International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Visual culture is an area of study focused on practices of looking and the role of visual representations in the arts, popular and alternative media cultures, institutional and professional contexts, and everyday life. Art history, film and media studies, →  cultural studies , sociology, and anthropology are some of the fields in which visual culture study is conducted. Forms of →  visual representation studied include →  museum display, fine art, film and →  Television , old and new media, computer and →  video games , digital culture, medical images such as X-rays and sonograms, and advertising (→  Art as Communication ; Painting ; Cinema ; Film as Popular Culture ; Television , Visual Characteristics of; Video; Digital Imagery; Advertisement, Visual Characteristics of). The study of visual culture emphasizes the relationship of looking and visual representation to forms of knowledge, power, experience, and ideology in everyday life and culture in different historical periods. Emphasis is placed on looking as a social practice and the place of visual texts and artifacts in relationships of power, pleasure, and knowledge within and among social groups including nations, communities, workplaces, audiences, and members of institutions such as schools, churches, and cultural organizations. Research in visual culture tends toward qualitative and interdisciplinary methods informed ... log in or subscribe to read full text