Visual Sociology

This course focuses on the new and evolving sub-specialty of sociology that relies on or uses visual data to make social analysis. The course considers photographs as visual texts that also act as social texts The course focuses on the fact that photographic images are the primary transmitters of social information in what has become a decidedly visual mode of interaction in hypermodern societies. The course approaches the production of photographic images as the central means of producing knowledge about social subjects, all within the context of ethnographic research.

The course will require students to utilise their eyes and also carry out small projects that involve doing actual ethnographic research with subjects while utilising cameras. The smartphone cameras that every person in Korean society already has in their pockets are all any student of the course needs.

The course will utilizes Douglas Harper’s textbook Visual Sociology as the theoretical backbone for the course. The instructor has taught this course at Korea and Yonsei Universities, and most recently at DGIST. He is also the first street fashion photographer in Korea (active since 2007) and the only Visual Sociologist in Korea.