John Grady

The Scope of Visual Sociology

Currently, visual sociology is defined as a sub‐field of qualitative sociology. This paper argues that such a view is too narrow and that the field is actually composed of three distinct, yet logically related, areas of investigation. The first is Seeing, or the study of role of sight and vision in the construction of social organization and meaning. The second is Iconic Communication, or the study of how spontaneous and deliberate construction of images and imagery communicate information and can be used to manage relationships in society. The third area I have termed Doing Sociology Visually and is concerned with how techniques of producing and decoding images can be used to empirically investigate social organization, cultural meaning and psychological processes. It includes those techniques, methodologies and concerns that have received the most attention to date and where the camera and other technologies of representation have played a crucial role in the analytic process.

Advertising images as social indicators: depictions of blacks in LIFE magazine, 1936–2000

One of the most important prerequisites for building a more visual social science is demonstrating that visual data provide answers to research questions, which are not addressed satisfactorily by the use of more conventional, non‐visual, methods. In this article the author argues that a systematic analysis of the images in print advertisements not only accounts for patterns in contemporary American race relations as reliably as findings derived from national surveys like the General Social Survey (GSS) and the US Census, but also illuminates questions that are often raised by, but seldom resolved with, quantitative data. These questions include, for example, consideration of what factors might encourage respondents to espouse some attitudes – or to make certain choices – but not others. More specifically, a close examination of trends in advertisements published in Life magazine between 1936 and 2000 reveals that, while the white commitment to racial integration appears to have taken longer to develop than survey data suggests, this commitment seems to be much firmer than findings based on census data imply. Nevertheless, the trend in advertising images also shows that, even with a steadily growing white commitment to racial integration, there are still areas of social life where whites are wary of blacks and find it hard to imagine scenarios that exemplify relations of moral equality.

Editors' introduction: Putting animals in the picture

Like Poe’s famous ‘‘purloined letter’’, animals are nearly invisible to us precisely because they are so visible. Animals are so much a part of our taken-for-granted lives and we carry so much common sense about them that is has taken a surprising amount of time for scholars to step back from this familiarity to cast a more critical gaze at animal–human relationships. The publication of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation in 1975 conveniently marks the beginning of a quarter century’s flood of scholarship on animals and society. Singer’s book is the bible of the Animal Rights movement and raises interesting questions about what animals ‘‘really are’’. The book struck a responsive chord in the United States in part because its moral arguments could be read against the emerging ‘‘culture wars’’ that have so shaped contemporary American political and intellectual discourse. Coming in the wake of the end of the Vietnam War and in the midst of increasingly heated debates about abortion, poverty and affirmative action, Singer’s controversial claims about the moral entitlements of animals struck right at the heart of the question, ‘‘what do we owe others?’’ And who or what should be encompassed by these obligations anyway?

Reframing visual social science: Towards a more visual sociology and anthropology by Luc Pauwels

‘More’ is the keyword in Luc Pauwels’ important new book, Reframing Visual Social Science: Towards a More Visual Sociology and Anthropology (hereafter, RVSS). Pauwels references Leonard Henny’s (1986) call for not just more ‘visual sociology’, but, rather, ‘a more visual’ sociology. That’s an important distinction. An emphasis on just producing more visual sociology could easily yield little more than a growing accumulation of studies proclaiming – for the umpteenth time – that there is a visual dimension to people’s lives and relationships. As Pauwels notes:

Not Hollywood: independent film at the twilight of the American dream by Sherry B. Ortner

Sherry Ortner, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UCLA, set out to update Hortense Powdermaker’s searing ethnography of the film industry, Hollywood, The Dream Factory (1950), but was unable to gain access to an institution she defines as ‘one of the most powerful sites for the production of hegemonic ... American culture, and for the seduction of American and global audiences into the values of that culture’ (2). Fortunately for us, Ortner made a big discovery during her foray into the world of moviemaking that she has turned into a richly informative study, which is the subject of this book.

Visualizing trends and clusters in ranked time-series data

There are many systems that provide visualizations for time-oriented data. Of those, few provide the means of finding patterns in time-series data in which rankings are also important. Fewer still have the fine granularity necessary to visually follow individual data points through time. We propose the Ranking Timeline, a novel visualization method for modestly-sized multivariate data sets that include the top ten rankings over time. The system includes two main visualization components: a ranking over time and a cluster analysis. The ranking visualization, loosely based on line plots, allows the user to track individual data points so as to facilitate comparisons within a given time frame. Glyphs represent additional attributes within the framework of the overall system. The user has control over many aspects of the visualization, including viewing a subset of the data and/or focusing on a desired time frame. The cluster analysis tool shows the relative importance of individual items in conjunction with a visualization showing the connection(s) to other, similar items, while maintaining the aforementioned glyphs and user interaction. The user controls the clustering according to a similarity threshold. The system has been implemented as a Web application, and has been tested with data showing the top ten actors/actresses from 1929-2010. The experiments have revealed patterns in the data heretofore not explored.

Using Metaphors in Dynamic Social Stratification Visualizations

We present three information visualizations for studying social stratification. Each Web-based applet uses a different metaphor to display U.S. Census income data along with the categories of race, marital status, and profession. Each system is completely dynamic, affording the user the choice of categorical variable to compare, as well as the choice of categories within each visualization. Two different user interfaces have also been implemented. The systems are described, compared, and their respective merits and deficiencies discussed.