Author
Gillian Rose

Pub Date: 11-2011

Pages: 408

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Gillian Rose

Visual Research Methods

The British Sociological Association's Visual Sociology Study Group has a website:
http://www.visualsociology.org.uk/
And so too does the International Visual Sociology Association:
http://www.visualsociology.org/

Sarah Pink has put together a useful site that explores how to use a range of different visual research methods.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ss/visualising_ethnography/

The Realities research programme at the University of Manchester, UK, has several useful papers online that they call 'toolkits' for qualitative researchers.  Those relevant to visual research methods include:

Toolkit 02: Putting on an exhibition to disseminate your research, written by Hazel Burke, Realities/Morgan Centre, University of Manchester.  This toolkit is a guide to disseminating your research to a non-academic audience by putting on an exhibition. It covers budgets, choosing a venue, designing and producing the exhibition content, writing materials, and publicising your exhibition.

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/realities/resources/toolkits/exhibition/index.html

Toolkit 03: Participatory mapping: An innovative sociological method is by Nick Emmel, University of Leeds.  This toolkit is an introduction to using participatory maps in your research. It explains some of the benefits of this approach, which can be used with individuals and groups, often together with more traditional interview techniques. It gives practical tips on how to approach this kind of research, taken from experiences in the Connected Lives project.

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/realities/resources/toolkits/participatory-maps/index.html

Toolkit 04: Participant-produced video is by Stewart Muir, Realities/Morgan Centre, University of Manchester.  This toolkit gives an introduction to asking research participants to produce their own videos about themselves and their lives. It briefly looks at the benefits of this technique and gives practical advice on how to approach the task, taken from experiences in the Family Background in Everyday Lives project.

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/realities/resources/toolkits/participant-produced-video/index.html

 

If you want to improve your photography or filmmaking skills, take a look at The Open University distance-learning modules on Digital Photography and Digital Filmmaking:
http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/course/t189.htm

There are various ways to use websites as part of research projects.

One way is to create a website as way of sharing research data with others.
Examples of this include Edensor's Industrial Ruins site
http://www.sci-eng.mmu.ac.uk/industrial_ruins/
the 'Virtual Museum of Everyday Soviet Life' which explores everyday life in communal apartments and includes photos, audios, films and text  http://kommunalka.colgate.edu/index.cfm
an audio soundwalk by artist Jennie Savage for a London high street
http://www.jenniesavage.co.uk/museum of the moment/museum of the moment.htm
Tim Butler's Memoryscape project
http://www.memoryscape.org.uk/index.htm
the Portus archeological project
http://www.portusproject.org/index.shtml

Another method, closer to the photo-essay described in Chapter 12, uses the web's ability to carry textual, visual and aural materials in order to convey an argument.
See for example David Campbell's project on media images of famine at http://www.imaging-famine.org/
Bruno Latour and Emilie Hermant's site 'Paris: Invisible City'
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/virtual/index.html
Michael Pryke's website exploring post-1989 Berlin at http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/berlin/index.shtml
a website about a bus route through Lexington, Kentucky, by Renee Human  http://liminalities.net/4-1/bus/index.htm
and another about a bus in London, by Katrina Jungnickel http://www.studioincite.com/73urbanjourneys
the Atlas of InterDependence is a collection of activist artwork around issues of environmental change and sustainability
http://www.atlas-id.org