Visual Methodologies

My research interests lie broadly within the field of visual culture. I′m interested in visuality as a kind of practice, done by human subjects in collaboration with different kinds of objects and technologies.One long-term project, which resulted in a book from Ashgate Press in 2010, looked at family photos. I approached family snaps by thinking of them as objects embedded in a wide range of practices. I interviewed women with young children about their photos, and also looked at the politics and ethics of family snaps moving into more public arenas of display when the people they picture are the victims of violence. The book explores the different ′politics of sentiment′ in which family snaps participate in both their domestic spaces in the public space of the contemporary mass media.Other work is extending my interest in subjectivities, space and visual practices by exploring experiences of designed urban spaces. I completed an ESRC-funded project on this theme with Dr Monica Degen at Brunel University in 2009, in which we compared how people experienced two rather different town centres: Milton Keynes and Bedford. Monica Degen, Clare Melhuish and I started a new ESRC-funded project in the autumn of 2011. ′Architectural atmospheres, branding and the social: the role of digital visualizing technologies in contemporary architectural practice′ was a two-year ethnographic study of how digital visualizing technologies are being used by architects in a number of architects′ studio in London.I′m also interested in more innovative ways to produce social science research, especially using visual materials. I was involved in organising the ESRC Seminar Series ′Visual Dialogues: New Agendas in Inequalities Research′ (2010-2012). Please visit the ′Visual Dialogues: New Agendas in Inequalities Research′ for more details. I′m also a member of the OpenSpace Research Centre.

• How to Use this BookContextsResearching with Visual Materials: A Brief Survey of Conceptual DebatesA Critical Visual MethodologyDesignUnderstanding Visual Research EthicsDesigning a Visual Methods Research ProjectHow to Find, Format, Reference and Reproduce ImagesMethodsCompositional Interpretation: Looking with a ‘Good Eye’Content Analysis and Cultural Analytics: Finding Patterns in What You SeeSemiology: Making Sense of SignsDiscourse Analysis I: Text, Intertextuality and ContextDiscourse Analysis II: Instituitions, Objects and DisplaysInterviews and Ethnographies: Studying Audiences, Fans and UsersMaking Images as Research Data: Documentation, Elicitation and ParticipationApplying Digital Methods to Digital ImagesEngagementUsing Images to Make Research Findings Engaging

There can have been few moments when the question of how we see the world has been so important. Exercising an expert eye, Gillian Rose guides the reader through the methods, techniques and approaches that allow us to make sense of all these images and visions. With vibrancy, lucidity and energy, this stone-cold classic reaches its fifth and refreshed edition at just the right time.