I’ve developed an interest in visual research methods while trying to answer my problems in honours. Drawing, painting are never my best traits. But whenever I try to come up with an idea for my articles or to spot gaps in my ideas, it is always useful to use some sort of visual aid to get me thinking critically and creatively. A brainstorm cloud is the most basic thing that I do. You can say it’s hardly “visual” like a drawing or photograph but it does help to expand on the ideas I have in my head… it helps translates my ideas into something more tangible, it helps to clarify my ideas. Seeing the advantage of drawing a brainstorm cloud, I started to research more on visual research methods and found really interesting case studies, which I’ve shared briefly on Liki. An article by Gauntlett mentioned that by creating something, it enhances the mode of thinking and of expressing oneself – because we take our time as we doodle, paint, design, etc as in response or a reflection upon something.
However, I don’t think I could apply visual research to every aspect of my honours project. Visual research is useful for pre-production or pre-writing, for planning and analysing. It would be less relevant to use visual research methods while conducting interviews with people about music as it largely depends on the agenda of the interview, the topic that we’re discussing and there’s often little time. Visual research is usually conducted in social science research, not journalism. But it would be interesting if I’d brought along an image, maybe of a music festival or an album booklet when I sit down to discuss music with someone. If I’m doing field work such as attending music festivals and other music gigs then taking photographs would definitely help, or to ask the person I’m interviewing whether he/she has a photograph of a particular performance they were in, etc to help me understand their story better.
I think we could all relate to visual research, as it involves communication and the arts. We often put it into practice consciously or unconsciously. We might look at a photograph and form our own opinions about it, and that would be one of the things that inspire and inform our own work.
