, event even if very briefly.
The picture maker-taker is a viewer who frames (and then shoots a photo,
perhaps). Because of this framing, the picture maker-taker is aligned to the scene
and even secondary-subsequent viewers get the benefit of this framing, though the
intents-interpretations of secondary-subsequent viewers would generally be quite
different than those of the original viewer. To an extent, we share the experience of
engagement with the subject of the first viewer [when someone shouts Look,
others also frame-focus and look].

Photo does 2 things: (1) Record of personal affective engagement of the first viewer;
(2) Later, impersonal availability of record of actuality and behavior (and then
perhaps subsequent secondary personal affective engagement not with the subject
directly, but with the photo). Author shows a powerful street scene photo of NYC.

Visual data: (1) A record of temporal-spatial relationships (Q: why this particular
framing?); (2) A record of how people respond to situations-events (Q: why this
response?)

In what ways can VM help in social science research?: (1) Discovering, identifying,
labeling of patterns (including complex patterns); patterns help to organize,
systematize, interpret, depict symbolic density, etc. Grady notes that numeric or
verbal data can often reveal patterns in better ways when visually represented as
graphs, charts; (2) VM can help relate-integrate various levels (macro, meso, micro
levels) of social analysis (Grady provides several photos of post-Katrina New
Orleans satellite and ground level); (3) VM can help understand-interpret social
processes (researchers own interpretation, but also using photo-elicitation methods);
(4) VM can help in studying emotions in social settings; possible approaches:
controlled photo-observation, photo-elicitation, projective techniques, and selfgenerated images (people shoot and bring back photos in response to research
questions, categories, issues set by the researcher); (5) VM can help in
communicating research findings (visual representation of data, creating picturedriven narratives)

How to improve-strengthen VM for social sciences: Grady offers 3 suggestions: (1)

Ensure that key social theorists (provides a short list) of visual analysis-interpretation
are consulted-cited-used; (2) Create accessible databases of visual materials (similar
to numeric and text databases); (3) Identify and document best practices for VM
research.
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Critique

Indicate what you liked or did not like about this piece, and why. Also
discuss what the author(s) could have done to improve this piece.
Enumerate or present in the form of bullets.

The style of writing was simple, direct, clear.

There is imbalance the last main section is very brief. Also, within each section,
some sections get a lot of space, others just a short para. It seems the topics which
are the favorites of the author got a lot of coverage, others were touched on rather
briefly.

Extensions
and
Applications

Indicate what further or related work can be done in this area. Enumerate
or present in the form of bullets. Think of applications in business,
consumer, organizational, communications, and other fields. Think about
further publishing opportunities in this area of research.

There are clear opportunities to expand on the sections that got very brief treatment

Also, opportunities to revisit the issues given the explosive growth of visuality in our
lives: selfies, sexting, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, etc.

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