Review Essay: From Picture Interpretation to Videography—Just a Small Step?

Abstract

The change of paradigm from text to visuality is not merely a metaphor that is sent to the catwalk, it is an up-to-date theoretical and methodological perspective that is well-established. BOHNSACK's book on picture and video analyses is a fundamental contribution to the literature on the collection of visual data in relation to the documentary method. In this review essay the book will be briefly outlined and later placed within the current methodological discussion. Its main assumptions are examined and its importance for research within the humanities is assessed. Controlled empirical access to visual data implicates an important methodological perspective that enables scientists to trace the incorporation of atheoretical knowledge. A praxeologically sound sociology of knowledge can be approached on the basis of documentary picture analysis. However, there needs to be greater openness to the diversity of videographic methods in the context of a humanities-based hermeneutics, here more favorable than academic rituals of demarcation. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1001111