Practice and Structure as Concepts of a Sociology of Visual Communication: Toward a Methodology of Visual and Structural Analysis

Abstract

The concept of practice occurs frequently in current research about the visual. However, the term remains problematic as it cannot always clarify the complexity of the topic. Following an initial discussion of the subject area and central questions of a sociology of visual communication, I proceed to show that visual practices are embedded in many different social structures that condition forms of practice. This aspect is reflected on theoretically with reference to the concept of artifacts outlined by Herbert Simons in Sciences of the Artificial. As Simons does not seek to establish any connection to sociology, his thoughts must first be developed for the discipline. This is achieved, inter alia, by taking up the structural concepts of Giddens and Luhmann. Having established this background, the notion of practice is reconsidered in relation to the structures of social realities and to a concept of the sociology of visual communication. In the discussion, methodological and methodical conclusions are drawn from these conceptual considerations, which are important for the further development of the analysis of the visual.

Keywords

sociology of visual communication practice structure methodology

Subject Area and Central Questions of a Sociology of Visual Communication

The significance of the terms “practice” and “structure” for a sociology of visual communication becomes apparent as soon as we ask what the purpose of such a sociology should be. I believe it is essential for such a sociology to maintain its identity by taking its bearings from its name-giving subject area. This means placing visual objects at the center of our attention and questioning how sociality determines their visible form. What I seek to present here is a research approach that focuses on the description and understanding of the visual dimensions of artifacts alongside the complexity of social dimensions (Kautt, 2018).

This finding is anything but simple. The aforementioned understanding of the subject and the functioning of a sociology of visual communication involves making a substantial conceptual demand. In the light of the hugely dynamic changes of the last decades, current research is even talking about a “visual” or an “iconic turn” in the cultural and social sciences (Bachmann-Medick, 2009), but this conceptual demand has not yet been sufficiently elaborated. Despite the diversity of theoretical, methodological, methodical, and empirical-analytical perspectives, there is still a lack of conceptual considerations that can do justice to the full extent of the social aspects of visual formation, while also asking the question of how sociology is supposed to resolve this complexity. It is not only the complexity of this subject area that makes the suggested approach desirable, but it is in fact also the complexity of sociology itself that urges us to look into synthesizing approaches that that make the potential of diverse perspectives within one conceptual frame accessible.

Based on these initial considerations, the article reflects on the terms “practice” and “structure.” What is to be discussed here is a conceptual understanding of these terms, which entails how different social dimensions contribute to the (re-)production of visual communication in various contexts. This endeavor, therefore, takes a different approach to research that focuses solely on practices and structures of visual communication in specific social contexts, considering issues like gender, interaction, organization, culture, power or class concepts, and their projected validity, scope, and associated practices onto the visual. The purpose of this article, however, is to define the contours of a concept that focuses on the practices and structures that seem necessary in the field of sociology if its hermeneutics of the designed are to take into account the complexity of artifacts in differing social contexts. As most empirical data are affected by this problem, the following considerations contribute to a methodological and methodical framework for the analysis of visibility. To clarify the sociology of visual communication, let us first look at its fundamental, name-giving term.

Visual Communication

In pursuing phenomenological considerations, we can establish that the visual—understood as something perceptible to us through our sense of vision—opens up a horizon of intersubjectively available objects (Merleau-Ponty, 1986). In contrast to mental processes (cognition, imagination, dreams), visuals are intersubjectively available and thus are a social medium. It therefore follows that as an empirical science, the visual is the central focus of a sociology of visual communication. However, the observable is only of sociological interest once meaningful forms emerge within the visual medium. The sociology of visual communication follows a tradition which considers meaning as the foundational constituent of the social (Weber, 1980).

In searching for conceptual descriptions of the production of meaning through visibility, we come across various concepts from other disciplines. For instance, we encounter the term “sign” in semiotics (Peirce, 1931-1958, p. 2228), the term “gestalt” in psychology (Metzger, 1975, p. 647 f.), the term “iconic difference” in the art and pictorial sciences (Boehm, 1994, p. 29 f.), the term “picture frame” (Goffman, 1979, pp. 10-24) or the differentiation of “medium” and “form” (Luhmann, 1997, pp. 190-201) in sociology. Despite all the differences that emerge as soon as these concepts are examined in detail, they are indeed comparable in that they give an answer to the question as to how it is possible that visibilities can be arranged in such a way that they cease being merely observable and become something meaningful to the observer.

It is important to understand that the arrangement of the visual in itself does not suffice as a requirement for visual communication to occur. The mentioned concepts, despite their disciplinary differences, agree on the point that the meaningfulness of visual forms does not arise from the specific nature of the object, like sign-vehicles, iconic differences, or medium-form interconnections. Visual meanings solely occur as a result of the involvement of consciousness, that is, the involvement of sense-making actors. Consequently, they only occur when efforts of interpretation are directed at them. Ferdinand Saussure’s sign term whereby he considers signs as a generated unity of differentiation between signifier (characteristics in a medial substrate) and signified (the characterized) has long confirmed this. Consequently, this means that actor-related practice plays an inherent part in visual communication. Semiotics thus speaks of “semiosis” between representamen, object, and interpretant (Chandler, 2007, p. 29 ff.), image theory speaks of actors as integral factors of image acts (Bredekamp, 2010, p. 52 f.; Mitchell, 1986, p. 30), while sociology distinguishes the observer as the integral dimension of communication (Luhmann, 1988).

With regard to the models mentioned here, we may conclude that visual communication cannot occur unless a visual form of material objects merges with a situationally routed practice of human interpretation. Visual communication only takes place when observers concerned with arranged visibilities differentiate information and message and synthesize their meaning. The occurrence of visual communication presupposes the occurrence of practice. Admittedly, it would not be appropriate at this point to conclude that signs, in conjunction with the situational behavior of actors, can function as a sufficient explanation of visual communication. This knowledge is already implied within the sign term. A signifier/signified only participates in the constitution of a sign when an observer is able to place it in relation to a signifier/signified occurring previously to the current situation. Signs are based on situationally existing sign vehicles. However, being in possession of their own context, they also go beyond the situation. In this sense, “intertextuality” (Kristeva, 1979, p. 69) aims at connecting practice with broader structures which determine people’s behavior and practice. Therefore, in the area of visual communication, actors are always involved in the sphere of socialized, meaningful objects which determine and structure individual interpretation.

In this process, the social context of the construction is much more complex than generally presumed. This bears consequences not only for everyday practices of visual communication but also for theoretical concepts that aim to accommodate them. Let us look at the structural embedding of practice using the example of the clock. In its simplicity, the clock appears especially suitable for demonstrating that the phenomenon in question is not only concerned with complex formations (e.g., films, visual hyper-texts) but also with ordinary forms of visual communication. As we know, clocks are devices for the measurement of time. Their visible form results from their technical purpose of time measurement. Sundials, ships’ clocks, mechanical clocks, and computerized clocks carry out their function of time measurement in different technological ways and therefore differ in their visible form.

Looking at the artifacts themselves (clocks), we quickly realize that their form not only changes in accordance with their technical configuration but also with their different social context. Despite the fact that the development of time measurement can be related to social (cultural, societal) requirements, each clock also has a social reference. The design of watches, for example, is based on social constructions of gender (femininity/masculinity), age (childish playfulness, youthful sportiness, respectable maturity), social milieu and subcultural taste, and fashion and situational contexts (work/leisure). The choice of material, color form, and positioning of design elements include numerous pieces of social information. Other aspects of the clock/watch design also fulfill social functions: The distinct size of the clocks on churches and city halls as insignia of power and control, and certain designs that disguise the computerization of technology to present the artifacts as manifestations of “a good, old” pre-digital era are examples that immediately come to mind. The clock/watch design becomes even more manifest as a result of multifaceted social processes if the intertextual effects between clocks and pictures are taken into account. In this way, advertising creates images in which the already mentioned attributes of object design (gender, status, etc.) are built into more complex visual semantics so that reciprocal references (artifact design/advertising image) of visual communication come into play. Examples like these stress the need for a concept that gives as much credit to the significance of the individual artifact as it does to the meaning of practices and structures as constituents of the designed.

In the early 19th century, cultural sciences already reflected on social conditions as formative forces of visual design (Burckhardt, 1860/2010). Furthermore, the development of the art sciences toward a general pictorial science since the beginning of the 20th century takes place alongside the inclusion of social (cultural) contexts beyond art (e.g., Baxandall, 1972; Panofsky, 1927/1980; Warburg, 1938; Warnke, 1992; for an overview see, for example, Dikovitskaya, 2006). The development of a general design theory also depends on the relevance given to the social (Krippendorf, 2006). Last but not least, one can further claim that in social sciences like sociology, numerous studies have emerged in the past decades that interpret visual designs against the background of social structures—for example, structures of the ritual interaction order of gender (e.g., Goffman, 1979), power (e.g., Alexander, Bartmanski, & Giesen, 2012; Fyfe & Law, 1988), class (e.g., Bourdieu, Boltanski, Castel, Chamboredon, & Schnapper, 1998), discourses (e.g., Maassen, Mayerhauser, & Renggli, 2006; Rose, 2011; Traue, 2013), knowledge (e.g., Müller, 2012; Raab, 2008), science (e.g., Knorr-Cetina, 2001; Latour, 1988), social and medial differentiation (e.g., Kautt, 2008), or biographical and generational contexts (e.g., Breckner, 2013). Nonetheless, there is a clear desideratum in the current state of research that calls for the creation of a conceptual framework that integrates the complexity of sociological perspectives to analyze the visual in all its complexity.

Artifacts as an Adaption Phenomenon

A theory which proves productive for this purpose is Herbert Simon’s (1969/1981) Sciences of the Artificial. Although this book can be seen as a pioneering accomplishment of general design theory, it has—despite the occasional acclaim (Mareis, 2011)—neither developed into a separate discipline nor has it become established in the design-oriented sciences or subjects taught at university. This lack of resonance in the field of sociology presumably stems from the fact that Simon’s concept is orientated toward engineering matters and applications which evidently differ substantially from a descriptive, explanatory, and conceptualizing science like sociology.

However, I believe that Simon’s considerations offer an ideal basis for a sociology that aims to clarify visual designs in their various social contexts. By applying explanations from evolution theory of (biological) forms as adaptation phenomena to the sphere of the artificial, Simon reveals the wide horizon of conditions that potentially influence the design of artifacts.

According to Simon, artifacts, understood as creations made by humans, are to be construed as relative adaptations in their concrete characteristics. Simon (1969/1981) assumes the sphere of the artificial to be “a point of intersection,” that is, as a meeting point between an “inner” environment, the substance and inner structure of the artifact itself, and an “outer” environment, the environment in which it operates (p. 6).

Simon (1969/1981) occasionally designates artifacts as “systems” as they develop an “inner environment” through their own specific characteristics and thus create a border to the “outer environment.” The differentiation of an inner and outer environment in a sociological context evokes associations with Niklas Luhmann’s system theory, making it essential to stress that Simon does not assume objects of the artificial to be “operatively closed,” self-reproducing (autopoetic) systems. Indeed, one would have a hard time attempting to make the claim plausible that playgrounds, water colors, banks, computer games, kettles, smartphones, cars, or paintings are social systems in Luhmann’s terms. Nonetheless, artifacts as “inner environments” can be distinguished from an “outer environment”: Even though they are always produced in processes, their objective materialization with relatively stable characteristics distinguishes them from their environment. This happens in a specific way: With the artificial being orientated to human purposes and aims, artifacts are constituted as contingent, that is, possible in all kinds of other forms. In this aspect, they are to be distinguished from the sphere of the nonartificial: “If natural phenomena have an air of ‘necessity’ about them in their subservience to natural law, artificial phenomena have an air of ‘contingency’ in their malleability by environment” (Simon, 1969/1981, ix f.). At any rate, the term “artifact” encompasses the most diverse visibilities, irrespective of the media substrate they are based on. The understanding of artifacts as adaptive phenomena is therefore directed to more stable designs (e.g., architecture, furniture, paintings, photographs, films) as well as to more fleeting, constantly transforming visual communications, such as those that take place by means of electronic media (e.g., TV, computerized media).

An unfolding of the science of the artificial as a sociology of visual communication requires various modifications and specifications. These concern all levels of the concept—which are (a) artifacts (inner environment), (b) surroundings (outer environment), and (c) the relationship between the artifact and its environment. The specification on the level of the artifacts lies in the sociology of visual communication not attempting to thematise all characteristics but only the visible dimension of the artificial in its social contexts (see “Subject Area and Central Questions of a Sociology of Visual Communication” section). To sociologically translate the question of what is to be understood as the “outer environment” of the artificial and how the relationship between inner and outer environments is formed and organized, let us examine the two established terms of “practice” and “structure.”

Structure as Outer Environment of the Artificial

Using the example of the clock, we have already established that the term “outer environment” describes more and different aspects than the term “context.” This applies especially if we use “context” to mean the spatio-temporal incorporation of artifacts in situations involving actor-related practices. “Visual Ethnography” (e.g., Pink, 2001, 97ff.) or “Visual Anthropology” (e.g., Collier & Collier, 1990), for instance, “contextualise” social processes as spatio-temporal practices. Even though contexts, in this sense, are doubtlessly a dimension of an artifact’s design—no visual communication without contextualization—the influence exerted by social environments is not exhaustively reflected by any means. Take the example of the clock once more: imaginations of femininity and masculinity, age, lifestyle, and fashion, among various other factors, precede the design (productively as well as receptively), just like organizations or institutions which, for example, are involved in the design process too (i.e., product design and advertising). As already demonstrated, structures formulate requirements toward the design of the clock. Simon (1969/1981) speaks of environments as “problem areas” (p. 16), to which design has to adjust.

The pressure of visual communication adjusting to environments makes plausible a particular insight of evolution theory:

The outer environment determines the conditions for goal attainment. If the inner system (the artefacts, Y.K.) is properly designed, it will be adapted to the outer environment, so that its behavior will be determined in large part by the behavior of the latter . . . The behavior takes on the shape of the task environment. (Simon, 1969/1981, p. 15)

The possibility of artifacts reaching certain aims with their visible characteristics depends on the conditions within the environment. The highly asymmetric relationship between both sides—a small number of object characteristics are faced with a wide horizon of environment characteristics—does not allow for the environment to adjust to artifacts, but only for the objects to adjust to their environment. The variability of forms, aims, and purposes cannot change the fact that the conditions that determine the recognition, acceptance, and success of a design are not in the design’s realm of power, but in that of the environment.

This perspective does not imply an evolutionary functionalism that interprets the design in its phenomenal entirety as an adaptation. As a matter of course, artifacts may have functionless or indefinitely lasting characteristics (that can turn out to be “preadaptive advances” in changing surroundings). With this limitation in mind, Simon’s understanding of the “outer environment” can be translated into the sociological term “structure.” What is important here is the initial understanding of social environments as “problem spheres” (Simon, 1969/1981), which define to a considerable extent the realm of possibilities for what can be realized as visual communication. In this respect, Luhmann (1997) offers an apposite term and explanation regarding structure: “Structures are conditions limiting the realm of connectable (‘anschlussfähige’) operations, and thus are conditions of the autopoiesis of the system” (p. 430). Accordingly, this is a term which encompasses the most varied conditions of social limitation that not only apply to collectively valid symbolic generalizations, rules, and norms. This concept captures the various social constructs, which outlast specific situations due to their material entrenchment (in consciousness, artifacts, communication media), and this is why they serve as orientation points for communication and action, standing transversely to single social and spatio-temporal situations. One can thus maintain that the term structure in its foundational sense is “a complementary concept to the eventfulness of elements” (Luhmann, 1984b, p. 392 f.).

It is crucial for a sociology of visual communication that the variance of social phenomena is limited by environments and this is precisely the foundational problem of design. Taking these considerations into account, I would speak of the structural environments of visual communication. By that we understand intersubjectively available social constructions which transcend situations, that is to say constructions that are placed transversely to practices of individuals as well as to spatio-temporal constellations in which individual artifacts are placed. Employing Robert Merton’s (1995) concept one could speak of the “structural contexts” (p. 52) of visual communication. Such structural environments are, for example, situations defining “frames” (Goffman, 1974), “settings” (Barker, 1960), “feeling rules” (Hochschild, 1979), institutionalized forms of power (Popitz, 1992), semantics of collective identities (gender, age, subculture, etc.), or specific sectors of society such as the economy, art, or religion. These and many other structural environments all formulate specific conditions of restriction for the practice of visual communication that takes place “in” or with them. Here, the term structure is therefore not located on the level of nonmeaningful materiality and hence opposed to the culture and practice theories (see Reckwitz, 2003, on this antagonism). Rather it is located on the level of social constructions via the involvement of practice, which inevitably partakes in the (re)production of structures.

Nevertheless, Luhmann’s notion of structure is to be liberated from its system theory contextualization. Even though Luhmann strives to formulate “an integration option that does justice to both the individuality of the occurrence in the chain of operation as well as the occurrence-transcending social order” (Reckwitz, 1997, p. 67), there is a problem with his concept due to the extensive nonconsideration of the relation between structure and actor-related practice. In search of a structure term that takes account of actor-related practice, it is fruitful to turn to Anthony Giddens’s work. Giddens (1984) conceives of structures as

. . . recursively organized sets of rules and resources. . . . According to the notion of the duality of structure, the structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome of the practices they recursively organize. Structure is not “external” to individuals: as memory traces, and as instantiated in social practices, it is in a certain sense more “internal” than exterior to their activities in a Durkheimian sense. (p. 25)

Any further embedding of Giddens’s structure term is not really relevant to our purposes here. Giddens’s considerations are only truly suitable for a sociology of visual communication in the sense that both assume a fundamental relevance for the constitution of structures. The sociology of visual communication in the meantime needs to conceptualize the relations between structure and actor differently, in so far as it distinguishes clearly between the general relationship to practices that structures possess and those connections formed by practice and structure purely within individual situations. While social structures cannot come into existence without the participation of actors, situational action and communication orientate themselves according to already existing structures. Social structures are modulated and developed (formed) in social situations, yet they are also removed from the actors as these are never situationally able to control them as a totality. Giddens (1984) repeatedly points to this fact but fails to draw appropriate conclusions for his own structure concept. Structures do not tend to be, as Giddens assumes, “internal,” but rather they are “external.” Although procedurally they are both: internally, as they are formed by structured subjectivity (e.g., habitus), externally, as action and communication need to consider situation-transcending social constructs (structures), if communications (e.g., visual representations) strive to be more than merely idiosyncratic entities of individuals. If visual representations are to function with a potential for connectivity, they have to substantially engage with the structural environment. This needs to happen across the widest spectrum of thematic constellations in which structures exist. The assumption that structures are external to the actor and serve as orientation for action and communication in social situations, or the assumption that they are “conditions limiting the realm of connectable (‘anschlussfähige’) operations” (Luhmann), imply neither a “structural determinism” (Giddens, 1984, p. 228) nor a “metaphysics of structures” (Lüders & Reichertz, 1986). A concept such as this is able to offer individual actors a high degree of freedom, while—in further agreement with Giddens—also presuming that actors handle structural contexts innovatively and manipulatively.

Practice as Intermediation Between Artifacts and Structural Environments

Artifacts cannot exist without the contribution of human action. Hedges get cut, furniture designed, pictures drawn, photographs taken, and computer games programmed—human beings emerge as designers everywhere. Yet, human beings do not solely play the role of producers. They are also recipients and connecting communicators and therefore are part of the nexus of relationships in which visual communication takes place.

A sociology of visual communication, therefore, needs a term for practice which is able to capture the various actions and ways of communication as practice. Only then can practice be understood as a medium through which visual communication can be exercised in different “outer environments.” Luhmann (1969) offers a practice term in his paper “Die Praxis der Theorie” which satisfies this requirement. Practice, according to Luhmann, is the actor-related process of choosing, deciding, or putting-in-relation as such. Thereby, a necessity of practice is inescapably present in all kinds of social situations, thematic contexts, and societal areas:

The fundamental problem of all practice—in everyday actions like work on theories—is the problem of complexity: that there are more possibilities than can ever be considered. This problem is indeed the same for the development of theories and for other actions. It combines the situation of the theorist with those who want or have to apply theories. It must therefore also be the basis of an understanding between them. (Luhmann, 1969, p. 132)

Practice is therefore a reduction of complexity that inevitably underlies any action and communication. If one overlooks these general problems of practice—such as its complexity—one turns to theories (from practice), which can be characterized, as “having a fondness for making judgments” (Luhmann, 1969, p. 133), but not do justice to their objects, as the selection of aspects occurs within the open horizon of social constellations with which actors are confronted. Hence, sociological pre-acceptances toward procedural events do not lead to an adequate theory of the practice of visual communication, but stress at most some contingent dimensions. This is the reason why Pierre Bourdieu’s “praxeology”—to mention a popular concept—cannot meet the demands of a sociology of visual communication. Even though his theory of practice (Bourdieu, 1972/1977) focuses on the wide horizon of “dialectical relationships” between the “objective structures and the cognitive and motivating structures” of humans “which they produce and which tend to reproduce them” (Bourdieu, 1972/1977, p. 83), the practice term is limited to specific relations between certain life circumstances on one hand and the personality structures of individuals on the other. However, Bourdieu’s studies reveal quite clearly that he sees the subject formation and the corresponding habitus shaped by class-specific life circumstances as leading to the unequal distribution of various forms of capital (economic, cultural, and social capital) and the corresponding power relations in different social fields.

The fact that actors continuously incorporate certain aspects into their action and communication—be it aspects of class or things depending on other social structures—is a fundamental issue for a praxeology of visual communication. Regarding the practice of seeing, John Searle (2015) states in this context that “all seeing is seeing as and all seeing is seeing that” (p. 110). For Searle, this also means that the various experiences of actors are integrated in the practice of seeing. Accordingly, the sociology of visual communication has to assume that actors, beyond and together with their milieu-specific habitus qua socialization, gain practical skill and knowledge in relation to various social constructs and that these are implicitly or explicitly available to them in the practice of visual communication. Only when one assumes that socialized knowledge and skill result from various structural environments and that they are not limited to an incorporated practice in the sense of Bourdieu does it become clear that visual communication can be reproduced in the complexity of social contexts and becomes visible even in simple artifacts.

At any rate, individuals limit their doing and nondoing according to certain criteria in a specific way and it is in this way that practice manifests itself. As a result, scientific knowledge production also takes place as practice. In this respect, Luhmann’s deliberations correspond to epistemological and scientific practice theories (Polanyi, 1966). Neither the homo economicus, who follows individual interests, nor the homo sociologicus, orientated according to norms and values, can serve as an overall concept. Just as sociology understands practice as a relevant constituent of visual communication in various issues and contexts, it must conceive the actor more as a homo oecologicus, in the sense of an actor who places different socially conditioned viewpoints in relation to each other in his doing (and nondoing). The practice term of Luhmann is thus especially appropriate, as it reflects the selectivity of acting and communicating through situationally localizable actors and assumes a maximum variability of action-orientating aspects. As Luhmann does not integrate his thinking into the broader context of practice-theoretical questioning, the following section expands the field to focus on some additional important aspects.

Practice as the Integral Dimension of Communication and as a Foundational Element of the Social

From a socio-theoretical perspective, the practice term is foundationally relevant as it offers answers to the question of how the reproduction of social orders that are spatially and temporally transcending ones can be explained. While Luhmann seeks to explain this reproduction through the power of fascination with medium/form differentiation and other forms of structural orientation (e.g., symbolic generalization), praxeology seeks its answers by pointing toward the evidence that “actions” do not represent discrete, punctual, and individual exemplars, “but rather that in situations of social normality they are embedded as a typified, routinized and socially understood group of activities into a more comprehensive, socially split set of practices held together by implicit, methodical and interpretative knowledge” (Reckwitz, 2003, p. 289).

Based on this assumption, a sociology that strives to explain forms of visual communication in their multiple social contexts cannot relinquish the concept of practice as being the integral momentum of exercising communication. Therefore, Luhmann’s understanding of communication as a foundational social event and of practice as the actor-related process of choosing, deciding, or putting-in-relation alongside variable aspects has to be combined with an understanding of practice as the “smallest unit of the social” in the sense of a “routinized ‘nexus of doings and sayings’ (Schatzki) held together by an implicit understanding” (Reckwitz, 2003, p. 90).

Situational Practice of Structure

In line with micro-sociological perspectives that focus both on the concrete practice of actors and structural aspects, we can establish that social structures cannot be represented or reproduced as standardized orders of sense as such. Practice, as the situational selecting of aspects, always emerges as a singular form that shapes structures in a particular way. Erving Goffman expresses this by adding the term “framing” to his specification of situation-defining “frames,” which he describes as the foundational social structure of comprehending reality. While the frame is an ideal-typical construction of what happens or could happen in a situation, the framing term describes the empirically available, individual case occurrence which surfaces the frame in the practice of acting and communicating in a specific and varying way.

A sociology aiming to examine visual designs in relation to various structural environments certainly has to generalize the context meant here in a way that transcends the domain of specific structures like “frames.” For this purpose, a sociology of visual design can pick up the long established insight that schemes cannot be mechanically applied to all the various relations between structure and practice. In other words, structural environments like settings, cultivated semantics that are created and passed down over longer periods, and feeling rules or functionally specific areas of society like art or politics are comparable in such a way that they imply specific limitations for practice without determining a certain course of action. Alongside, and with the material singularity of spatio-temporal situations, it is always the individualized cognition and knowledge of particular actors that determine the situation in such a way that structures in practice can only occur as specified modulations.

Implicitly and Explicitly

Luhmann’s practice term is also useful for a sociology of visual communication as it remains neutral regarding the question as to whether each aspect is orientated preconsciously or in a consciously reflexive manner vis-à-vis the doing and nondoing of actors. In such a way he manages to integrate Bourdieu’s focused and incorporated habitual prowess and knowledge as well as the rational-choice theory focusing on the given practice forms of the homo economicus, which are strongly driven by aims, means, and interests. The fact that a sociology of visual communication needs to include various levels of (self-)reflection of practice is quite evident when considering artifacts and their social relations. During the creation and reception of different designs, actors use incorporated and reflexive conscious knowledge and skills. The latter is all the more important as visual designs are volitionally integrated in various structural environments across a thematically variable spectrum. Yet, the identification of designs—whether it be office furniture, art, advertising, or toys—generally takes place reflexively and, as a reflexive practice, considerably influences the form and its interpretation. Despite the legitimate emphasis on the meaning of incorporated knowledge, and on the performances based on it, we must not overlook the fact that practice also means the conscious putting into relation of communication alongside cognition in and with structural contexts. Even if knowledge were actually misunderstood as a practical skill—“if one were to understand it only as a system of explicit cognitive rules” (Reckwitz, 2003, p. 90)—it would be equally wrong to exclude reflexivity from the sphere of practice. Considering the factual complexity of what happens within the spheres of saying and doing, all kinds of criteria on which actors base their actions must necessarily be captured as practice. This has to happen independently of the fact as to whether they take place implicitly, preconsciously habitually, or explicitly and consciously reflexively.

Naturally this does not mean that such difference in the forms of practice itself is meaningless and cannot be made useful in an empirical-analytical sense. It is crucial to emphasize that in practice, incorporated and reflexive knowledge interact in a complex way. This is particularly well exemplified in phenomenological studies that describe the relationship between physical experience and reflexive processing, like in the area of visual semantics (Böhme, 2013). Furthermore, research on emotions emphasizes that somatic occurrences, incorporated knowledge, and the reflexive judgment of situations are tightly bound together as a nexus of interconnected aspects and determine emotional performativity—in the frame of body performances (von Scheve, 2010) as well as in the visual communication of artifacts.

Individuality and Collectivity

Luhmann’s practice term does not answer the question about how practice represents individual and/or collective occurrences. This rather gives rise to the impression that practice is based on individual decisional behavior. In view of the empirically available variance of practice forms and the relationship nexus between practices among themselves, this needs to be corrected. The methodological individualism which presumes that the rationality of individual actors is the main focus is only one of many dimensions of practice. Certainly, individual motives and interests as well as individual means and aims are important conditions of acting that affect visual communication in multiple ways. In contemplating the reasons why practice is oriented toward supra-individual interests, it is quite useful to focus on Norbert Elias’s figuration term—the core of his social theory (Elias, 1983). Emphasizing the constant involvement of the human being in any interdependency nexus (“figurations”) with others, it becomes evident that practice ought to be orientated principally according to the motives, interests, means, and aims of others to be successful.

The figuration-theoretical argument is even more convincing if we consider that, in relationships of dependency, we are often confronted with asymmetric power relations which force those with less power to consider socially constructed realities in their understanding, actions, and communication, while the more powerful or the rulers are not entirely autonomous but also depend on the good will of others. We can therefore identify a general pressure to be socially orientated. Or, with regard to theories of rational choice, we might arrive at the following alternative formulation: Considering the motives of concrete others in various structural environments (organizations, institutions, traditions of semantic thinking, functional systems, and so on) serves as a rational action for the actor in such a way that (self-)exclusions from social relations and social orders can be prevented and individual success increased. The figuration-theoretical emphasis on interdependencies fits a praxeology which emphasizes the nexus contexts of practices and therefore speaks of “conglomerates of practices” (Reckwitz, 2003, p. 295). The “viewing communities” (“Sehgemeinschaften”; Raab, 2008) that constitute themselves within the structures of the lifeworld are concrete evidence of collectivizing practices in the field of visual communication.

Materiality and Practice

The understanding of practice as acting and communicating across certain aspects also includes the “materiality of communication” (Gumbrecht & Pfeiffer, 1988). One dimension of this can be described by Luhmann’s media theory. As different materialities—such as orality, scribality, or electronic media—are each bound up with characteristic medium-form interconnections, they actually limit the construction of meaning in a specific way with numerous practice-relevant effects (cf. Luhmann, 1997). It would doubtless be an important task for a sociology of visual communication to pursue this enquiry in the context of a broadly based “aesthetics of materials” (Rübel, Wagner, & Wolff, 2005), considering the characteristics of “leading” visual media of contemporary society (photography, film, TV, computers) as well as other materialities like concrete (Giedion, 1928), plastic (Barthes, 1964), wood (Baudrillard, 1991), and so on.

Phenomenology thus offers an important perspective in disclosing the meaning of material. It points to the fact that within the concept of “atmosphere” (Böhme, 2013), for example, physical interaction with materiality creates requirements and conditions for aesthetic-symbolic practices. Materials like steel, wool, or wood are assigned a certain impression as physical experience guides the sensual interpretation of the material. In contrast to Luhmann’s media theory, phenomenological concepts focus on a dimension of aesthetic practice, which is founded less on cognitive differentiation and a corresponding knowledge of signs and symbols, and more on incorporated experience. The ethnological term of “Dingbedeutsamkeit” (König, 2003)—literally, the meaning of things—can also be connected to the facet of praxeology referred to here, as can the actor-network theory (Latour, 2007) or the concept of behavior settings (Barker, 1960).

Methodological and Methodical Conclusions

This essay seeks to advocate the clarification of different social aspects of visual formation as a task for a sociology of visual communication. Simon’s sciences of the artificial were identified as a suitable starting point because they understand the forms of the artificial as the result of adaptation to environments. To translate and specify this basic assumption for a sociology of visual communication, the concepts of “practice” and “structure” were discussed. It has been shown how these concepts need to be developed to accommodate the concerns of this particular thematic area (see “Subject Area and Central Questions of a Sociology of Visual Communication” section). Complexity was identified as a major problem: both the concepts of structure and practice must take the variance of phenomena into account and cannot be restricted to certain dimensions in advance. Luhmann’s strongly generalized concepts of “structure” as “a limiting condition” and of practice as an actor-related action along aspects consequently offer adequate definitions which must nevertheless be specified and separated from their system-theoretical context.

The pattern below shows the reciprocal influence of the constituents of visual communication focused on in this article: (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Social ecology of visual communication.

With the help of this model, unique elements of these levels, that is, single structures and single artifacts, can be repositioned within the network (Figures 2 to 4).

Figure 2.

Practice and social ecology of visual communication.

Figure 3.

Structures and social ecology of visual communication.

Figure 4.

Artifacts and social ecology of visual communication.

This expansion shows that actors are not only connected to structural environments and artifacts but also to other actors and that single artifacts and single structures are embedded in complex relationships. As stated above, the sociology of visual communication is not concerned with the elucidation of practice or social structures as such, but rather with the analysis of concrete cases in the interrelationship of practices, structures, and artifacts. The most relevant case is unquestionably the one in which the artifacts are at the center (Figure 4). From this perspective, it can be stated that the systematic consideration of social structures is a particularly urgent research desideratum. It is a conspicuous task for a sociology of visual communication to employ existing sociological concepts to enquire into the reasons why certain structural surroundings are especially relevant, how they can be separated from each other, and how specific structural qualities potentially function as form-giving conditions of visual communication. I will briefly list some structural environments of visual communication to illustrate the necessity and importance of considering specific structural issues in object-oriented analyses (Figure 5).

a. Materiality and body

Figure 5.

Heuristic structural model of a social ecology of visual communication.

That every human being has a body and, through this body, experiences manifold perceptions can undoubtedly be accepted as an indisputable fact. This contention is by no means a trivial one, given the conclusions drawn from this issue for an analysis of visual communication. By sensing corporeally and reflecting on bodily perceptions, human beings have a physically mediated access to the various tangible things of their lifeworlds, which is of semantic significance in different contexts of visual representation, for example, things, pictures, films, and computer graphics (see Böhme, 2013).

b. Emotionality

Another fundamental human characteristic is to “have” feelings. Feelings as “inner” experiences of individuals can be distinguished from emotions as communicative (social) happenings, which become such through intersubjectively accessible performances (see Elias, 1990). The visible body or body-analogous representations are particularly cogent examples. As sociological research has long stressed, emotionality is strongly conditioned by social constructions and structures like “feeling rules” (Hochschild, 1979), social status (Neckel, 1991), or emotional semantics (Luhmann, 1984a; for an overview, Senge & Schützeichel, 2012).

c. Space-time-constellation

Every (!) communication takes place in a certain place and at a certain time. What an observer identifies as a (visual) message (e.g., a building, photograph, film) necessarily differs from an environment that is itself more than and different from the particular communication. This contains the potential for establishing significant relationships between the forms of individual designs and the forms in the observer’s respective field of perception. The spatio-temporal constellation is thus a structural fact, which must be taken into account in its potential significance.

d. Frames

A further example of relevant limiting conditions of visual communication is a field of social constructions, which is discussed in sociology with terms like “structures of the lifeworld” (Schütz & Luckmann, 1975). This refers to basal forms of reality comprehension, (re-)produced in forms of social practice, which are orientated to the interpretation of what is happening in a particular situation. Erving Goffman’s (1974) Frame Analysis is an example of this approach. It assumes that actors interpret the basic reality definitions of current events within socially produced and socially mediated frames.

By accessing established arguments of sociology, further structures can be described that are inevitably or very frequently involved in the (re-)production of visual communication: Collective identity constructions, communicative genres, or functional systems, for example, can be described as relevant defining conditions, which—always mediated by forms of practice—influence forms of visual communication in different contexts. What happens when we add these and other structures together is shown in the diagram below.

The composition of structural environments, which can be used for future analyses, cannot achieve a complete typology of structural environments. Instead, it is necessary to develop a structural model, which in principle considers the complexity of the problem outlined here. If we regard the necessary integration of structural environments as a central task of sociology, the question arises as to how this can be implemented within empirical analyses. In this respect, it can be stated at the outset that the integration of structures does not have to limit empirical work by imposing theoretical guidelines. Rather, it is a matter of using the model as a heuristic instrument, which will itself develop further through the empirical work. The approach can follow “classic” methodological lines, and assume methodological positions in social and cultural sciences, which, especially in the first phase of the research process—the empirical analysis—should focus as much as possible on the handling of materials. This approach reflects concepts from various disciplines such as the science of art (Panofsky, 1955), ethnology/anthropology (Banks & Zeitlyn, 2015), sociology (Bohnsack, 2011; Breckner, 2010; Knoblauch, Tuma, & Schnettler, 2015), but also with trans-disciplinary methodological and methodical concepts such as grounded theory, ethnography, or multimodal models for analysis (Harper, 2008; Pauwels, 2011; for an overview, for example, Hughes, 2012).

In subsequent phases of research, the use of a structure matrix will help sensitize the potential range of possible social relationships in the cases under investigation. If Herbert Blumer’s (1954) Sensitizing Concepts are applied, this can be achieved all the more effectively as general concepts can act as reference points of the analysis precisely because of their lack of empirical concreteness (cf. Kelle, 2005, §45ff.). Accordingly, the work with structural descriptions of sociology will not be concerned with an in-depth discussion of singular lines of argumentation “outside” the respective case analysis. Rather, it will be a matter of elucidating the potential meaning and relevance of social structures and process dynamics within the researcher’s own association horizon. A structural model like the above can significantly increase “theoretical sensitivity” in the research process and sidestep the dilemma of abductive (hypothetical) closure, if not to avoid it entirely, but still provide the researcher with reference points for abductive “lightning effects.” The precondition for this is, of course, the recognition that theory and empiricism cannot be sharply differentiated, but rather that theory and empiricism form relationships with one another that are multifaceted and mutually defining, within the context of a continual creation of new intellectual insights (see Kalthoff, Hirschauer, & Lindemann, 2008).

The analytic usefulness of such a concept (here only cursorily referred to) for empirical case studies lies, not least, in its ability to help reflect the dimensions that were not considered in each case. In an overview of the most diverse social relationships of artifacts, investigations that are only interested in certain social dimensions of their objects can then better estimate the contingency and the scope of their interpretations in relation to the variety of attributes of the objects as a whole. According to the idiom of grounded theory—but in contrast to established practices within this methodological framework—the systematic sensitization for the potential importance of structural conditions might usefully be termed “structural coding” (see Kautt, 2017). What is meant by this is a process of bundling the conceptual-generalizing observed properties with regard to the influence of social structures. A simple as well as an effective means of developing such an encoding is the formulation of questions which lead toward a particular structural theme without restricting the further development of the subject. Referring to the most varied artifacts such as the above mentioned example of the clock, the researcher could perhaps formulate the line of enquiry in the following ways: How does the object relate to my physical perceptions and experiences? What emotions are being addressed, and how? In which space-time constellation do I observe the object and how does this influence the interpretation of the object? Are there manifest interdependencies between actors or phenomena of power? Is the aesthetic of the object related to functionalized “communicative genres” such as art, advertising, mass media entertainment, or individual self-presentation? Does the object, by its appearance, refer to a form of collective identity (gender, class, lifestyle, etc.)?

These references to the methodical conclusions of the outlined concept must suffice at this point (for a continuation of the considerations presented here from a methodological and methodical point of view, see Kautt, 2017). The aim of the present article is, rather, to identify the social complexity of visual designs as the central reference problem of a sociology of visual communication and to adapt the terms “structure” and “practice” and their relationship to each other for this requirement. These postulations are no less than a plea for the development of an integrative sociology of visual communication that transverses customary boundaries within the discipline. Special sociologies and “schools” (system theory, rational choice theory, praxeology, sociology of knowledge, media sociology, to name but a few) rarely, for no apparent reason, miss the opportunity to counteract the objects with a complexity of perspectives that make allowance for the complexity of the data. If the sociology of visual communication were to follow an understanding of its objects as outlined here, aiming to examine visual communication in all its complex relationships, then we should go one step further and develop its practice of theory, methodology, and methods into an ecology of theories, methodologies, and methods, whose case-related combinations extend far beyond the demarcations of specific sociological concepts.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors and the anonymous referees for useful comments to the first draft of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

York Kautt is associate professor for media sociology at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen. His research interests are Sociology of Visual Communication, Sociology of Media/Mediatisation, Cultural Sociology, Food Studies, and Qualitative Social Research.

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