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Building the World's Visual Language: The Increasing Global Importance of Image Banks in Corporate Media
Abstract
Many of the images we now find in magazines, news, promotional material and advertisements are bought cheaply from image banks like Getty Images, which can be accessed by people all around the world. These images are technically of high quality. They have bright lighting and flat colours; attractive models are highly posed and are set in non-descript locations to make them usable across the world. They do not represent actual places or events and they do not document or bear witness, but they symbolically represent marketable concepts and moods such as 'contentment' and 'freedom'. The world in magazines and other similar media therefore comes to resemble the limited world of the image bank categories, which are based on marketing categories. This is therefore an ideologically pre-structured world which is in harmony with consumerism.
... We see the social functions of AI imagery as a continuation of stock imagery, which has long been used in a variety of promotional and informational contexts, constituting "the wallpaper of consumer culture" (Frosh, 2013: 3482). In a seminal work, MCDA scholar Machin (2004) revealed how the development of image banks fundamentally changed the design and use of photographs: "What matters now is no longer only what photographs represent, when and where they were taken, and why. What matters now as much, or more, is how many different contexts they can be inserted into, both in terms of what they represent and in terms of their form" (p. ...
... Many image banks, including Getty Images, now also offer AI-generated images that draw on their content (https://www.gettyimages.com/ai/generation/about). Thus, the canonical repertoire of image banks is likely to be present in AI images. Machin (2004) also showed how the purpose of stock images materializes as a particular semiotic repertoire. Firstly, they are characterized by genericity (generic-looking backgrounds, settings, attributes, and models). ...
... The semantic field studied here -teenagers -is partly chosen because it has been studied in previous discourse analyses of image banks. Thurlow et al. (2019) investigated stock photos of "teens and technology" from three major image banks and found the same tendency toward a globalized, homogenous visual language as described by Machin (2004). Their findings included, for example, a vocabulary for speaking about teenagers and technology which was "at best limited, at worst offensive" (p. ...
This article addresses a major change emerging in visual communication worldwide: The advent of generative AI imagery. Rooted in Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies and Semiotic Technology Studies, the article scrutinizes how AI-generated images exert power with regards to the meaning-making choices that are afforded by Open AI’s software for generating visuals: Dall-E3. Using prompts to generate images of teenagers as a case in point, the results revealed that the “the canonical repertoire” of generative AI imagery constitutes four main semiotic principles, which are critically explored and discussed: Authenticating Contextualization, Conformist Diversity, Innovative Surrealization, and Promotional Positivity.
... We followed similar procedures as in the textual analysis and focused on: (a) the specific traits and characteristics the images constructed for the Head of Statefor example, caring and empathic; (b) the degree to which their gender was foregrounded, and (c) the ways in which they were positioned in relation to others. In addition, we drew on Machin's (2004) distinction between news images as either bearing witness to a specific historical event or as symbolic representation. Machin (2004) argues that news photography historically favoured bearing witness but has increasingly shifted towards symbolic representation. ...
... In addition, we drew on Machin's (2004) distinction between news images as either bearing witness to a specific historical event or as symbolic representation. Machin (2004) argues that news photography historically favoured bearing witness but has increasingly shifted towards symbolic representation. We think this is particularly significant in a feminist approach to news photography as it renders specificwomen-doing-specific-things to a generic and symbolic category. ...
... We think this is particularly significant in a feminist approach to news photography as it renders specificwomen-doing-specific-things to a generic and symbolic category. To analyse this use of symbolic images versus images that 'bear witness', we have focused on modality, that is, the degree to which an image appears natural or editedas heavily edited images lean more towards symbolic representation, and to making generic rather than specific claims (Machin, 2004). As with the textual analysis, we identified clear patterns in the images used that cut across outlets and geographies and helped in seemingly innocuous ways to construct the image of Heads of State as different by comparison with a male norm. ...
This paper explores the gendered discourses of the – seemingly favourable – media coverage that certain Heads of State received for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking at media reports published in different English-speaking outlets in the US, the UK, India, Bangladesh, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland, and using multimodal feminist critical discourse analysis, we identify and describe strategies that on the surface appear to challenge hegemonic – and largely masculine – discourses of leadership. Upon closer scrutiny, these superficially complimentary reports rather reinforce and naturalise discriminatory gender ideologies, and, as we demonstrate, they do so to different degrees along a continuum of essentialising, contextualising, and problematising. We critically discuss the discursive and visual processes involved and show that complimenting these leaders on their performance compares them against a masculine norm to construct their leadership as ‘alternative’, exceptional, and hence marked. This gendered portrayal of political leadership in times of crisis illustrates how the discursive construction of identities, responsibilities, and relationships during COVID-19 largely hinges on power relations and political ideologies that systematically disadvantage and undermine women. The purportedly positive form in which this occurs makes it particularly difficult to challenge and subvert these discriminatory discourses and their underlying gendered ideologies.
... An article with an accompanying image is 94% more likely to be read (Gillett, 2014). Stock images are used as a representation of moods and concepts (Machin, 2004) and therefore they are a snapshot of the themes and emotion of the text they are accompanying. ...
... As a result, photographs become more generic by removing specifics like locations, times and scenarios. They become multipurpose, generic and symbolic rather than bearing witness to true events (Machin, 2004). These multipurpose generic images can then be sold in higher volumes, thus creating more profit for the image bank. ...
... These multipurpose generic images can then be sold in higher volumes, thus creating more profit for the image bank. This anonymising of the images has created a symbolic system (Harvey & Brookes, 2018) which is full of clichés and stereotypes (Machin, 2004). ...
... In recent years, I and others have begun to examine the significance of generic visuals such as stock photos in news-making, specifically in relation to issues like the standardization and commodification of photojournalistic practices and styles (Aiello 2012;Runge 2020), the repurposing of a limited variety of images and visual discourses across a wide range of news stories (Machin and Polzer 2015;Thurlow, Aiello, and Portmann 2020), the circulation of stock images across digital media platforms (Aiello 2016), and the forms of engagement that generic images may promote in relation to issues reported in the news media (Generic Visuals in the News). For the most part, however, existing scholarship on stock photography has pre-eminently focused on its role in advertising and lifestyle marketing, particularly with regards to the ways in which stock images are used to promote stereotypes (Machin 2004), authenticity (Frosh 2003;, and more recently also diversity (Aiello and Woodhouse 2016). ...
... In other words, both familiarity and flexibility are key to the success (or at least the usability) of stock photographs. In doing so, the "stock aesthetic" also typically relies on design resources like decontextualization (Machin 2004) and stylization (Aiello 2013b) in order to achieve a timeless quality for images that may be used to portray "types" rather than specific objects or individuals (Aiello 2012) in broad settings such as "the home" or "the office". However, since the early 2000s, the range of design resources that set apart stock photography as a visual genre has expanded to include stylistic features that are traditionally associated with editorial, documentary or social media photography (Aiello and Woodhouse 2016). ...
... In recent years, I and others have begun to examine the significance of generic visuals such as stock photos in news-making, specifically in relation to issues like the standardization and commodification of photojournalistic practices and styles (Aiello 2012;Runge 2020), the repurposing of a limited variety of images and visual discourses across a wide range of news stories (Machin and Polzer 2015;Thurlow, Aiello, and Portmann 2020), the circulation of stock images across digital media platforms (Aiello 2016), and the forms of engagement that generic images may promote in relation to issues reported in the news media (Generic Visuals in the News). For the most part, however, existing scholarship on stock photography has pre-eminently focused on its role in advertising and lifestyle marketing, particularly with regards to the ways in which stock images are used to promote stereotypes (Machin 2004), authenticity (Frosh 2003;, and more recently also diversity (Aiello and Woodhouse 2016). ...
... In other words, both familiarity and flexibility are key to the success (or at least the usability) of stock photographs. In doing so, the "stock aesthetic" also typically relies on design resources like decontextualization (Machin 2004) and stylization (Aiello 2013b) in order to achieve a timeless quality for images that may be used to portray "types" rather than specific objects or individuals (Aiello 2012) in broad settings such as "the home" or "the office". However, since the early 2000s, the range of design resources that set apart stock photography as a visual genre has expanded to include stylistic features that are traditionally associated with editorial, documentary or social media photography (Aiello and Woodhouse 2016). ...
In this chapter, I focus on stock photography as an unremarkable and mundane visual genre that permeates everyday life in cities, and which therefore also contributes to shaping experiences in and of urban public space. The chapter conceptualizes stock photography as an ambient medium. It shows how stock photography is used to promote businesses and services through smiling individuals and other familiar and flexible subjects that often enliven otherwise vacant or drab storefronts and ultimately also confer warmth to otherwise bland if not alienating urban “landscapes of capital”. The chapter concludes by reflecting on some of the problems and potentials of this often overlooked type of ambient imagery in the creation and regulation of urban mood.
... As escolhas visuais, como suas contrapartidas linguísticas, não são neutras, mas sempre apresentadas através de um ponto de vista ideológico, sendo assim sempre ideologicamente motivadas. Um outro aspecto muito importante é que, como sugere Machin (2004) imagens não registram realidade, mas promovem ideias sobre algumas pessoas ou tipos e "transmitem tipos particulares de 'scripts', valores e identidades" (p.781). São uma ferramenta heurística poderosa. ...
Noções de poder em sociedade são inseparáveis das questões de gênero e sexualidade. Apesar de ter havido um grande avanço social em relação a mulheres contemporâneas em posições de poder, sua representação em discursos públicos ainda é problemática, pois os recursos semióticos usados nesses discursos tendem a categorizar estas profissionais de acordo com discursos míticos que remetem a maternidade, a beleza e a juventude. Este trabalho discute a maneira pela quais as mulheres profissionais em posição de poder são descritas e categorizadas em narrativas mediáticas, especialmente no contexto brasileiro. Ao analisar o discurso jornalístico, o foco principal da pesquisa detém-se na importância da linguagem em produzir asserções epistemológicas sobre mulheres e feminilidade. Pretende demonstrar como a identidade de mulheres profissionais é construída através de categorias discursivas que as identificam não somente pelo que fazem e pelo que são, mas principalmente por sua aparência física. As conclusões apontam para o fato de que textos e imagens produzem efeitos avaliativos negativos que influenciam atitudes e interpretações sociais em relação a mulheres poderosas. Apontam ainda para as maneiras que ideologias sexistas são materializadas em recursos semióticos que produzem estereótipos inaceitáveis em relação a mulheres em posição de poder. Os resultados poderão inspirar um maior escrutínio de conteúdos mediáticos resultando numa crítica mais informada e transformadora.
... Imagery used to convey and represent Australian agriculture therefore presents a bucolic and romanticised view of a landscape dominated by large-scale commercial agri-business that erases fragile ecologies and place-based identity. While acknowledging the globalising placelessness and generic visual language of stock imagery (Machin, 2004), Figure 2 composes a combination of government imagery and stock photographs. The latter have been carefully selected to mirror imagery representing Australian agriculture by its chief organisations and advocates. ...
Agriculture has the largest visual and environmental impact on Australia’s landscape, ecologies and environments. It is frequently visually communicated through romantic imagery and reinforced by messaging that emphasizes trust, environmental stewardship, and ethical livestock practices. The quality of satellite imaging is generally inadequate for verifying these practices and illuminating the state of agricultural environments. This visual essay presents a photographic counter narrative based on a comprehensive visual research process spanning the breadth of the continent. It presents 56 unaltered still images selected from over 10,000 captured by the author using a consumer drone. Images have been chosen to represent all of Australia’s major commodities by economic value, all land-dominant practices, and all primary government classifications. Photographs are accompanied by industry quotes to challenge bucolic notions, and to posit that human production scales are superseded by commercial agribusiness. The research seeks to depict an ‘agri-industrial landscape sublime’ to highlight paradoxes within Australian agriculture as a Western practice providing food abundance from a weathered and volatile continent, while adversely affecting ecosystems and drawing animal suffering into question. Finally, the essay seeks to highlight the importance of recognising insensitive agribusiness as systemic of imposing neoliberal systems on Australian farmers and embracing extractive paradigms. Accordingly, this essay carefully composes imagery that both celebrates production capability while suggesting the need to evolve insensitive agri-philosophy and practice to food systems realising improved ecological, environmental, and animal welfare outcomes.
... This seeming incongruity can be decoded as the attempt to consolidate the lack of body representation and perception in the text through visual means (Figure 1). Images in Figure 2 suite presents an intriguing intersection of semiotics and idealized lifestyles, utilizing principles reminiscent of advertising photography's visual codes (Machin 2004). Forefronting a female protagonist on the backdrop of serene landscapes, the visual narrative harmonizes the "married, child-free" text overlay through a calculated ambiguity, creating cognitive linkages between the concepts. ...
... For example, Martinec and Salway (2005) described the relationship between images and writing in multimodal texts such as online news reports and scientific texts, and they distinguished relationships, unequal and equal, between images and writing. The taxonomy of word-image relations has been explored in a range of multimodal texts, including news, displayed artefacts, corporate media texts, picture books, and others Bednarek & Caple, 2017;Meinhof, 1994;Machin, 2004;Martinec & Salway, 2005;O'Toole, 1994). These studies explored verbal-visual interactions on Western social media such as Twitter (O'Neill et al., 2015) and Facebook (Bednarek & Caple 2017). ...
... For example, Martinec and Salway (2005) described the relationship between images and writing in multimodal texts such as online news reports and scientific texts, and they distinguished relationships, unequal and equal, between images and writing. The taxonomy of word-image relations has been explored in a range of multimodal texts, including news, displayed artefacts, corporate media texts, picture books, and others Bednarek & Caple, 2017;Meinhof, 1994;Machin, 2004;Martinec & Salway, 2005;O'Toole, 1994). These studies explored verbal-visual interactions on Western social media such as Twitter (O'Neill et al., 2015) and Facebook (Bednarek & Caple 2017). ...
... Texts use linguistic and visual strategies that may seem innocuous but carry ideological underpinnings, influencing the portrayal of events and individuals for specific purposes. MCDA has been developed by linguists such as Machin (2004), Kress andvan Leeuwen (2020), O'Halloran (2004), Chouliaraki (2006), and Lemke (2006), who investigate how language, imagery, and other communicative forms converge to generate meaning. They propose that the principles of linguistic analysis, derived from Halliday's (2004) systemic functional theory, apply equally to visual communication. ...
This study conducts a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis guided content analysis of 56 Chinese government-sponsored poverty reduction posters across three historical stages since the founding of the People’s Republic of China to understand visual strategies, represented participants, and thematic shifts. Initially, visual strategies focus on action-oriented, collective agricultural activities. Over time, they shift to highlighting technological advancements and individual achievements, using “offer” images and various perspectives to engage viewers. Early posters predominantly feature peasants and collective groups, later expanding to include individuals and technological symbols, reflecting China’s socio-economic reforms. The thematic shifts move from collective efforts to targeted, locally-tailored strategies and the principle of “teaching people to fish,” mirroring broader socio-political transformations. This evolution underscores the role of visual media in shaping public understanding and garnering support for national policies. By highlighting the dynamic interaction between visual elements and socio-political contexts, the study reveals how government-sponsored media has adapted to effectively communicate the progress and objectives of China’s poverty alleviation efforts.
... Data dari kaedah ini akan dikumpulkan, dikategorikan, dan dianalisis secara deskriptif berdasarkan analisis kandungan visual. Menurut Machin (2004), penyelidikan analisis visual memerlukan ketelitian dalam menerangkan ciri imej dan bahasa. Penyelidikan kualitatif juga membolehkan pemahaman yang kritis terhadap pengalaman individu, tingkah laku yang khusus kepada konteks, dan makna subjektif yang diberikan oleh peserta terhadap tindakan mereka. ...
Perayaan Hari Warisan George Town begitu terkenal dengan warisan budayanya yang pelbagai dalam mempamerkan pengaruh budaya, tapak bersejarah dan tradisi yang unik. Walaupun perayaan ini dilihat sebagai satu tarikan malah terdapat persoalan disebalik kandungan visual, elemen tersurat dan tersirat serta ideologi disebalik perkaitan visual ini. Oleh itu, kajian ini memberi penelitian terhadap kandungan visual dalam risalah perayaan ini dan meneliti signifikasi utama yang menjadikan risalah perayaan ini sebagai salah satu tarikan UNESCO di Pulau Pinang. Objektif kajian ini adalah untuk (1) mengenal pasti kandungan visual dalam risalah, (2) menganalisis unsur tersurat dan tersirat (denotatif dan konotatif) dan (3) menganalisis perkaitan visual dengan ideologi dalam risalah ini. Bagi memenuhi kehendak objektif, kajian ini memanfaatkan kaedah penganalisisan secara kualitatif melalui analisis kandungan visual. Hal ini melibatkan penggabungan semiotik, simbolisme budaya dan retorik visual untuk mendedahkan intipati komunikatif yang tertanam dalam risalah ini. Ia menekankan bahawa risalah bukan sahaja berfungsi sebagai alat promosi tetapi sebagai naratif visual yang memberikan pandangan mendalam tentang Perayaan Hari Warisan George Town. Hasilnya, budaya yang mewakili simbol kepelbagaian berbilang kaum boleh dilihat sebagai elemen eksplisit yang paling menonjol seperti mercu tanda bersejarah dan persembahan teks dan budaya. Manakala unsur tersirat pula menunjukkan imej Melayu, Cina dan India sebagai tanda perpaduan yang mewakili identiti Perayaan Warisan George Town. Kajian ini menyediakan asas untuk memelihara dan membudayakan Perayaan Warisan George Town untuk menyatupadukan masyarakat. Implikasi hasil kajian ini menekankan tentang signifikasi elemen budaya yang direpresentasikan secara visual sebagai satu promosi dan pemahaman Perayaan Hari Warisan George Town dalam kalangan masyarakat.
... Ferner existieren Studien, die sich speziell mit Fragen der Diffusion von Bildern beschäftigen und dadurch eine große Anschlussfähigkeit zum Theorieprogramm des Neo-Institutionalismus aufweisen . Zu nennen sind beispielhaft Arbeiten zu globalen Transfer-und Austauschbewegungen (Reichle 2011;Raß 2012) und global images (Engelbert 2011), zur zunehmenden Bedeutung von globalen Bilddatenbanken hinsichtlich einer globalen Bildsprache (Machin 2004), zum Verhältnis von globaler Bildinszenierung und kultureller Identität (Haustein 2008) oder zum Zusammenhang zwischen audiovisuellen Inhalten respektive Webserien über Mode und einer globalen Mode-und Schönheitskultur (Castaldo Lundén 2022) . Bedauerlicherweise werden diese Anschlussmöglichkeiten zur neo-institutionalistischen Diffusionsforschung nicht systematisch fruchtbar gemacht -ein Versäumnis, das im Übrigen auch in der umgekehrten Richtung zu finden ist . ...
Weltraumfotografien, CO2-Infografiken und Weltkarten – sie veranschaulichen nicht einfach nur Daten, Fakten und Zusammenhänge, sondern erzeugen spezifische Vorstellungen über eine allen Menschen gemeinsame Welt. Wie sie dies leisten, welche Vorstellungen der Welt das im Einzelnen sind und was sich aus jenen visuellen Darstellungsmedien über Konzepte der Globalität und die Struktur der Weltgesellschaft lernen lässt, erforscht Sebastian W. Hoggenmüller mittels einer neu entwickelten Methode zur interpretativen Bildanalyse. Sein Buch eröffnet Wege, Dinge zu sehen, die dem Alltagsblick verborgen bleiben. Und es erschließt ein Thema, das bislang noch nicht systematisch bearbeitet wurde: die visuelle Konstruktion von Globalität. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de
... As Frosh writes, 'to borrow an analogy from the garment trade, a successful image needs to look off-the-shelf and tailor-made' [7]. Machin discusses how the most lucrative stock images conform with existing and somewhat problematic clichés: 'will we still be able to recognise 'work' without the laptop, 'freedom' without someone jumping, and 'ethnicity' without bright and multi-coloured clothing?' [8]. ...
News stories and patient-facing material about genetic tests are often illustrated by images, but the content of such images and the messages they propagate are rarely scrutinised. Stock image banks were searched to identify a hundred images relating to genetic tests and analysed using a multimodal critical discourse approach, aiming to identify what the images featured, how they were composed, and what they communicated about genetic testing. We found that images tended to focus on technical aspects of sample processing (for example, pipetting) and drew on older technologies (for example slab gel electrophoresis) when representing data arising from genetic tests. Composition choices like focussing images around pipette tips, or emphasising colour or brightness of electrophoretic bands, represented genetic testing as precise, unambiguous and illuminating. Only 7% of images featured a person having a genetic test, and only one image alluded to communication of genetic results. Current popular visual representations of genetic testing rarely highlight the possibility of uncertain or non-diagnostic outcomes, and may contribute to high public expectations of informativeness and certainty from such tests.
... This also explains why many images related to mitigation are decontextualised generic images from image banks (see e.g. Machin 2004). The fact that some of the pictures in this category seem somewhat haphazard, such as the 'cows and jet planes' image described above, bears witness to the challenges facing the journalists producing the climate stories. ...
Images are powerful communicators. They evoke feelings, raise awareness of important issues and sometimes spur people to act. A critical societal issue that may benefit from all these kinds of engagement is climate change. This paper presents a study of images accompanying news items on the current state of our climate as expressed in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. The items were culled from five Norwegian and five UK news sources, and the images were analysed in terms of topic and news value. Unsurprisingly, climate impact topics were common in both countries, with bush and forest fires dominating. Thus, the traditional news values of Negativity and Impact were the most important ones drawn on. More surprisingly, the Norwegian material comprised a high number of images of politicians, representing the news value of Eliteness. This topic was absent in the UK material. Pictures that may point to climate solutions, e.g. new energy sources or lifestyle matters, were only sparsely represented. Thus, the images may ensure people’s engagement with climate change through disaster scenarios, but few seem to have the potential to motivate action.
... This idealized representation of everyday life relies on photographs of people and settings in which machine vision operates, and recurs in pages and sections illustrating different product scenarios or use cases [ Fig. 9]. The photographs of people and settings are often clearly sourced from stock photo libraries, contributing a degree of genericity, timelessness, low modality, and simplification (Machin 2004) to the web page on which they are used. For example, Baidu Cloud illustrates different product Scenarios through scenes of everyday life: pedestrians walking on a city street, women shopping in a mall, two smiling girls taking a selfie. ...
Machine vision is one of the main applications of artificial intelligence. In China, the machine vision industry makes up more than a third of the national AI market, and technologies like face recognition, object tracking and automated driving play a central role in surveillance systems and social governance projects relying on the large-scale collection and processing of sensor data. Like other novel articulations of technology and society, machine vision is defined, developed and explained by different actors through the work of imagination. In this article, we draw on the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to understand how Chinese companies represent machine vision. Through a qualitative multimodal analysis of the corporate websites of leading industry players, we identify a cohesive sociotechnical imaginary of machine vision, and explain how four distinct visual registers contribute to its articulation. These four registers, which we call computational abstraction, human–machine coordination, smooth everyday, and dashboard realism, allow Chinese tech companies to articulate their global ambitions and competitiveness through narrow and opaque representations of machine vision technologies.
... While some images were straightforward to locate on Getty Images, such as an image of a cat for the kowi' (cat) vocabulary card, others were not. Stock image libraries, like Getty Images and others, can be problematic because images are based on marketing categories (Machin 2004), which privilege whiteness (Papadopoulou 2014) and commodify Indigenous peoples and cultures (Westberg 2021). Further, stock images, which tend not to "represent actual places or events" (Machin 2004: 316), are simply not able to convey Chikasha relationships to one another, the plants, the animals, the land, and Aba' Bínni'li'. ...
Drawing on the authors' experiences developing Rosetta Stone Chickasaw (RSC), an asynchronous online Chikashshanompa' (Chickasaw language) course, this article shares examples of how relationality is enacted in online Indigenous language learning. We discuss the RSC interface and ways that it created opportunities and barriers to centering Indigenous and Chikasha (Chickasaw) relational epistemologies in which people are related to one another, the land, the spirits, and to the language itself. Our reflections on relationality in RSC are guided by the following questions: What relationships are required to create an online Indigenous language course? How do people create and strengthen relationships in online education spaces? How can online language work be re-emplaced in off-line relationships? Sharing examples from RSC, we consider relationality in video, audio, images, written instruction, and assessment. We conclude by returning to our guiding questions, offering our reflections and encouragement to others who may undertake similar work.
... Ferner existieren Studien, die sich speziell mit Fragen der Diffusion von Bildern beschäftigen und dadurch eine große Anschlussfähigkeit zum Theorieprogramm des Neo-Institutionalismus aufweisen . Zu nennen sind beispielhaft Arbeiten zu globalen Transfer-und Austauschbewegungen (Reichle 2011;Raß 2012) und global images (Engelbert 2011), zur zunehmenden Bedeutung von globalen Bilddatenbanken hinsichtlich einer globalen Bildsprache (Machin 2004), zum Verhältnis von globaler Bildinszenierung und kultureller Identität (Haustein 2008) oder zum Zusammenhang zwischen audiovisuellen Inhalten respektive Webserien über Mode und einer globalen Mode-und Schönheitskultur (Castaldo Lundén 2022) . Bedauerlicherweise werden diese Anschlussmöglichkeiten zur neo-institutionalistischen Diffusionsforschung nicht systematisch fruchtbar gemacht -ein Versäumnis, das im Übrigen auch in der umgekehrten Richtung zu finden ist . ...
Weltraumfotografien, CO2-Infografiken und Weltkarten – sie veranschaulichen nicht einfach nur Daten, Fakten und Zusammenhänge, sondern erzeugen spezifische Vorstellungen über eine allen Menschen gemeinsame Welt. Wie sie dies leisten, welche Vorstellungen der Welt das im Einzelnen sind und was sich aus jenen visuellen Darstellungsmedien über Konzepte der Globalität und die Struktur der Weltgesellschaft lernen lässt, erforscht Sebastian W. Hoggenmüller mittels einer neu entwickelten Methode zur interpretativen Bildanalyse. Sein Buch eröffnet Wege, Dinge zu sehen, die dem Alltagsblick verborgen bleiben. Und es erschließt ein Thema, das bislang noch nicht systematisch bearbeitet wurde: die visuelle Konstruktion von Globalität.
... The first, promotion, refers to contents purposely created to support the image of an entertainer. This consists of elements like announcements, news releases, fan club, publications, photographs, advertisements, product endorsements, and public appearances (Machin, 2004;Kinsky & Callison, 2009). It can also be defined as "the coordination of all seller-initiated efforts to set up channels of information and persuasion in order to sell goods and services or promote an idea" (Belch & Belch, 2003, p.16). ...
We cannot be held responsible for unsolicited material cover photo: Rebecca Matheson A quarterly journal, the quint is housed the quint : an interdisciplinary quarterly from the north 5
... Symbolic photos and stock photo banks have become more important in the practice of media reporting, advertising, and marketing in the course of digitalization over recent decades. The academic literature now speaks of a global stock photo industry worth billions (Frosh, 2001(Frosh, , 2002(Frosh, , 2008Kalazić et al., 2015) and criticizes stock photo banks for spreading an often "soulless", consumption-and marketing-oriented, glossy imagery (Frosh, 2008;Machin, 2004). Leading stock photo bank providers include dpa / Picture Alliance (https://www.picture-alliance.com) and Getty Im ages / iStockfoto (https://www.gettyimages.com), ...
Media representations of child sexual abuse (CSA) put the issue on the public and
political agenda and shape our understanding of it. While media representations
can be helpful in giving survivors a voice and sensitizing and informing the public,
they can also disseminate misleading and harmful messages. The present chapter
focuses on the representations of CSA in three types of media: newspaper articles,
stock photographs, and YouTube videos. Hence, for the first time in this research
field, three representation modes (textual, photographic, videographic) and two
media systems (mass media, social media) are covered. A sample of media contributions
was drawn from each media type and submitted to quantitative media
content analysis. Results show that newspaper articles, stock photos, and YouTube
videos often rely on stereotypes and myths. Quality issues in CSA representations
are discussed in light of the presented data and previous findings. Practical suggestions
for quality improvements are provided.
Keywords: child sexual abuse, media reporting, media framing, media content analysis,
media quality analysis
... Symbolic photos and stock photo banks have become more important in the practice of media reporting, advertising, and marketing in the course of digitalization over recent decades. The academic literature now speaks of a global stock photo industry worth billions (Frosh, 2001(Frosh, , 2002(Frosh, , 2008Kalazić et al., 2015) and criticizes stock photo banks for spreading an often "soulless", consumption-and marketing-oriented, glossy imagery (Frosh, 2008;Machin, 2004). Leading stock photo bank providers include dpa / Picture Alliance (https://www.picture-alliance.com) and Getty Im ages / iStockfoto (https://www.gettyimages.com), ...
Spectacular cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) dominate media coverage again and again, shaping our knowledge about a topic that is as sensitive as it is taboo. To date, a scholarly overview of the current state of media coverage of SBC has been lacking. This book attempts to shed light on the connections between SBCs and the media in a variety of ways, incorporating different studies and perspectives from practitioners. It thus provides a comprehensive overview of relevant issues raised in the context of CSA and the media.
... Bakgrunnen er dekontekstualisert; vi ser noen furutraer som konnoterer noe landlig og norsk, men settingen kan i prinsippet vaere hvor som helst i Norge. Dekontekstualiserte bakgrunner er vanlige i markedsføring fordi de tillater publikum å lese inn sin egen kontekst i bildene (Machin, 2004). Videre ser vi to eksempler på moderne arkitektur til venstre og til høyre i bildet. ...
Oslo kommune har som uttalt mål at indre by skal være et attraktivt bosted for barnefamilier. Flere kommentatorer, inkludert forskere, har hevdet at reurbanisering er en tydelig trend. Det vil si at bylivet er populært, særlig for middelklassen inkludert barnefamilier. Likevel viser forskning at denne gruppen er ustabil, da en stor andel barnefamilier flytter ut før barna når skolealderen. Samtidig som de store boligbyggerne i Oslo bygger nye leiligheter, finnes det i hovedstadens omland veletablerte småhusområder som tiltrekker seg mange av de tidligere urbane barnefamiliene. I denne artikkelen drøfter vi ulike faktorer som kan tenkes å påvirke barnefamiliers valg av bosted.
... Nowadays, Image is the primary ingredient and the product is treated simply as a variable that attempts to represent the image (Schroeder, 2002) and, in many cases, the message is decoded by the consumer more quickly and accurately (Machin, 2004). According to Barthes, in a typical advertising image there are three messages: a visual literal, an iconic symbolic and a verbal one (Barthes, 1988). ...
The scope of this paper is to investigate the role of visual communication as one of the main factors in order to promote destinations of Greek Tourism Industry and to influence perspective tourists. The paper aims at recording tourism demand trends and the profile the modern tourist, analyzing the use of print and electronic media, with particular emphasis on the Internet, as well as, to focus on the tourism offer, attempting to outline the specific actions used by the tourism businesses in order to communicate with potential tourists/customers. The results and conclusions of both the primary and secondary survey demonstrate the contribution of Visual Communication in tourism and the need to redefine the relationships and the ways of communication between tourism businesses and tourists, according to new requirements in the evolutionary process of the Greek tourism industry.
... These images are of lower modality as their backgrounds do not contain many details. These images can fall into what Machin (2004) called "generic images" (p. 320). ...
The English language teaching (ELT) industry is an important area of activity in which English has been treated as a commercial commodity. While the commodification of English has been researched through the lens of ELT in many expanding-circle countries, little has been done to investigate how English is commodified within the ELT industry in China, one of the largest ELT markets in the world. In this study, we address this gap by examining the advertising posters of online ELT tutoring platforms in China. Adopting reflexive thematic analysis and visual grammar, we investigate the textual elements and pictorial elements of the selected advertising posters respectively. Results show that advertising posters focus on the ideas of selling North American teachers, selling English language learning enjoyment, and selling English speaking skill. Results also reveal that the key represented participants include teachers, students, and celebrities, who live in an unreal world, and the tutoring platforms establish a good relationship with the consumers and invite them to enter into this ideal life through employing various modality markers. The combination of texts and images suggests two language ideologies. On the one hand, English can be best taught by White people from North America. On the other hand, English is packaged as a key to success and a ticket to an imaginary fruitful and happy life. The study enriches our understanding of how English is commodified in the ELT context of expanding-circle countries.
... In addition, it examines two related questions: How often are symbolic images used in prevention materials from specialized counselling centers on child sexual abuse (RQ3), and what image motifs are used there (RQ4)? The study focuses on symbolic images and stock photos (as opposed to Extended Abstract documentary photos) because they are increasingly used but heavily under-researched (Frosh, 2001;Kalazić et al., 2015;Machin, 2004). ...
Child sexual abuse (CSA) is quite widespread in Germany and internationally
and often has serious and long-term consequences for those affected. How the public and
politicians perceive the social problem of CSA and which prevention and intervention approaches
are pursued depend to a large extent on media reporting. In this regard, previous
communication science research shows both strengths and weaknesses of CSA-related media
representations: On the one hand, the media contribute to uncovering CSA, giving
those affected a voice and raising public awareness. On the other, media reports are often
biased, clichéd and lurid, sometimes to the detriment of those affected. Research into the
content and quality features of media reporting on CSA has so far completely ignored one
important aspect, namely the use of images. The Iconography (i.e. the set of typical image
motifs for a topic), however, is an important element of media coverage; it generates attention
and emotions. This is where the present study comes in. It answers the following research
questions: How often are symbolic images used in press coverage of CSA, and what
image motifs are used? and examines two related ones: How often are symbolic images
used in prevention materials created by specialized counselling centers and what image
motifs are used in those materials? In order to work out the respective iconographies of
CSA, a sample of N = 1,437 CSA-related German-language online press articles and a
sample of N = 230 German-language CSA prevention materials were drawn. The symbol
images contained therein were each subjected separately to a standardized image content
analysis. The analysis showed that 29.2% of the online press articles and 62.0% of the
prevention materials used symbolic images. The analyzed 419 CSA stock photos of the
press revealed a CSA iconography related to criminal reporting that visualizes 1. crime
contexts, 2. course of the crime and people involved, and 3. consequences of the crime for
the people involved. For the prevention materials, based on 450 symbol images, a CSA
iconography was identified that is oriented to the framing of prevention approaches and
depicts 1. primary prevention, 2. secondary prevention, and 3. tertiary prevention. The
article compares the two CSA iconographies, discusses the image types critically with
regard to criteria of media quality and media ethics, and makes suggestions for
improvement. Additional material can be retrieved from https://osf.io/g2cxa/.
***This article is the English-language extended abstract plus image appendix for a German-language full text article***
***This article received the journal article award 2022 of the German Communication Association (DGPuK)***
... The first, promotion, refers to contents purposely created to support the image of an entertainer. This consists of elements like announcements, news releases, fan club, publications, photographs, advertisements, product endorsements, and public appearances (Machin, 2004;Kinsky & Callison, 2009). It can also be defined as "the coordination of all seller-initiated efforts to set up channels of information and persuasion in order to sell goods and services or promote an idea" (Belch & Belch, 2003, p.16). ...
The the oil and gas industry has been the mainstay of the Nigerian economy over the last
five decades, but the Niger Delta region where its activities are centered has a long history
of exclusion and marginalization from direct participation in the industry. This includes
the distribution and management of oil revenue. As well, widespread environmental
pollution arising from the activities of multinational oil companies has undermined the
capacity of their host communities to have decent livelihoods and practise sustainable
development. This study examines the issues of social exclusion and poverty in the oil
producing communities of the Niger Delta. Utilizing the household livelihood assessment
(HLA) survey approach, this study investigated 610 households in selected oil producing communities in Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa States. Findings revealed that most households
in the sampled communities are impoverished, possessing poor livelihood assets as well as poor human and infrastructure development outcomes. The exclusion of the Niger Delta people from the crude oil resources beneath their soil has produced It was concluded a paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty. Until this fundamental anomaly is addressed, the Niger Delta will largely remain a poor and underdeveloped region.
Keywords: Social exclusion, Poverty paradox, Household livelihood assessment, Niger
Delta.
... The first, promotion, refers to contents purposely created to support the image of an entertainer. This consists of elements like announcements, news releases, fan club, publications, photographs, advertisements, product endorsements, and public appearances (Machin, 2004;Kinsky & Callison, 2009). It can also be defined as "the coordination of all seller-initiated efforts to set up channels of information and persuasion in order to sell goods and services or promote an idea" (Belch & Belch, 2003, p.16). ...
Interdisciplinary scholarship is very vibrant in Nigeria despite the Covid-19 pandemic. The outcome of this issue of the quint: an interdisciplinary quarterly from the north is solid evidence of the resilience and resourcefulness of Nigerian scholars during the global pandemic that wrought havoc everywhere in the world. All articles submitted for consideration and accepted for publication in the quint 13.4 were subjected to rigorous evaluation. Using diverse but appropriate methodologies tools, the contributors speak to various issues that confront Nigeria and Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora. The volume indexes the rich interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary outlook of the humanities in Nigeria as an animated hub of 21st global scholarship.
... The room is uncluttered and ordered, and there is a sense of space. Machin (2004), in his account of stock images, argues that such stripped-back images, emptied of artifice, allow the individual objects to carry out greater symbolic work. Typically across these images we see objects, such as toys and books, carefully placed. ...
In this paper, we use Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis to look at the posts of influencers using parenting hashtags on Chinese Weibo. It has been observed that motherhood more widely has become a site of discursive tension, often played out online. In this case, we find such tension between former, more Confucian roles of motherhood, related to duty and knowing one’s place, and a more recently arrived influence of neoliberalism. On the one hand, the hashtags provide a sense of community for stay-at-home mothers who have given up their careers, but on the other, the influencers configure this duty and obligation into something based on striving, individual success and self-management. They appear to play a role in helping this ideology enter into the family.
... 1-2). vii) Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA): This studies the meaning potentials and informational values of multimodal texts and/or semiotic modes (see Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006;Machin, 2004;van Leeuwen, 2005). viii) Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA): Adopts or adapts approaches in DA to deconstructing the use of language in the electronic environment (see Herring, 2001;Herring & Androutsopoulos, 2015). ...
In this article, the authors explore the link between the city and its images. Their hypothesis is that images of the city do not merely have a cosmetic function but contribute to the experience of the city itself, as well as to its reality. The article focuses mainly on stock images of the city, those available on the websites of stock agencies such as Getty Images and Shutterstock. Their thesis is that these images have an anesthetizing effect on the imaginaries, and hence expectations, about the city. The article is divided into three sections. In the first section, the authors propose a state of the art of the existing literature on stock images, insisting on the relationship between their material and symbolic dimensions. In the second section, they explore the link between the city and its images by resorting to the notion of urban landscape. In the third section, they consider the specific case of the city of Turin. Specifically, they conduct a socio-semiotic analysis on the first 100 images resulting from the search “Torino OR Turin” on the search engine of the microstock agency Shutterstock. In the conclusion, the authors refer to the concept of «distribution of the sensible» (Rancière 2000) to introduce their own notion of “anaesthetics”, that is, an anesthetizing aesthetic that characterize, according to them, these visual representations of the city.
Commercial image banks powerfully shape the cultural meanings of social media, especially when circulated as “fact” in the news media. To this end, we report a social semiotic analysis that documents the representational, compositional, and interpersonal framing of social media in a corpus of 600 stock photographs top-sliced from three global image banks. This core analysis is complemented with reference to (a) keywords used to categorize photos in image banks, and (b) two indicative samples of photos reproduced in international English-language news reports. We find that a visual “regime of truth” is produced in stock photography (and then circulated by the news media) that is gendered, affectively flattened, and “corporatized.” Social media are also depicted in ways that are disembedded and largely asocial or desocialized. We interpret these findings in terms of visual and media ideologies, and vis-à-vis scholarly perspectives on “connectivity” and “sociality” in digital communication/culture.
We find both the quantitative approach to (de)bordering practices research and visual studies about the Polish-German border relatively underdeveloped. This paper aims at filling methodological and empirical gaps we have found in these areas. We conducted a visual content analysis of 1402 pictures of the Słubice-Frankfurt (Oder) area, sampled from Instagram, local press, and a local art project. Our coding frame enabled taking interpretations and motivations of actors into account by treating photos as manifestations of bordering practices. We used a combined approach of hypothesis-testing by common statistical methods and exploratory cluster analysis. Results include significant differences between the content of the images dependent on the depicted country and the picture source. Finally, we also critically assessed the methodological potential of the proposed method of selecting and coding photographs.
The main goal of this paper is to account for the ‘algorithmization’ of microstock imagery. By this term, the authors refer to a material process implying the chronic use of graphic editors, semi-automatic keywording allowing complex and dynamic proto-classifications, and access to the images via search engines. The algorithmization of microstock imagery also goes along with the exploitation of producers’ labour, so that the authors recognize in it a form of digital labour. Moreover, the term ‘algorithmization’ is meant to underline that this material process has symbolic effects on the image contents as well as on people’s expectations and imaginaries of these contents. The paper analyses, in particular, the case study of microstock images depicting artificial intelligence (AI). By producing hundreds of thousands of visual representations of AI that spread via the Web and beyond it, algorithmized microstock imagery also produces its own symbolic conditions of possibility, that is, the expectations and imaginaries that contribute to the success of AI beyond its concrete effectiveness. The paper is structured into three sections. In the first section, the authors account for the existing literature on stock imagery. They contend that this literature focuses too much on the symbolic message, and too little on the material processes of production of these images. In the second section, the authors describe an empirical analysis they conducted on Shutterstock images depicting AI. In the third section, they distinguish three forms of digital labour and show that microstock imagery entertains resemblances to and differences from each form. They contend that despite its peculiarities, microstock image production is a paradigmatic form of digital labour due to its convergence towards algorithmization. In the conclusion, the authors show how, for microstock images depicting AI, the algorithmic loop of microstock imagery is complete.
Stock photography is the name given to a particular type of standardized commercial imagery. This largely consists of clichéd photographs of consumer well‐being or corporate achievement: the happy couples on sun‐drenched beaches pictured in travel adverts, and the well‐groomed businessmen shaking hands who tend to grace company brochures (→ Advertisement, Visual Characteristics of). Stock photography is also the name of the industry that manufactures, promotes, and distributes these images for use in → Marketing , → advertising, publishing, and increasingly multimedia products, websites, and other digital platforms (for instance, the sunsets and cloud images one can find on mobile phones). Worth an estimated US$2 billion annually, the industry continues to expand into new areas of image production and supply: its leading corporations own some of the most important historical photographic archives, manufacture and market stock film footage, and compete with traditional sources of → photojournalism. Despite the ubiquity of its products, and estimates that it supplies a majority of the photographs used in advertising and marketing, the stock photography industry is largely overlooked by researchers into photography and consumer culture (exceptions include Miller ; Frosh ; Machin ), and is invisible to the general public.
Although institutional websites focusing on health matters play an important role in providing information in contemporary society, analysis of the way they use visual communication has received scarce academic attention. This exploratory study seeks to address this neglect through a visual analysis of public institutional websites concerned with the prevention of teenage pregnancy, which, in Brazil, is a serious sociocultural predicament. Drawing on a social semiotic approach to communication, specifically using systemic-functional grammar, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s grammar of visual design ( Reading Images, 2021[2006]) and Van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework of visual social actors, the authors analyse the visual and verbal features used to portray the social actors in images from the selected websites. Results show that pregnant teenagers tend to be visually portrayed in isolation, suggesting a sense of powerlessness. Other relevant social actors such as parents and/or family members, fathers of the babies, medical and educational professionals are usually not represented. In addition, pregnant teenagers are portrayed generically, categorizing them, rather than portraying them as individuals. Teenagers who apparently abstain from sexuality, on the other hand, are shown in naturalistic images, smiling at the viewer and in happy closely-knit groups of friends. The texts also foreground the institutions providing the information, through logos and through typography.
This paper used the three-dimensional discursive analysis of Fairclough as a premise on the political and power ideologies involved in the images and the visual grammar of Kress and Leeuwen to unveil the representational, interactive, and compositional choices undertaken to disseminate the notion of resistance against racial inequality and injustice through the interaction of multimodality and resemiotization. It sought to identify the visual meta-functions and sub-meta-functions in the selected images of anti-racist/-injustice rallies and which of these (sub-)meta-functions re-semiotize the anti-racial movement, Black Lives Matter, into its basic elements, namely, Black Men/Women/Futures Matter or other movements. It also attempted to document how social practices are disseminated and redefined using visual grammar features in the selected images. Three out of thirty-seven chosen news images from CNN world news coverage, ordered vertically, were discussed in the paper. Results showed that the images confirm the presence of four processes: action (highest), symbolic, reactional, and speech (lowest). It also illustrated that the hegemony of political symbolic representations is strengthened or recontextualized through religious, social (gender issues-LGBT), and ethnic (Australian aboriginal groups) orientations. Lastly, the images showed that the socio-anti-racist practice is legitimized through purging the racially discriminative symbolisms (Iconoclasm) of dominant ideology by an eligible participant. The study concluded that although the representational structures (action, reactional, and symbolic processes), interactive patterns, and compositional systems appeared to be utilized somewhat equally, the micro-meta-function subcategories (contact, vertical/horizontal angles, modality, informational value, and salience) were distinguishing factors in meaning making and resemiotization among the selected news images.
Nowadays, the integration of informal, evaluative and entertaining elements in news production is not an uncommon practice in certain types of news genres. Our focus is on such elements expressed innovatively through image-based digital resources (IDRs) borrowed from participatory internet media culture, which include internet memes, emojis, screenshots of TV dramas/movies and digital archives, in social media news reporting. Our case study deals with news reports about sexual assaults by a Chinese official news outlet People.cn on Sina Weibo, one of the largest social media platforms in mainland China. Using the concepts of ‘remediatisation’ and ‘media interdiscursivity’, we unpack the ideological implications of the representation of sexual assaults and the social actors (perpetrators and victims) involved in the cases. Our study shows that the unexpected and innovative use of IDRs by the news media generates particular kinds of affect that result in an ideological ambivalence about sexual assaults and sexual crime reporting.
Refugee workers struggle to find employment because they are stigmatized. Research suggests that organizations can help destigmatize actors such as refugees by recognizing them and confirming their worth in society. Here, we explore pictures that refugee job-placement organizations in Austria and Germany used to redefine refugees’ moral worthiness – that is, their worth in relation to higher-order normative principles such as civic duty, efficiency and creativity. Analysing images used in organizations’ destigmatization efforts is essential, as pictures visualize and materialize refugees rather than abstractly describing them. Hence, visualization shapes the worthiness of refugee workers in the eyes of prospective employers. Combining social semiotics with the economies of worth framework, we found that job-placement organizations use three visualization practices – professionalizing, domesticizing and stylizing – that draw on distinct moral orders. We found that although these practices were intended to destigmatize, they also – counterintuitively – restigmatize. By leveraging social semiotic studies of visualization, our results advance stigmatization studies by showing how visualization can unintendedly restigmatize and by revealing that the visualization practices we identified are built upon multiple forms of worth. Our analysis also theoretically and methodologically extends studies of organizational morality by explaining how moral dimensions are expressed through visual registers.
This paper explores the importance of visualization online and the gendering of entrepreneurship in contemporary neoliberal times. We investigate how understandings of entrepreneurship are shaped by online imagery. Applying visual critical methodology, we trace and analyze 248 commercial images. Our analytic work explicates the visual construction of male and female entrepreneurs, leading us to further examine appearance, (in)action, and interaction aesthetics. Through detailed visual analysis, we unpack masculinities and femininities to theorize the resulting gendering of entrepreneurial aesthetics. In doing so, we consider the role of image networks in the reproduction of neoliberal ideals.
This article interrogates the visual language surrounding the South African Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) agenda, by rhetorically analysing stock images used in a prominent 4IR publication. This study serves to contribute to the ongoing critical discussion surrounding the general legitimacy and local propriety of the global 4IR narrative, which has been enthusiastically adopted by the South African government to guide techno-development policy. The article draws on critiques of 4IR discursivities but offers a novel contribution by examining the rhetorical power of images in reinforcing this influential but potentially problematic high-level policy narrative. The stock images analysed feature prominently in “Summary Report and Recommendations” by the Presidential Commission on the 4IR. Both the general rhetorical appeal of commercial stock images and the particular visual appeal of a “techno-imaginary” genre of images are analysed. In addition to outlining the persuasive effects of these images, according to Aristotle’s means of persuasion (logos, pathos, and ethos), the article also critically reflects on their potential shortcomings. The article is concluded by arguing that these generic stock images offer an inadequate visual vocabulary for imagining a locally appropriate and desirable South African future.
Do you want to study influencers? Opinions and comments on a set of posts? Look at collections of photos or videos on Instagram? Qualitative Research Using Social Media guides the reader in what different kinds of qualitative research can be applied to social media data. It introduces students, as well as those who are new to the field, to developing and carrying out concrete research projects. The book takes the reader through the stages of choosing data, formulating a research question, and choosing and applying method(s).
Written in a clear and accessible manner with current social media examples throughout, the book provides a step-by-step overview of a range of qualitative methods. These are presented in clear ways to show how to analyze many different types of social media content, including language and visual content such as memes, gifs, photographs, and film clips. Methods examined include critical discourse analysis, content analysis, multimodal analysis, ethnography, and focus groups. Most importantly, the chapters and examples show how to ask the kinds of questions that are relevant for us at this present point in our societies, where social media is highly integrated into how we live. Social media is used for political communication, social activism, as well as commercial activities and mundane everyday things, and it can transform how all these are accomplished and even what they mean.
Drawing on examples from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Weibo, and others, this book will be suitable for undergraduate students studying social media research courses in media and communications, as well as other humanities such as linguistics and social science-based degrees.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, images of the virus molecule and ‘flatten-the-curve’ line charts were inescapable. There is now a vast visual repertoire of vaccines, people wearing face masks in everyday settings, choropleth maps and both bar and line charts. These ‘generic visuals’ circulate widely in the news media and, however unremarkable, play an important role in representing the crisis in particular ways. We argue that these generic visuals promote banal nationalism, localism and cosmopolitanism in the face of the crisis, and that they do so through the symbolic reiteration of a range of visual resources across news stories. Through an analysis of three major news outlets in the UK, we examine how generic visuals of Covid-19 contribute to these banal visions and versions of belonging and, in doing so, also to foregrounding the role of the state in responding to the crisis.
Este artigo apresenta uma análise comparativa das representações fotográficas da presidenta brasileira Dilma Roussef e do candidato à presidência Aécio Neves na Revista IstoÉ. Tendo como base a Análise Crítica do Discurso e os processos semióticos de conotação buscamos compreender quais preconceitos de gênero foram relacionados às imagens fotográficas de Dilma e de Aécio. A análise identificou estereótipos visuais vinculados ao não pertencimento feminino aos espaços públicos de poder, a racionalidade masculina em contraste com a histeria feminina, a vulnerabilidade e solidão das mulheres políticas e vinculações de Dilma à figura de bruxa. A análise expôs o tratamento desigual que Dilma Rousseff recebeu de parte da mídia brasileira ao desafiar os papéis tradicionais de gênero. A violência simbólica que sofreu quando ocupou o mais importante cargo do poder executivo marcarão a história do Brasil como uma retaliação midiática massiva.
For its millions of readers, the National Geographic has long been a window to the world of exotic peoples and places. In this fascinating account of an American institution, Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins explore the possibility that the magazine, in purporting to teach us about distant cultures, actually tells us much more about our own. Lutz and Collins take us inside the National Geographic Society to investigate how its photographers, editors, and designers select images and text to produce representations of Third World cultures. Through interviews with the editors, they describe the process as one of negotiating standards of "balance" and "objectivity," informational content and visual beauty. Then, in a close reading of some six hundred photographs, they examine issues of race, gender, privilege, progress, and modernity through an analysis of the way such things as color, pose, framing, and vantage point are used in representations of non-Western peoples. Finally, through extensive interviews with readers, the authors assess how the cultural narratives of the magazine are received and interpreted, and identify a tension between the desire to know about other peoples and their ways and the wish to validate middle-class American values. The result is a complex portrait of an institution and its role in promoting a kind of conservative humanism that acknowledges universal values and celebrates diversity while it allows readers to relegate non-Western peoples to an earlier stage of progress. We see the magazine and the Society as a key middlebrow arbiter of taste, wealth, and power in America, and we get a telling glimpse into middle-class American culture and all the wishes, assumptions, and fears it brings to bear on our armchair explorations of the world.
En esta obra se aborda a la etnografía como una técnica metodológica útil en el estudio de los medios de comunicación y los estudios culturales. Ofrece una introducción en el sentido que describe qué es la etnografía, de qué disciplina proviene, cómo ha sido útil en los estudios de los medios de comunicación y la cultura, entre otros temas.
The Culture Industry
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