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Historisk tidskrift 125:2 • 2005

Innehåll (Contents) 2005:2

Uppsatser (Articles)

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Eva Blomberg

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Ways of Seeing

This article discusses visual media in relation to historical writing, by pointing to the importance of combining textual and imaginal analysis and of considering the methodological problems involved in doing so. Modern society is dominated by visual media, but so far historians have rarely considered to what extent social relations, relations of power etc, are affected, even changed, by images (photos as well as films). We are all involved in the production of images, as photographers or as objects [?]. Like texts, images are a source of rich information to historians. But the interpretation of images requires different methodologies and analytical tools from those used in the analysis of texts. This article discusses problems of interpreting mass produced pictures, especially portraits. Although there is a wide scope of methodological approaches available, few are suitable for historical analysis.