Abstract
The postmodern society is often characterized by overwhelming visual cultures. Here, we introduce sociology to deal with visual cultures and moving images; in other words, the mobilized and "virtual" gaze. We call this "visual sociology." Visual sociology is defined as the compound domain that regards the moving image as the method/object/practice of sociology. The interest in visual sociology has been gradually increasing since the 1980s. In the late 1990s, a series of visual studies after the cultural turn and the spread of digital tools effected together; as a result, more number of researchers began focusing on visual sociology. The visual studies after the cultural turn need to reconsider moving images as cultural constructs from the foundation.
In this article, I discuss the new frontiers of visual sociology, i.e., new research themes after the cultural turn. These research themes apply the sociological research practices to both the production and reading of visual images. I believe that both are consecutive matters. First, I examine various conditions in the sociological video-making, i. e., the production of visual images. I emphasize the mobility and fluidity of the subject to shoot sociological objects. Furthermore, I examine the methods concerning the sociological visual analysis. At the same time, I argue the transnational circulation and reception of visual images in the age of globalization.
Through pursuing this line of thought, I aim to achieve the following: (1)modify the ocular-centristic model on human beings in sociology; (2)introduce the models of various audiences and experiences of gendered bodies and not standardized bodies; and (3)open up standardized seeing and hearing experiences to the domain of broader bodily experiences.
