Visual Methodologies Workshop

On the 13th of February, the Department of Psychology and Counselling at Webster University Geneva, in partnership with the Niels Bohr Centre for Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark, co-organized a four hours workshop on Visual Methodologies.

This workshop was based on the premise that we are immersed into a world full of visual material from newspaper images to political posters, from internet memes to advertising ads, from monuments to street art. Despite this rich, visual data that is largely accessible, there are few well defined methodological approaches that can be used by researchers interested to use and study images and videos. In psychology, for instance, there are many guidelines available for the analysis of text and discourse but rarely for image analysis.

The Visual Methodologies workshop brought together experts from Denmark and Switzerland. It included several presentations of ongoing research and a methodological presentation and exercise: analysing images related to the refugee crisis on social media.

The presentations were given by Prof. Brady Wagoner, Aalborg University, on the use of subjective cameras in studying how people experience memorials, Sarah Awad, Aalborg University, on the role of street art in the context of the Egyptian revolution, and Dr. Ignacio Bresco, on satire, irony and humour as reflected in images. The methodological presentation and exercise were directed by Dr. Vlad Glaveanu, Webster Geneva Campus, and Dr. Constance de Saint Laurent, University of Neuchatel.

The event was open to all students and faculty at Webster Geneva Campus and, while grounded primarily in psychology, offered a multidisciplinary perspective on the analysis of visuals, a fascinating and important topic across the humanities and social sciences.