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The Open University

Reading visual images

The Open University via OpenLearn

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Overview

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What does a picture or an image tell you? This free course, Reading visual images, is an introduction to analysing and interpreting photographs as social data. Who controls what the image is saying? You will look at how photographs provide visual evidence and how they can illustrate and support our ideas about society.

Syllabus

  • Visual Images in Social Sciences
  • Learning outcomes
  • 1 Images and history
  • 1 Images and history
  • 1.1 Why look at photographs?
  • 1.2 The immediacy of the still photograph
  • 1.3 Nick Ut's 1972 Vietnam war photograph
  • 1.4 The context of photographs
  • 1.4.1 Summary
  • 2 Social science approaches to the documentary photograph
  • 2.1 Photographs as documentary evidence
  • 2.2 Theories, documents and knowledge
  • 2.3 Realist and conventionalist approaches
  • 2.4 Looking closely at photographs for social data
  • The 1990s wedding photograph
  • 3 Photographs and social science concepts
  • 3.1 Photographic content and context
  • 3.2 Looking at the family
  • Looking at the family: the 1950s
  • 4 Photography and truth
  • 4.1 Are photographs truthful?
  • 4.2 Nation and identity
  • Family meal photographs: 1930s and 1990s
  • 5 Conclusion
  • References
  • Acknowledgements

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4.3 rating at OpenLearn based on 3 ratings

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