MGC3/S14/A9c ( 5 cr ) Power and Agency in VISUAL COMMUNICATION in the Digital Era

MGC3/S14/A9c (5 cr)

Power and Agency in VISUAL COMMUNICATION

in the Digital Era

Coordinators: Liina Puustinen

& Karoliina Talvitie-Lamberg

Power and Agency in Visual Communication on the Digital Era

SCHEDULE spring 2010

1. Introduction: Power and agency in visual culture - Liina Puustinen2. Visual literacy and media education - Juha Herkman3. Citizen photojournalism: changing the visual order of the news - Mervi Pantti4. Digital intermediality - Susanna Paasonen5. Visuality and virtuality of perception - Annamari Vänskä6. The Unconscious and Visual Communication - Janne Seppänen 7. Visual communication in the mobile and networked context - Mikko Villi8. Visual communication in practice - Mia Marttiini9. Webcam Aesthetics - Karoliina Talvitie-Lamberg10. The impact of pocket-video reporting on journalism and predictions for the

new decade – Anssi Männistö

Assesment

Learning diary: • Length: I page/ lecture; minimum coverage 9 lecturers • Deadline: 29.4. 2010• Reflect on the central issues covered in each lecture and evaluate these

issues together with your learning process. Learning diary is not a documentation of a lecture but a text that reflects your learning.

Essay:• Length: 6-8 pages• Deadline: 29.4.2010• Write an academic essay reflecting at minimum on one topic covered in

lecturers talks. Use as a material lectures, course literature and additional literature given during the lectures.

Learning diary• Write down the main points of the lecture

What was new? How does it relate to what you already know?

• Write your own thoughts and ideas based on the lectureWhat kind of experiences do you have on certain phenomena? What kind of examples can you make up?

• Pose questionsWas something unclear? What kind of further questions the topic may evoke?

Introduction: Power and agency in visual culture

16.3.2010Liina Puustinen

Journalism Research and Development CentreUniversity of Tampere

Visual culture:

• Shared practices of a group, community or society through which meanings are made out of the visual, aural and textual representations and the ways that looking practices are engaged in symbolic and communicative activities.

(Sturken & Cartwright 2009.)

Visual culture

• How does power and agency work within and through the diverse forms of the visual communication in the contemporary digital and global culture?

Power

Foucault:

• Relationship• Network• Resistance• Violence vs. productive power

Agency

• Freedom to act within the discourses of power

’Empowerment’: • visual literacy• Production of visual media content

(e.g. social media)Agency in the digital era?

OUTLINE of the lectures:I GENERAL CONCEPTS AND THEORY OF VISUAL

COMMUNICATION 1. Introduction: Power and agency in visual culture - Liina Puustinen2. Visual literacy and media education - Juha Herkman4. Digital intermediality - Susanna Paasonen5. Visuality and virtuality of perception - Annamari Vänskä6. The Unconscious and Visual Communication - Janne Seppänen

II NEW PHENOMENA & NEW FORMS OF AGENCY ON THE DIGITAL ERA

3. Citizen photojournalism: changing the visual order of the news - Mervi Pantti7. Visual communication in the mobile and networked context - Mikko Villi9. Webcam Aesthetics - Karoliina Talvitie-Lamberg10. The impact of pocket-video reporting on journalism and predictions for the new decade

– Anssi Männistö

III VISUAL COMMUNICATION AS PROFESSION8. Visual communication in practice - Mia Marttiini

Power and image

Power and gaze: to look and to be looked at

- Panopticon

Photograph- Photographic truth- Affective power

example advertisements

• How does power and agency work through these commercials?- What kinds of power relationships and positions does the ad represent? - How does it position the viewer? How do you position yourself as viewer?

Madonna:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGZ76iJdToU&feature=player_embedded

Permanent textmarker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGoOigQzDx8

At least 14 children killed in Gaza terror as Israel defies demands for a ceasefireMail Online 06th January 2009

Last updated at 1:48 AM on 06th January 2009

Images of Trust Audiences Experiencing News Images:

Do people have confidence in the news images of the press and

internet newspapers?

The question of trust /confidence

• Trustworthiness of journalism & photojournalism

• Trust/confidence is a relationship of productive power

• Digital processing of images

ConclusionTentative results on the qualitative interviews Silent confidence• People do not think about the trustworthiness of the news image before

they suspect something is fake.

Three levels of confidence • 1. the topic of the picture, the inner ‘reality’ of the image, is the frame of

interpretation and also the basis for confidence or suspect• 2. the photograph itself is the frame of interpretation and the basis for

confidence or suspect• 3. the context - the text of the article and news media - gives a frame of

interpretation, and constructs the relation of confidence or suspect to the image. It reflects the confidence on the newspaper (print or online).