Visual research
Visual research is a qualitative research methodology that relies on artistic mediums to produce and represent knowledge. These artistic mediums include film, photography, drawings, paintings, and sculptures. The artistic mediums provide a rich source of information that has the ability to capture reality. They also reveal information about what the medium captures, but the artist or the creator behind the medium. Using photography as an example, the photographs taken illustrate reality and give information about the photographer through the angle, the focus of the image, and the moment in which the picture was taken. Nevertheless, some argue that visual research is not comparable to traditional methodology.
Research process, a definition and visual images
Images are an essential component for different sorts of inquiries on a wide range of topics and research questions may call for a visual component in a variety of ways. One way could be to the research questions or the phenomena being examined, or the researcher could be the one making new images. After the visual material is created the resulting collection may be the base of further discussion, interviews, and or analysis, although the process of creating images is often a large part of the research process itself.Participant generated visual methodologies
This method of data collection is often used to elicit data or opinion, here the participant is the one who would be generating the visual data. If it is a photograph she or he has taken it, or for a video, she or he has shot the visual data that will be further analysed. This allows the researcher to understand participants' views and perceptions.Photovoice
Caroline C. Wang and Mary Anne Burris conceptualized the visual methodology called photovoice. Participants are provided with a camera and asked to produce an image-based account of their experiences and/or those things that are important to them in a particular context. These projects share the assumption that increased participant control of data generation through production of visual images will help to highlight important aspects of lived experience that might otherwise have been overlooked or ignored by researchers. This method is often used in social science and health research.Fotohistorias
Ricardo Gomez and Sara Vannini introduced a variation of photovoice called Fotohistorias, that combines participant-generated photos and semistructured interviews to elicit lived experiences of immigrants and other marginalized communities. Fotohistorias combines the power of images and the richness of stories. Together, they yield more depth and sensitivity than either photos or interviews alone. Fotohistorias helps to quickly get to deep conversation about profound and meaningful topics, by focusing on the photos as a pretext for conversation. Fotohistorias helps elicit multiple perspectives and symbols from the same image or place, emphasizing how people's perceptions and feelings shape meaning and experience. Fotohistorias participants frequently feel empowered, heard and valued, and gain a new perspective and agency over their current situation and context.Photo-elicitation
The photo-elicitation approach can include researcher or participant generated photographs. Photographs are introduced to the context of research interview based on the "assumption about the role and utility of photographs in promoting reflections that words alone cannot." Participant generated photo elicitation puts significance to the participants role in shaping the creation of visual images. It is important to note the value of the technique for "bridging culturally distinct worlds of the researcher and the researched." The term photo-elicitation originated from a paper published by Collier, when it was initiated as a solution to the practical difficulties that research teams were having in relation to agreeing on categories for quality housing. Collier extended the method to examine how families adapted to residence among ethnically different people, and to new forms of work in urban factories, interviewing families and communities with photographs created by researchers. Reflecting on the use of photo-elicitation, Collier, argued that ‘pictures elicited longer and more comprehensive interviews but at the same time helped subjects overcome the fatigue and repetition of conventional interviews’ and noted the technique's ‘compelling effect upon the informant, its ability to prod latent memory, to stimulate and release emotional statements about the informant’s life’. Photo-elicitation with researcher-initiated productions has been taken up by a range of researchers across the social sciences and related disciplines.Film-elicitation
This technique of data collection is mostly used by researchers who believe in Positivist or realist view of the world.Making a film as opposed to simply shooting footages, involves editing and other post production tasks, such as adding subtitles, but it also rests upon a series of ideas concerning the place of visual representation within social science itself.
This technique of data collection or data analysis is not widely used because of its multiple requirements.
Making films – to elicit data or opinion, can be of 3 basic types:
1.Documenting or filming the subjects
2.Showing a film to the subjects and asking about their opinion
3.Asking the subjects to make a film
There are 3 basic concerns when it comes to analysis of a film or a video:
1. the analytical approach taken towards film or video.
2. method employed to derive data.
3. the kind of issue being analysed.
Benefits and limitations
This methodology is beneficial in its applicability to participants who may be illiterate or have difficulty communicating because of language barriers, lack of education, or a disability. This characteristic of Photovoice allows researchers who choose to use this methodology to choose participants from a large sample pool because there are no language or literacy requirements. Photovoice may be a powerful research tool because it allows the researcher to see the topic being studied from the participant's perspective. It also encourages the participants and the researcher to reflect on the images and meaning behind them as they highlight an aspect or perspective of the research topic perhaps not previously considered. In this way visual methods of data production can act as tools of defamiliarisation, fighting familiarity for both researchers and participants and allowing space for a more nuanced understanding of the topics studies.The use of Photovoice also has its limits. It requires the researcher to budget for the equipment used to carry it out, such as cameras, ink and printing costs. This may be problematic for the researcher if the research has been given limited or insufficient funds.
Another problem that may arise in the use of Photovoice is the question of photograph ownership. The researcher may be providing the equipment, but it is the participants who are taking the pictures. To avoid any potential issues regarding photograph ownership, it is advised that researchers obtain from their participants permission to use the photographs they take. It is particularly important to think carefully about informed consent in an era of digital dissemination and open access publication where images can be reworked, redistributed and recirculated in the digital economy, in ways that may not have been envisaged at the time of the research study.