ABSTRACT
In this chapter the problems and potentiality of visual forms are examined to pave the way for an understanding of how visual methods might reveal many aspects of social life. It has been suggested that we are living in a visually saturated culture (Gombrich, 1996; Mirzeoff, 1999) and that late modernity has undergone a ‘visual turn’ towards an increasingly ‘ocularcentric’ culture (Jay, 1994; Jenks, 1995; Mitchell, 1994). There have been changes in the form and fluidity of new media technologies permitting a succession of new forms of visual experience. This plasticity of digital communications allows the simultaneous experience of visual, audio, verbal data as fluid and easily manipulated, whether via a webcam, embedded video or audio on PowerPoint slides or video networking at a conference.
