Track-able GPS...

Every time you log on to a computer it is logged against the I.P. address of your location, this is also traceable, not to mention the content you are browsing on the internet...

Other Forms of Surveillance...?

This picture needs to be retaken, however it is a web page that will not give you access to blogger unless you give them your mobile number...

Bar-coded items, such as books that are attached to memberships that contain all your personal details...

To use public computers we must sign in and leave our details and this is recorded and logged...

All of these occurrences are linked to some form of membership that alone or together create a web of information and details about your day to day...moment to moment movements....

Memberships that track what we eat, how we look after ourselves, how much we spend, where we spend it...even what we and if we recycle...

Not only is surveillance by sign...

but surveillance of what we recycle...

Via scanning of ever growing loyalty and club cards...

A membership of loyalty or surveillance...???

Visual Sociology:

A Comment on Photo Journalism...

Nicely put Becker (1986) states that the difference between Photo Journalism, Documentary Photography and Visual Sociology is how the image is received (Becker 1986, cited in Prosser 1998:84).

A photo journalist may construct a context to convey a particular message; a documentary photographer’s job is to document the reality of what is there.  However, Visual Sociology is capturing a series of images and events that can be collated to act as data where themes can be extracted and analysed.  Reflexivity is a useful process to help the visual sociologist to take unbiased images of reality.

Between these three types photo journalism, in today’s modern age, has most constraints: photo journalists photograph a wide area of social phenomenon, thus this does not allow for continuous study of the same area removing the opportunity for depth of analysis and understanding of a specialised area, therefore this could be reflected in how a photo is taken, then what is perceived by the viewer of the photo thus a construct or context is created and portrayed that may miss the value of the initial image taken and even skew or reinforce its purpose.  So in effect it’s almost sometimes as if we can’t see the image for the image that was taken...A visual Sociologist here would be seeking the very thing (depth of analysis and understanding from thematic investigation that a photo journalist may lack then.

Further, photo journalists work for Newspapers who themselves represent strong ideological views.  The projects presented to photo journalists are specific which means they are looking for a particular image, an image possibly constructed or imagined through the lens of superficial understandings of social phenomenon (Becker cited in Prosser 1998:95).

Documentary Photography on the other hand is looking at a specific social phenomenon and narrows its focus over perhaps a longitudinal scope to find out more, to appreciate social phenomenon or investigate, rather than to confirm, backed often with an in-depth theoretical knowledge surrounding the social phenomenon.

Documentary photography could be described as the continuous interest in specific social phenomenon; whereas photo journalism can be described as the prescribed search for relevant imagery?

Good sociological analysis or Visual Sociology would require repetitive comparisons of repeated occurrences of social phenomenon recurring at different times, spaces and/or places to generate data, data being the aim of visual sociology which stands it apart from Photo Journalism or Documentary Photography.

So then back to Becker’s original point and how these different types of photography are received: the essentially creates the image: the maker may take a photo of something he presumes is interesting but, how this is interpreted and given meaning is something attributed by the receiver.  For example a reader may fail to see what the maker has captured in the image and instead focus on something captured in the background, the reader spots the object and deems this more important the image then becomes this and the originally captured image of the maker fades into the background? Although the receiver of the image can only work with what has been constructed by the maker photographer and how the receiver interprets and add meaning to an image can largely be influence by the maker also. This is why the process of reflexivity is important and not just within Visual Sociology, but should be an integral responsibility of all people wielding the power held in the camera...