Beyond talk and text: Visuality and critical discursive psychology

ABSTRACT

Given the centrality of the visual to modern day life, this article introduces a visually informed approach to critical discursive psychology that facilitates the study of visual materials. We argue that the visual is a site where the social world is actively built and maintained, similar to what has been reasoned more generally about language use, and that critical discursive psychology can offer a rigorous approach to examining visual materials that can productively deepen our understanding of psychological concepts. As such, we integrate a consideration of visuality into critical discursive psychology theory, including a conceptualization of visual discourse and visual interpretative repertoires, provide tools for close readings of visual materials and guidance regarding how to employ these tools, and outline the process of identifying visual interpretative repertoires. We further connect these concepts to our previous experience carrying out this approach to inform future inquiries.

KEYWORDS:

• Visuality
• visual
• visual materials
• critical discursive psychology
• discursive psychology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Upon consulting with legal services regarding the reproduction of these photos, we were told that reproducing them for scholarly purposes falls under ‘fair use’ and is thus legal.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Keiko M. McCullough

Dr. Keiko M. McCullough is a Professor of Counseling Psychology in the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver. Dr. McCullough publishes in areas related to method/ology, media studies, and psychology, with an interest in uncovering how psychological constructs are produced and maintained in media (and other visual domains) in connection to systems of inequality.

Jessica Nina Lester

Dr. Jessica Nina Lester is a Professor of Inquiry Methodology in the Department of Counseling & Educational Psychology in the School of Education at Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Lester publishes in areas related to qualitative method/ology, with a particular focus on discourse and conversation analysis methods, digital tools/spaces in qualitative research, and disability in critical qualitative inquiry.