Democratizing qualitative research: Photovoice and the study of human communication.

This essay discusses the possibilities of photovoice as a method to advance the study of human communication. Via a democratizing of the research process, photovoice can significantly affect the study of communication. Originally proposed by Wang and Burris (1994), photovoice traditionally has been used to study the social worlds of marginalized persons (e.g., rural, learning disabled, people without homes). Photovoice is a method in which participants use cameras to document their daily lives. The photographs function as artifacts around which an in-depth interview and/or focus group is centered. In this essay, I trace the history of images in social-scientific research generally and photovoice specifically. I then discuss the setup, execution of, and challenges of a photovoice project. I conclude with examples of photovoice from my own research which highlight the potential of photovoice-generated data to inform the study of human communication.

• View at Publisher
• View at Scopus