Abstract
In order to study the visual images including photographs and videos qualitatively, we have to take up the problem of the “appropriation of images” (Kleinman et al. eds. 1997=2011), especially when we study the visual images recording the cases of social problems and the discrimination. The appropriation means the unintended or intended transformation of visual images into the terrible tragedy so as to attract the compassionate attention from the audience, which could not be avoided in the globalized capitalist market; the poor people experiencing it would be laden with stereotypical and decontextualized sad stories.
Our task, then, is to scrutinize and examine the validity and the features of the appropriation of visual images and to contextualize them again in a proper historical and social milieu so that the people involved could also participate in estimating and appreciating the adequacy of the visual images, No efforts should be spared to gain consent from the subjects of the visual images concerning the moral status of representation so that those images would become the moral witness of the social problems.
