AN ANALYSIS OF THE VISUAL IMAGES OF WOMEN IN GRADE 12 3.1 Introduction
3.4 Research Methodology - Textual Analysis
Research methodology is a body of knowledge based on which data is gathered from various methods. Murray (2010, p.8) explains that, “a methodology is a body of customs, measures and rules that are normally used by those who work within a certain discipline”. Thus, research methodology requires the gathering of relevant data, for example, from the specified documents and compiling databases in order to analyse the material so as to arrive at a more complete understanding. In relation to the above, the research methodology that was chosen for this study was textual analysis as it best suits and fits the design of this study. Textual analysis deals with bringing about the perspectives that exist and the reality of how it is socially constructed in terms of power and values. In the view of Johnson et al. (2006, p.133)
“textual analysis is driven by specific knowledge constituting assumptions about the nature of the truth represented as well as the social and organisational reality”.
Hence this study ought to find the reality in History textbooks and so forth.
The reason I have chosen textual analysis is because it allowed me as a researcher to conduct the analysis using two methods which are visual semiotics and content analysis. Babbie (2010) shares with us that textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content communication, and it could be the study of recorded human communication such as textbooks, signs, websites, paintings and laws. Textual analysis is a process that guides the methods of analysing textual data. It is a way for researchers to gather information about how to make sense of, and in the case of my study, visual images as text.
I am using textual analysis on the basis of the argument that visuals and words both constitute text. Textual analysis allows me as a researcher to interpret and analysed the visual images of women that I will be dealing with. When I am referring to visual images the following list will show the types I am referring too. These visual images were all located in the three chapters found in Table 3.2.
• Photographs
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• Drawings
• Cartoons.
• Talking heads
• Maps
• Newspapers
• Posters
• Comic strips
• Charts
• Pictures
• Any other visual images
Therefore, textual analysis has allowed me to use both content analysis and visual semiotics in analysing and interpreting my data as it exists in the textbooks. The following methods will explain how I engaged in my analysis and interpreted my data.
3.4.1 Research Methods
The problem statement in this study is the depiction of visual images of women in selected South African history textbooks. The questions I constantly had in mind when I was analysing the datawere, in what kind of visual images do women appear, how do they appear in images in comparison to men, how do they appear in the visual images and also to discover what type of visuals they appear in, for example do they appear in pictures, maps, graphs or in newspaper articles?
This part of my study consisted of the content analysis and visual semiotics analysis.
The reason I have chosen to use these two research methods is for the trustworthiness of my data that I have analysed. The content analysis method was used to determine the trustworthiness of the data and the visual analysis method was used to analyse the visual images that were carried throughout the study using visual semiotics to analyse and interpret the denotation and connotation of the images.
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3.4.1.1 Content Analysis
Content analysis has been used to convert qualitative measures into quantitative ones. Craig et al (2009) cited by Firestone (2010) say content analysis is conceived as too narrow as a means of converting qualitative content into quantitative measures. This was another reason why I decided to include content analysis as one of the methods in my research. Bernard (2010) defines content analysis as a method that focuses on the actual content and internal features of media such as textbooks.
Hence it is used to define the presence of certain words, concepts and sets of ideas to quantify the presence of an object. He continues by saying that, to conduct a content analysis on a text (which as pointed out before can also be an image) it is coded and broken down into manageable categories on a variety of levels. This I did by counting and statistically engaging with the content using Table 3.3 below.
Table 3.3 Data analysis instrument for content analysis
Total number of images/visuals in the whole book Total number of images of men alone
In how many images do women appear alone?
In how many images do women and men appear together?
Total number of images with no people.
In analysing the data (all the visual images in the sampled chapters) using the above table, I first counted all the visuals in the sampled chapters in each of the sampled textbooks (See Tables 3.1 and 3.2). I wrote down the total number of each book and page numbers for all the counted visuals. The first step I used to analyse the data for each book was that I had five headings which were: total number of visuals, number of men alone, number of women alone, number of men and women together and number of images with no people. This first step was to obtain the valid statistics and to produce trustworthy results by means of the overall concept which was provided by a statistical analysis of the content. After I created this table I had to consider what should follow that will assist in analysing the visuals in my research. This is where visual semiotics assisted me in producing accurate results.
3.4.1.2 Visual Semiotics
51 Berger (1972) explains that seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before she can speak. Visual semiotics in this study will be used to interpret, analyse, recognise and understand the visual images found in three chosen textbooks (sample). Semiotic analysis in this study was used as a method to interpret and analyse the visuals. According to Foster and Crowfortd (2002) semiotics analysis is used to identify signs and signifiers in the texts. Berger (2004) states that semiotic analyses are the study of signs and sign processes (semiotic), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, signification, and communication.
Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. According to Berger a sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else. The sample for this study analyses the visual images of women as identified by content analysis (as a sign, since sign in this case is something that we can see, study and analyse) in selected South African history textbooks.
In the process of using visual semiotics I have used connotation and denotation as methods to describe the meaning of the visual images that have been analysed and interpreted using visual semiotics. According to Omran (2000) connotation and denotation are two principal methods that describe the meaning of words and images. Connotation and denotation are two separate ideas or signs. Connotation represents the various social overtones, cultural implication or emotional meanings associated with a sign. Denotation refers to the literal meaning of the sign. In other words the two methods worked as separate elements, the connotation method was used to interpret the hidden value of the image that was not expressed clearly or obviously and denotation was used to express the obvious or literal part of the image.
In analysing and interpreting the data I designed a table to analyse each image. In simplifying the bigger picture into the focus of the study I used nine categories which are; kind of source (what kind of visual is it), origin, page number (for reference), race (is it a white, black, coloured or Indian person?), who are they/who is she?
(identification), what are they doing or what is she doing? How are they depicted/
how is she depicted? Why are they depicted (historically) or how is she depicted? I also looked at the positioning (how are they positioned in the image and in the page
52 that they appear on?). To understand the complexity of the images of women I added two other categories in analysing images of women which are: what information in the text is about the image and what is left out? See Table 3.4 below for the instrument.
Table 3.4 Instrument for semiotic analysis for visual images in selected chapters in each textbook
What kind of source/visual?
Origin, where was the image taken?
Page number?
Who is she or who are they (identification) is she famous, known or unknown?
Race? (black, white, Indian or coloured) What is she doing/what are they doing?
How she is depicted/how are they depicted?
Why is she depicted in this manner/why are they depicted in this manner? (historically)
Positioning, where is she/are they positioned in the page?
What information about the image is shared?
What information is excluded?
What is the connotation of the image?
What is the denotation of the image?