Jari Martikainen

University of Eastern Finland | UEF · Department of Social Sciences

This study examines how news images of refugees in the context of the war in Ukraine mobilize intergroup relations. A visual rhetorical analysis is used to examine the rhetorical strategies employed in news images of Ukrainian refugees in a mainstream Finnish national newspaper from February 25 to May 31, 2022. The data consisted of 465 images. The...

Discussions on the body frequently foreground in empirical studies of social representations. However, there is scarce theoretical literature within social representations theory focusing on embodied social representation. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of embodied, sensory experiences as part of social representation. More prec...

Collaboration between health and social care managers – A social representations approach This small-scale study explores collaboration between managers drawing on the theory of social representations. The data were produced using visual methods: middle managers (n=25) working in the field of health and social care and education reflected on collab...

Aktiivisen kansalaisuuden tietoja ja taitoja voidaan oppia niin koulutusorganisaatioissa kuin informaaleissa yhteisöllisen osallistumisen tilanteissa. Millainen areena osallistuva taidelähtöinen tutkimus on aktiivisen kansalaisuuden ja ekososiaalisen sivistyksen oppimiselle ja toteuttamiselle?

The present study explores how the polarized political discussion on climate change is used to construct as a humorous misogynist message in a Finnish far-right political campaign video from 2021. Applying a multimodal analytical approach, the study explores the ways in which humor and irony are mobilized in the video through intertextual cues and...

This research examines the cover images of two inflight magazines— Ulisse (Alitalia) and Blue Wings (Finnair)—as a method for airlines to manage their impression. Drawing on concept of impression management, the study focuses on the visual strategies the cover images employ in order to shape the audience’s perception of the airlines. The data consi...

This research examines online misogynist discourse related to the Finnish Prime Minister (PM) Sanna Marin's image published in Trendi magazine in October 2020. The affective‐discursive analysis of online commentaries resulted in the identification of four affective‐discursive practices: an immoral woman, incompetent woman, calculating woman and inf...

This paper explores the possibilities of drawing as a method of researching social representations. The theory of social representations focuses on studying the forms, contents, and functions of socially shared common knowledge. In this paper, we (1) present the central premises of social representations theory, (2) elaborate drawing as a visual re...

This paper discusses a teaching experiment in which 20 university students in Finland participated in the course Critical and Novel Approaches to Management and Organisational Studies , which familiarized them with the method of embodied reflection of images. First, the paper presents the method and the teaching experiment. Then, it presents and di...

This study examines how Otherness is constructed visually in newspaper photographs of the refugee crisis. This visual rhetoric analysis examines the form, content, and function of images and explores the rhetorical strategies deployed in visualizations of the refugee crisis in a mainstream Finnish national newspaper from 2015 to 2016. The data cons...

Using a multimodal discursive approach, this study explores how the COVID-19 pandemic is constructed and used in press reportage to mobilize intergroup relations and national identities. We examine how press reporting about the development of COVID-19 in Sweden is cast as a matter of nationalism and national stereotyping in the Finnish press. The d...

Lähestymme visuaalisia menetelmiä näkökulmasta, jonka mukaan erilaiset visuaaliset aineistot rakentavat sosiaalista todellisuutta ja osallistuvat keskusteluun, jossa neuvotellaan erilaisten sosiaalisten objektien merkityksestä. Teoreettisena lähtökohtanamme toimii sosiaalisten representaatioiden teoria, joka tarjoaa käsitteellisiä välineitä analyso...

This research set out to examine how ancient myths, Bible stories, and romantic visual imagery were used as discursive devices in the populist communication of the 2019 Finns Party election video. This study draws from systematic functional multimodal discourse analysis and its concepts of intersemiotic texture, co-contextualization, and re-context...

This study examines newspaper photographs related to the COVID‐19 pandemic in Finland. Drawing on social representations theory and positioning theory, we explore social representations and identities related to COVID‐19 in mass media using a visual rhetoric analysis. More specifically, we focus on how newspaper photographs construct subjects' posi...

The Finnish National Conference of Education, University of Helsinki, Finland

This research examines the mobilization of populist rhetoric of the 2019 Finns Party election video. By focusing on both the FP's election video (production) and Youtube users' comments (reception), we examine the constructions and uses of social categories and humour as well as responses to their rhetorical deployment among like-minded supporters...

Membership categorization analysis focuses on studying how people categorize each other in interaction. Even though the role of observation has been acknowledged within this methodological approach, it has mainly been used to analyze oral and written communication. This study focuses on examining how membership categorization analysis can be applie...

Membership categorization analysis focuses on studying how people categorize each other in interaction. Even though the role of observation has been acknowledged within this methodological approach, it has mainly been used to analyze oral and written communication. This study focuses on examining how membership categorization analysis can be applie...

This dissertation examines social representations of teachership of students, teachers, and the Finnish Trade Union of Education through visual representations of teachership. Simultaneously, it examines the contribution of visual images – and the visual in general – in the formation of social representations. In addition, the study explores the po...

Media plays an important role in the formation of social representations. This study examines the cover images of Finnish Teacher Magazine published by the Trade Union of Education as means of communicating social representations of teachership among its readership consisting of teachers and student teachers. In order to critically discuss the stru...

This article examines how students in the vocational qualification of media and visual expression in Finland perceive and define art based on their learning experiences. The research task was addressed by drawing on institutional and functional definitions of art that define the subject in terms of its relation to artistic tradition and its purpose...

This presentation discusses the visual rhetoric of newspaper images related to migration in Finnish daily newspapers Helsingin Sanomat and Savon Sanomat – and highlights the importance of understanding media images as constructed visual representations instead of neutral records of reality. Visual rhetoric is discussed as a means of framing migrati...

Students graduating from upper secondary vocational education and training may often find it difficult to make decisions related to their future both in terms of further education and occupation. This study examines the potential of arts-based teaching methods to motivate and support students to reflect on and map their plans for the future. A grou...

Toward the end of the 20th century, scholars in various fields of science started to challenge the dominant position of discursive research methods based on verbal materials. This pursuit was motivated by the inadequacy of positivistic science in addressing the sphere of visual, sensory, embodied, and emotional experiences. Inspired by the visual,...

Keynote presentation

This study examines social representations of teachership based on students’ and teachers’ drawings. Fifty-nine students and thirty-nine teachers in upper-secondary education in Finland participated in the research, drawing a picture of a typical teacher and commenting on their drawings verbally. The study focuses on what kinds of social representa...

This article examines how students categorize teachers based on visual cues. The research drew on theories of social representations, social perception, and social categorization to study how students perceive and interpret teachers’ nonverbal communication. At a Finnish vocational college for culture studies, 17 paintings depicting a variety of pe...

This research explores the relationship between art history studies and identity, as inspired by students’ initiative to discuss matters related to identity during art history lessons. The research has two research questions: 1) Do students find art history meaningful in terms of identity? and 2) What kinds of thoughts and ideas of identity are gen...

This study discusses how graduating students perceive and evaluate leaders based on their visual nonverbal behavior. Thirteen students of visual culture studies in a vocational college in Finland were asked to observe five portrait paintings and reflect on the leadership qualities of the persons depicted. The data were analyzed using membership cat...

This research examines graduating students’ conceptions of a good leader and how positive leadership qualities are communicated visually. In order to address this research task, fifteen graduating students in a Finnish upper-secondary vocational college were asked to draw a picture of a good leader and elucidate their drawings verbally. Theoretical...

Keynote presentation

The paradigm of art history has changed drastically during the past decades. Instead of tracing the intentions of artists or studying works of art in their cultural and social contexts, recent art historical research has increasingly paid attention to the role of the spectator, as well as experiences that arise when perceiving works of art. This pa...

The visual dimension of leadership has been emphasized in our contemporary, visual, era. This research discusses visual elements, and more specifically the gaze, as signs of leadership. Nine portrait paintings were shown to the participants, who were seven persons working in the field of social and health care, front-line managers and researchers....

Inspired by the affective and sensory turns in the paradigm of art history, this article discusses making pictures as a method of teaching art history in Finnish Upper Secondary Vocational Education and Training (Qualification in Visual Expression, Study Programmes in Visual and Media Arts and Photography). A total of 25 students majoring in visual...