Multimedia approach to social research

Cristiano Mutti
Visual Sociology Laboratory
Dept. of Social Research
Milan-Bicocca University, via degli Arcimboldi 1, 20100 Milan, Italy

• Statements

“The most logical of the aesthetes of the nineteenth centu ry, Mallarmé, used to say that everything exists to finish in a
book. Today everything exists to finish in a photograph” (S. Sontag, 1978).

Today the production of images and of everything related to them (machines, technological development,
professional skills and strategies of communication) is, without any doubt, an extremely wide and spread, and I would
say “inflated”, activity. Susan Sontag, not a long ago, said on this situation that today we photograph everything, without
sparing or worrying too much. Actually we can affirm that we live in the Age of Image.
“The X-rays, the photos of the star radiations taken by Hubble, the electronic microscope, the images coming from the
artificial satellites, the optical -fibres,the fiber optical microcameras in the human body, the radar, the echograph - are
just some of the possibilities offered by new technologies, that allow us, says this author, to make the invisible visible-
…one of the firsts to pay attention to these developments has been Heidegger, who spe aks about the birth of the image-
world: “ the image of the world (…) so doesn’t mean a representation of the world, but the world devised as an image
(…) it’s not that the image of the world of the Middle Ages becomes modern; but it’s the constitution of t he world as an
image that distinguishes and characterizes the modern world”.
(Luigi Ciorciolini on http://www.lacritica.net/ciorciolini2.htm)
One of the consequences of this situation, in sociolog ical terms, is that the language is going through a radical change,
the frequency of young people with a low dialectic ability or, even more frequent, difficulties in writing, can be
reasonably considered an index of this “revolution” .
I cite Ciorciolini again:
“Everybody who takes a car ride in any city, can perfectly understand this passage: his advancing in the traffic jam
depends on a series of visual and audible judgements concerning the speed of the other vehicles, the mood of the drivers
following him, the capacity of calculating the trajectories of scooters and pedestrians, the new limits of human cynicism
represented by taxi-drivers.
At the same moment our driver is reached by other information: traffic-lights, water temperature, oil and gas gaug es,
other signals, light and sonorous, on the state of the direction indicator, road signs giving precepts, exhortative, obsolete,
advertising, indications of the price of fuel, shops signs, local time and temperature, mobile phones…since this process
of decoding and learning it’s considered boring, it is usually added a soundtrack managed by light signals indicating the
transmitting station or the selected passage.
It becomes difficult to propose to our driver colleague western culture which has always privileged the spoken and
written language as the highest form of the intellectual work, relegating the visual representations to the role of low,
litteraly second hand, explanations of the world of ideas. But, on the other hand, I can’t not privilege the daily experience
of thinking. Let’s come to the facts: in an vision of the world more illustrated than written, our being here derives from
the different ways in which we can realize ou being spectators (watching, fixed view, rapid view, practices of
observation, surveillance and level of the critical limit, visual pleasure, staying still or moving, having or not having the
possibility to interact and intervene in the world-show”.
(Luigi Ciorciolini on http://www.lacritica.net/ciorciolini2.htm)

The world and its representation, made by common people, is quickly sliding, towards a linguistic of images that often
underrates the problems that iconography brings, especially when it is not studied and developed properly, as an
alternative technique of communication, different, both for the one who has the role of the issuer and for the one who

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 receives the information.
In this brief essay, after a short thought on the general consequences of this cultural trend, I would like to focus the
discussion on the advantages we can obtain in adopting a methodology of research, and of teaching, that makes a wide
use of audio-visual applications and multimedial technologies. Then I would dwell upon the development of the visual
sociology in the last years, and upon my personal experience in this field. The attempt is to outline a sort of summary in
order to expose, on one hand, the advantages already reached and, on the other, the problems that still have to be solved
in the relation between individual interations, ways of communication and developing and diffusion of knowledge.

• Images, language and thought

Starting an online search on Google on the following words I obtained these results ( October 2003):

photo: 60.100.000 results in 0,09 seconds

images: 59.700.000 results in 0,11 seconds
audio: 47.100.000 results in 0,21 seconds
words: 43.800.000 results in 0,15 seconds (this result has been condioned also by the expression world wide words)
see: 234.000.000 results in 0,12 seconds
write: 54.700.000 results in 0,16 seconds
listen: 18.300.000 results in 0,08 seconds
speak: 19.700.000 results in 0,12 seconds

This summarized data has the task to underline how seeing, and consequently communication through images, has taken
up a crucial role in our every-day life, and up to here nothing is new. This fact has been widely described by man
authors and the meeting to which I take part is a further proof. What is interesting for me is to take hint from this in oder
to develop a reasoning that gives the image the funcion of knowledge-development and of new possibilities of cultural
production, in everyday life as well as in precise learning processes (in this specific case, as I have already mentioned, in
the social research field).
This way it’s possible to observe a different prospective to the main stream of thought that tends to consider visual ove -
production as one of the main causes of western cultural empoverishment. “The Western world is living its lustfulsunset,
a hemmorragy of immaginary that only a world war could stop. The invention of needs and artificial consumptions and
the diffusion of ever more pervasive and outstretched technologies have dissolved the collective ‘immaginario’ and lust
in a cloud of white noise.
The New Economy has been a symptom of this hemorragy, the attept to inject new life blood in the blood stream of the
‘immaginario’. The New Economy has represented the desperate attempt to find a way out of the crisis by trying to sell
the immaterial, to start an economy within the exchange of goods that have been completely de-materialized in files. O
in other words, the New Economy has represented the attempt to colonise, with technology and with consumption, the
last frontier that has been left to colonise, the single human mind, meant not in the passive sense of regime TV, but as an
active bond in the World Web, as a junction of re -elaboration, similation, punctual interface of the economic flow. The
attempt to transform consumers of goods into cognitive producers”.
(interview to Massimo Cacciari on http://www.rekombinant.org/article.php?sid=1434)

These days the world of communication is frequently the first victim of in strumental tendencies and of matters directed
only to obtain an involvement with people oriented only to the involvement itself.
This often produces first of all a very superficial or “ by appearances” type of information in which the contacts are
subordinated to the effectiveness of the message, and secondly, and as a graver consequence, gives rise to a whole series
of communicative formalities spread through the population and reflects the more negative characteristics of the world of
hypercommunication: confusion, unconcreteness and dispersion, causing a fast process of decadence of the linguistic,
dialectic and expressive capacities of the individuals.
“This faraway and global ‘immaginario’ shown by TV is only an epidermic prothesis of technologies with in our
domestic walls. It’s not a matter of ‘immaginario’, but of technologies – and interests- that proliferate underneath it”.
(Matteo Pasquinelli, on www.rekombinant.org)

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 Rehabilitating the role that communication could and must have (comprehending all the technologies that make its
production, management and diffusion possible) in a constructive way involves, in my own opinion, a very meticulous
work in which many instruments can be offered but, first of all, it involves to be provided the communicative
competences to the small individual universe, but for radically different goals compared to those of a “normal” common
usage. This way it’s also possible to make it easier to take distance and a critic conscien ce from that “mediatic
bombardment” which becomes harder to subtract to these days.
Instruments and competences although are not able to carry out this difficult role by themselves. It is necessary to
develop the contents, to give life to the goals that can be pursued and that transmit the stimulus to do it. This is the aspect
that I consider to be the force in the audio-visual applications developed with the aim of studying and understanding ou
society. To use an image to represent this concept, I think of a snake biting it’s tail in mind: communication can (and
must) use itself to understand itself and the world it lives in, as individuals can use themselves (and their mistakes) to
know themselves and the world they live in better. The visual, the visio n and the visionary as a mirror, can show aspects
that would be impossible to see otherwise, in the paradox of an information society.
Aldous Huxleys’s theory on how the process of vision can be analitically divided in three distinct processes: sensation,
selection and preception, is very famous. “Object of sensation is a ensemble of sensa that are found in a specific field.
The feeling is followed by selection, a process with which a part of the visual field is distinguished from the group and in
which a psychological process is obviously present since at any time in the visual field there is generally something that
we are intersted in distingushing more clearly than all the rest. The final process, the preceptive one, involves
recognising the sensum felt and selected as the appearance of a physical object existing in the external world. It’s
important to remeber that physical objects are not offered to us as primary data. What is given to us is only an ensemble
of sensa, and one sensum, in other words some thing that is not referencial. The sensa, as it is, is only a colored spot that
has no referral to an external physical object. The latter appears only once the sensum has been selected, and has been
used to perceive. Our mind interprets the sensum as the appearance of a physical object existing in the external world
“(A. Huxley, 1989). One extremely important consequence in this process is that the interpretation of sensa as physical
objects becomes fast and automatic only when the mind can make use of pa st experiences analogous sensa intepreted
with success in a similar way, and this fact legictimizes a particular communicative tendency easily found in the
advertisement field, in which images are given to the public, and they not only have a direct link ith the product, but
they recall already shared common sensa, in order to strengthen the interpretation process with the value that has been
given to that object from the feeling that the object has developed. The more feelings are strong, the more it is possible to
remember (and to choose).
Why lingering on these cognitive processes typical of the visual activity? It’s not in my intention to develop a discussion
on the phychological charachtersistics of communication and advertisement information, but only to think about an
important point, deducible from the consideration that eye and mind are correlated and interact reciprocally without
interruption in an integrated conception. “There is a strong association between knowledge and vision. The eye offer
materials to the mind and activates memorization, and at the same time the mind stimulates the receptive capacities of
the eye up to a very nitid vision level. Eye and mind are integrated perfectly one inside the other and can only funtion
correctly if the are together”.
http://www.noemalab.com/sections/specials/tetcm/2002-03/wenders_images/intro.html

The thought that I’m intersted in following here can be taken from this theory, by which one of the main chatacteristics
of the image is not only being the source of feelings and to suscitate in the observer various types of feelings, but also,
and most of all, that of having been developed and produced by feeling. In this sense we can say that feeling, selection
and perception are the equivalent of vision: ithout feeling one wouldn’t be able to think of vision, neither in perceptive
terms nor in productive terms. Image requires feeling the same way that a type of music or noise, stimulating a sense and
producing a feeling, develop the capacity of listening.
Naturally this condition is very important when one tends to develop a learning process that uses the production of
multimedial data offered to us from technologies in a constructive formality, and to realize on these some thoughts of
sociologycal nature. With these considerations in mind, it has in fact been possible to realize some methos of research
and of didactics that offer relevant fundamental values: for example, the photostimulus interview, or a video stimulus,
the didactic exposition through images to facilitate a synthesis process, and more in general, all the various activities of
learning object, synchronous and asynchronous, that we find today ever more spread out (even if not being able, in my
opinion, to substitute the value of a direct face to face interaction). The numerous techniques of audio -visual survey of
which a sociologist disposes to analyse the territory, represent instead, in more theorical terms, the attempt of making it
so that a social research becomes an activity in which the researcher is directly involved in what he studies but can, at the

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 same time, save his behavior of scientific detachment. Whoever chooses or realizes an image offers a representation of
his world of values and of the feelings with which he approaches real ity.

• On visual sociology

Before facing the subject on methodologies and audio visual techniques that apply to research and social didactics
spheres, I consider it necessary to give a brief introduction on visual sociology and to the experience leads b the Visual
Sociology Laboratory of the Bicocca University of Milan, of which I’m the person in charge.
One of the most common questions is to give a definition of visual sociology, and it is asked by those who face this
subject for the first time, and it’s also a very difficult situation.
Personally I consider it taken much for granted to define this discipline as an effort to contribute, in qualitative and
descriptive terms, to the work of social research by means of a certain type of photographic materials. First of all because
the descriptive and documentary role is, without any doubt, the first role that the invention of photography has
excercised, and secondly it’s misleading to think of visual sociology as a subject that uses exclusively photographic
materials, ignoring all other common means of information, such as audio or video. In this sense, in my opinion, calling
it visual sociology is without any doubt correct. In short experience has widely showed me that there is not only
documetary value, but there is also added value in the collection and creation of any type of audio -visual material, and I
would consider this as an activity of production of qualitative “interpretations”.
Even if it’s difficult to propose a definition of the discipline, it ha s to keep into account first of all of two fundamental
aspects:
- the contents, the subject matter of study of visual sociology;
- the methods and techniques to which it refers.

In this specific case the two aspects are strongly connected to one anothe and are reciprocally influenced, probably more
than in any other social science. Visual sociology and the idea to create an international association (IVSA) that gathers
all the researchers attracted to this new subject matter, is made possible thanks to t he consciousness of having technical
potentiality that has not yet been used by sociology, and this is photography, and the photographer -sociologist’s activity,
made strong with the development of computer systems (in about 1990), up to now that we embrace the multimedial
world in general, Internet and all that can be connected to image, and this includes also the sound which in some cases
enables an effective projection of it.
“The purpose of the IVSA is to promote the study, production, and use of visual images, data, and materials in teaching,
research, and applied activities, and to foster the development and use of still photographs, film, video, and electronicall
transmitted images in sociology and other social sciences and related disciplines and app lications”.
(http://www.visualsociology.org/)
The computer science aspect is an essential condition for the development of the discipline and on this matter I have to
remind that the birth of the Visual Sociology Laboratory of Milan has coincided with the first on-line seminar course on
urban sociology realized by Prof. Martinotti (current scientific chief of the laboratory) and looked after by Nicolò Leotta,
developing the “Photometropolis” hyper-text project.
In my opinion, we can say that talking about contents of the subject is the same as referring to the study of methods of
application of audio-visual and multimedial techniques in sociolog - in this case we can have an urban visual sociology,
a visual sociology on ethnic relationships, a communication visual sociology and so forth - while a real sociological
study field on this discipline, that goes beyond visual techniques that apply to sociology is still being defined and
consolidated (the fact that not many university courses exist is further proof of this). I think that one can find in the
various implications that audio-visual production covers the role in modern societies of cultural activity and means of
expression, not only collectively speaking, but also individually, being absolutely careful not to step over the boundary
with other branches of sociology, such as communication sociology, for example maintaining a good and specific aim on
the subject. In short, keeping it’s characteristic of a very technical and practical discipline even in it s theorical
abstractions, we can point out specific theorical study fields next to the more general theoretical-practical level on the
study of research and didactic methodologies.

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 To make things clear some hypothetical example might be : the advent of digital photography, conditionings and social
practices in the cultural iconographic production , this could be an exclusive field of theoretical study in visual
sociology; the same we could say for video or audio: the video postproduction in a research of knowledge sociology, the
collective editing as a practice of visual sociology . As a matter of fact, though, with great difficulty a strong and
indipendent collocation next to other social sciences can be found, and this is because visual sociology is charact erized
more from the method than from theory, more from practical applications than from theoretical abstractions.
Having said this, and going back to the beginning, which was the definition of the discipline and so of its general field of
study, I can say a bit audaciously that visual sociology is the ensemble of techniques and methodologies of multimedial
production applied to the study of social phenomena.
First of all, though, it’s the self-consciousness that the study of a society in some situations is based on a difficult work of
individual envolvement and interpretation of the facts. A work and a study in which qualitative data not always exists
priorly or is not openly shown, but must only be found, or can even be built and then interpreted by the re searcher
through the use of audiovisual recording and digital editing instruments.
The production of different and immediate ‘qualitative interpretations’ it’s one of the main characteristic of the
Information Society, that also someone who studies society can’t shirk. The creation of an interactive interface it’s one of
the tools that can close the scientific information cycle .
The contribution given to the classic sociologist’s work consists in being able to use and create qualitative data for the
research, not only in the work hypothesis on the final results, giving strength to Weber’s famous subdivision on value
judgments and fact judgments of the sociologist, taken also by Alain Touraine (1978) to analyse the lacerating feeling
that the sociologist has during his work of research on the field, or the degree of envolvement that he must, and can, have
as has very well been said by Norbert Elias (1998), breaking the “confortable” distance -keeping from social phenomena
in the name of the unrenounceable neutrality of the researcher. A socially active sociology, able to criticize, propose and
stimulate political preventive solutions, “a sociology of action” is what a lot of people’s wish.
Rethoric and commonplaces suggest to me that an image is worth more th an a thousand words and this justifies the
reason why survey work and claim work are often supported by the relationship between image and information and
they re-open the matter of habituation to information that has been mentioned in the beginning statement. But an
important practical consequence of this reasoning is the possibility that the instrument, for the researcher, would take up
the role of filtering his work and how the events that he studies could exercise on him. A healthy distance-keeping,
being at the same time participants and people envolved, is the essential condition to interpret and to know.

• Methodologies and techniques of researc

What are the most important advantages and disadvantages we can obtain using as data of our research an audiovisual
and multimedial documentation?
Obviously the first problem depends on the source and it opens again the thorny question of qualitative data reliability:
for example, if we have repertory materials it is necessary to properly verify to chec k the level of reliability of the
information, it means, in my opinion, that what is important is not whether what we see is reliable or not in respect to
that exact historic time, but if the information, and so the informative content transmitted through that typology and that
way of communication is reliable on the whole of the events related and referred to that information. Another example
can be useful to explain better this point: in a way we can say, that various science fiction movies have foreseen some
catastrophic situations that, after September 11 th , have turned out to be highly ‘reliable’ to the reality rather than before
and compared to the their structural and substantial unreliability. Sometimes the materials that at first sight seem to be
the most reliable actually are the most unreliable and vice versa. Taking a picture of reality requires being able to
‘falsify’ it, only this way it’s possible to penetrate that thick armour worn by intimacy to protect itself from violence and
routine.How is it possible to fake reality? Easy: looking at it from a different point of view, through different shots, from
different perspectives but, most of all, looking at it for a long time, in every possible way.
Also there’s another interesting exercise to do on this matter: you have to take photos in an empty room; each one
different from the others, the more photos you are able to take, the more you will be able to take a picture of the ‘reality’.
Then, as someone whose name I can’t remember reality is relative.

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 The second problem derives from the first one, and it concerns the tools used in research, and the relationship between
researcher-tool-subject/object of the reasearch. Taking the problem of a photograph being generally reliable or not to the
dock, is , in my opinion, just a useless theoretical exercise, due to the substantial mistake of thinking that the
photographic view can be the same as the human one. Nothing is more wrong. The photographic image is bidimensional
and it follows optical rules compl etly different from the human ones, so riding in the one-way path of simililarity,
means losing the advantages taken by a different view from the beginning; I guess that the problem has to be considered
in these other terms, in other words, when a photograph (but it could also be any other kind of data) is realiable. Actuall
what we are working on today concerns the difference between the two ways of representation (the human and the
optical ones) and the advantages that the representative capacity of the optical instruments can take, in the description
and interpretation of reality among a study and an analysis of the phenomena concerning the reality. A camera neve
lies, because it follows strict optical rules ( A. Feininger, 1991), a good example of t his statement and of the relative
realiability, can be given by the famous question regarding how far was Carlo Giuliani when he was killed: there was a
photo taken from behind, with a tele-lens, so in this photo the planes were inevitably ‘squashed’, whil e a second one,
taken from beside, has given back the right proportions. In this case the mistake wasn’t due to the instrument but to the
people, and their wrong interpretations.
The knowledge of the potentialities and of the characteristics of the instru ments, allows us, not only to avoid some
mistakes, but also to realize atypical visual juxtapositions, representative of an idea or a feeling, and nothing else (but it
seems already a lot to me, if we consider that one of the most important source for a sociologist is his fantasy). Of course
the risk is high, so it’s absolutely necessary to know the tools that are used very well. It’s not possible to act as visual -
sociologists, and this is another of my firm belief, maybe one can first acquire some visual s kills and become a visual -
observer ( or a visonary) and then grow into a visual -sociologist. Some practical benefits, obtained without any risks, can
be the possibility to sharpen more the attention for the details and for other elements that at a first look could seem of no
interest, or to draw a portrait of the subject-operator and of the documentation that he provides. For example, during a
survey on the different population of the Bicocca area in Milan, we have decided to realize a video filming only the
shoes of the Bicocca goers, in order to go back from this detail, to the social status of the people. Applying a prope
temporal methodology of research, it’s possible to obtain remarkable results: the documentary component can manage to
merge into the analysis of ‘behaviour of the events’ that we want to study.
I would divide the techniques according to a typology that take into account, first of all of the aims, and that could give
back a comprehensive survey of the specific characteristics of each tec hnique adopted; an implied condition is the
exposition of the materials through digital platforms, even if the video techniques can also be exposed through the
traditional analogical tools. It’s unimportant if the acquiring instruments used are digital o traditional.

• Photographic shooting techniques

- traditional photographs : they can have a descriptive function for social research, and it is also expression of
values. They can be used for the photo -stimulated interviews- in which the image, and the implied values,
shorten the distances between the interviewer and the interviewed;
- geo-referenced photographs: they can be used for an analysis of the structural change in the middle-long term,
the photographic sequence controlled by the visitor allows to linge oneself on particular details present in the
contest;
- 360° photographs: they can be used to have a overall sight of the contest, the good quality/defect of selecting a
certain shot or of selecting different kind of lenses is eliminated;
- historical comparison photographs: they can be used for a long term anlysis on change, it can be developed
through techniques of photomontage and not only; the point of view has to be the same as for georeferenced
photographs.

• Video shooting techniques

- traditional audiovisual shooting: it has a descriptive and documentary function, it is also expression of values, it
can be used, as for photographs, for video-stimulated interviews;
- georeferenced video shooting, with fixed videocamera : it can be used to record a change on t he middle-long
term, it can be realized easily from photographic images, in this case, in comparison to the georeferenced
photographs , the visualisation of the general change is underlined more compared to the details of each period.
This group can be also divided into:
-shooting from a fixed position (with fixed videocamera)
-shooting from a moving position (with fixed videocamera)

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 The common characteristic of this kind of shooting consists in mantaining the instrument independent from the operator,
and this is also the main difference from traditional video shooting.

• Audiovisual interview techniques:

- open interviews: they can have a descriptive and claim function, the main characteristic is that they allow to
involve people who want to say something spontaneously. They can be realized recording also the video, or
only the audio, in the case that someone wants to maintain anonimity or in cae the videocamera bec omes too
intrusive.
- structured interviews: they have the function of collecting information, the classical interviews conduced on the
basis of a predetermined order, anyway also this kind of interviews can be realized recording only the audio.
- hidden microcamera interviews: they can have the function of collecting information given spontaneously, the
eliminate any type of problem regardin the protagonism of the interviewed, the embarassement of the
interviewed due to the recoring instrument , and the manipulation of the operator, but they open other important
ethic questions. They are commonly used on television for entertaining programs, in social research the hidden
interview could be a good techinque to collect information. It’s necessary, in any case, to adopt a proper
behavior in order to not violate the privacy of people. The interviewed has to be informed of the survey, once
that he has been recorded, because he has to be allowed to decide about it.
This technique can be used during a conversation, but also during daily life situations. In this last case the
question is even more problematic and harder to solve, in comparison to a situation of individual interaction,
because there are many people involved, and contacting everyone in order to inform t hem of the survey
becomes hard. The same technique can be adopted recording only the audio, in this case we have less problems
concerning privacy, because it’ s harder to go back to people’s identities just from their voices. A solution, in
both cases, can be to maintain the anonymity of people through digital alterations in the editing phase but, it’s
clear that in any case the ethic problems still remain open. Is it allowed to realize hidden shootings for social
research? And for surveillance aims, or ev en worse, for entertaining ? These questions that still haven’t been
solved, enable me to come back to the concepts expressed before about the audiovisual overproduction of ou
society and about the normal uses that we do of these instruments.

• Audio recording techniques

Actually these typologies of techniques have been described, a little bit, in the previous part/section. In an
case, in order to complete this classification it’s worth to indicate:
- enviroment recording: it has a descriptive and evocativ e function.
The main difference beteween a video recording and an only audio recording is in the characteristic of the latter
to stimulate more the fantasy of people, ‘visually’ evocating scenarios that are not visible but only audible.
Another interesting property is that of stimulating in the listener a higher degree of attention in comparison to
that of the visual spectator, because without seeing something the attention one is more concentrated on the
content. This technique can be also divided into:
-recording of specific situations
-recording of people (opinions, comments, discussion, etc)

They can be realized, both through a shown or hidden methodology of research, but obviously in the second
case, the problematics told before, are still open.
- structured interview recording
- spontaneous interview recording

The techniques exposed here have the characteristics to be highly correlated one another in order to produce multimedial
objects, thanks to today’s digital technology.

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 In the following scheme I tried to outline three typologies of direct relations ( A-B-C) that can occur between the
different recording methodologies (photographic, video and audio) in order to provide complementary contributions
useful to reach the aims of the research.
I suggest these relations, because i think that a general summary, of all the possible applications of each technique, can
further the choice of the better recording methodology to adopt since the initial phases of the research.

relation A: between traditional photographs, historical comparison photographs, traditional audiovisual products,
audiovisual interviews and environment and people audio recording.
relation B: between geo-referenced photographs, independent /self operating videocamera shooting, audio recording.
relation C: between 360° photographs, self operating videocamera shooting and audio recording.

As well, between these relations it can be established the following connections:

B:A - georeferenced photographs and self operating videocamera can have applications in A
C:B - 360° photographs, self operating videocamera shooting and audio recording can have applications in B.
C:A - 360° photographs, self operating videocamera shooting and a udio recording can have applications in A.

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 Through the use of these techniques we obtain more detailed and rich information, a deeper involvement of students and
reserchers, both in the exposition and formation phase, and they answer to the necessity of developing concrete learning
processes and empirical researches. I think these are remarkable characteristics.

The application of audio -visual surveys is close to and strictly connected to the didactic use of the new technologies and
the multimedial instruments. I refer to “blended learning” and e-Learning applications.
I have exposed these survey’s techniques and some works realized with them on this web -site: http://lsv.mine.nu/ivsa.
On one hand it allowed, me and my colleagues, to show these characteristics and confirm this didatctic direction; on the
other hand it’s also true that these cases need time to be shown and analysed, that's why a web -site could be the best tool
to do it.

• Bibliography

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N. Elias, “Coinvolgimento e distacco”, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1988
A. Feininger, “La fotografia a colori. Nuove tecniche”, ed. Garzanti, Milano 1991
A. Huxley, “L’arte di vedere”, Adelphi, Milano, 1973
P. Faccioli, “L’immagine sociologica”, ed. FrancoAngeli, Milano, 1997
F. Faeta, “Strategie dell’occhio”, ed. Franco Angeli, Milano, 2003
M. Heidegger, “Sentieri interrotti”, ed. La Nuova Italia, Firenze 1968
N. Leotta, “Photometropolis” , Le Vespe, Milano, 2001
F. Mattioli “Sociologia visuale”, Nuova ERI, 1991
R. A. Nisbet, “La tradizione sociologica”, La Nuova Italia, 1992
M. Merleau-Ponty, “Fenomenologia della percezione”, ed. Il Saggiatore, Milano 1980
B. Sanguanini, “Realtà virtuale, sociologia visuale e teoria dell’agire sociale ” in “Introduzione alla Sociologia
Visuale”, C. Cipolla e P Faccioli, FrancoAngeli, 1993
G. E. Swanson, “Frameworks for Comparative Research: Structural Anthropology and the Theory of Action”, Vallier,
1972
M. Weber, “Il metodo delle scienze storico-sociali”, Torino Einaudi, 1958. Raccolta di saggi scritti tra il 1904 e il 1917

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