The Comic Book as Research Tool: Creative Visual Research for the Social Sciences 9783110781137, 9783110781052

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Stephen R. O’Sullivan The Comic Book as Research Tool

Stephen R. O’Sullivan

The Comic Book as Research Tool Creative Visual Research for the Social Sciences

ISBN 978-3-11-078105-2 e-ISBN [PDF] 978-3-11-078113-7 e-ISBN [EPUB] 978-3-11-078122-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2023942758 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: William Helps and Stephen R. O’Sullivan Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and Binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

To my family: for all the crazy comics at Christmas.

Acknowledgements Without the environment of arts and crafts, play, sport, and hard work fostered by my parents George and Rita, my career path, interests, this book, and other works could not have been possible: I’m forever thankful. And to my grandfather Bob also, the “92-year-old nerd” who’s thirst for knowledge is inspirational. I’m grateful for the support of George, Vicky, Leah, and Cian. The kindness, care, and support from Ali was essential for the revitalisation of perspective and purpose, as too the social support from friends. I would like to acknowledge my colleagues at University College Cork, Cork University Business School, in particular Dr Brendan Richardson (RIP), Dr Joan Buckley, Dr Dave Alton, and Dr Claire O’Neill, for their mentorship and encouragement. I acknowledge international peers whose work I not only admire but who have extended advice, encouragement, or support for this or other projects, for which I’m grateful: Prof Mike Saren, Prof Bernard Cova, Prof Avi Shankar, Prof Robert Kozinets, Prof Alan Bradshaw, and Prof Robin Canniford, and Dr Usva Seregina, and many others for their more indirect influences. Gratitude is extended to audiences at the University College Cork PhD Symposium (2010), Consumer Culture Theory Conference (2012), Annual Conference of Academy of Marketing (2012, 2015), Interpretive Consumer Research Workshops (2013, 2017), and Social Research Association Creative Research Methods Conference (2015), and reviewers at Consumption, Markets & Culture, for valuable feedback. My appreciation is extended to William Helps, an incredibly talented illustrator, who co-created Toxic Play and 10 Business Days research comic books, and to Faye, Mervin, and Maximillian at De Gruyter also, for the invitation, support, and colour pages.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-202

Contents Acknowledgements Welcome

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Chapter 1 Visual culture, communication, and creativity 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Visual culture 1 1.3 Understanding communication media 4 1.4 Artistic narrative 7 1.5 Modern order 11 1.6 Illusion of life 13 1.7 Digital claustrum 18 1.8 Cultures of knowing: the crisis of creativity 1.9 Conclusion 24 References 25

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Chapter 2 A creative visual research agenda 29 2.1 Introduction 29 2.2 Visual scholarship 29 2.3 Ethnography, adaptions, and hybrids 33 2.4 Visual research methods 37 2.5 Drawing, sketching, illustrations 39 2.6 Photography, the camera, and the subjective snap 2.7 Film, video, and moving pictures 44 2.8 Art-based approaches to research 49 2.9 A creative visual research agenda 50 2.10 A role for the comic book 52 2.11 Conclusion 54 References 54 Chapter 3 Origins of the comic book 62 3.1 Introduction 62 3.2 Origins of illustrated narrative 62 3.3 Illustrated news, horror, and humour 3.4 The early age of comics 64 3.5 The fun factory 67 3.6 Crime, adventure, morality 69

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3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15

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An afterthought for the girls 70 Superhero and identity myths 71 Backlash: the comics code authority 72 Comix: the counter-cultural code 73 Critical comic industry 74 Cross-media supersystems 75 Graphic novels and moral seriousness 76 Globality and blind spots 77 Conclusion 78 References 79

Chapter 4 How comic books work: the anatomy of magic 81 4.1 Introduction 81 4.2 Comic books: a unique magic 81 4.3 The unique language and grammar 83 4.4 Splash page: contextualisation 83 4.5 Panel images: windows of action 84 4.6 Layered text: association and identification 85 4.7 Modality and binocularity 86 4.8 Gutters: imaginative closure and personal meaning-making 88 4.9 Braiding: levels of narrative 89 4.10 Devices, frames, and characters: epistemological and ontological shifts 90 4.11 Conclusion 90 References 91 Chapter 5 The comic book and creative data generation 93 5.1 Introduction 93 5.2 Making is connecting: creative data generation 5.3 Creative shapes 94 5.4 Simple detail and objects 96 5.5 Abstract subjective experience 96 5.6 Long exposure 99 5.7 Sequencing field interactions 100 5.8 Filling in and drawing out 102 5.8.1 Facial expression and emotion 103 5.8.2 Deductive prose 103 5.8.3 Abstract meanings 104

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Deconstruction, collage, and decoupage Unseeing the narrative 108 Personal narratives and group reflection Conclusion 110 References 110

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Chapter 6 The comic book: a creative structure for inference 112 6.1 Introduction 112 6.2 Veracity and a holistic data set 112 6.3 Inference, analysis, and manipulation 114 6.4 Categorisation, coding, and abstraction 115 6.5 Triangulation, comparisons, and dimensions 116 6.6 Iteration 118 6.7 Disconfirming observations/negative case analysis 118 6.8 Interpretation and the illumination of meaning 119 6.9 Tables, models, and diagrams 120 6.10 The analytical comic book: creative visual inference 120 6.11 Analytical steps: drawing interpretations 121 6.11.1 Step 1: visual data 122 6.11.2 Step 2: textual data layering 122 6.11.3 Step 3: theoretical framing 122 6.11.4 Step 4: feedback, debriefing, and member checks 122 6.11.5 Step 5: expanding themes 123 6.12 Inductive analytical comic 124 6.13 Deductive analytical comic 124 6.14 The value of the analytical comic book approach 126 6.15 Conclusion 128 References 129 Chapter 7 The comic book as representation: scientific story-worlds 7.1 Introduction 131 7.2 Responsibility of representation 131 7.3 Crisis of representation 132 7.4 Imagining the audience 133 7.5 The ethnographic comic book 135 7.5.1 Scientific story-worlds 136 7.5.2 Data utilisation in narrative 136 7.5.3 Reanalysis and story-world codes 137 7.5.4 Hyper-intense translations 137 7.5.5 Illustration of the scientific story-world 138

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7.5.6 7.6

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Dissemination: increasing web of reach Conclusion 141 References 142

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Chapter 8 The comic as research method: preserving Covid-19 145 8.1 Introduction 145 8.2 Preserving Covid-19 visually 145 8.3 Research design and Covid-19 146 8.3.1 Walking and wandering 147 8.3.2 Global netnography 148 8.4 Preserving Covid-19: content and form 149 8.4.1 Phase 1: art-based grounded theory 149 8.4.2 Phase 2: sensational story-world codes 151 8.4.3 Phase 3: hyper-intense narrative arc 151 8.4.4 Phase 4: illustration and illumination 152 8.5 Interpreting the Covid-19 story-world: hyper-structural dimensions 152 8.5.1 Timelessness 153 8.5.2 Disembodiment 154 8.5.3 Infomania 154 8.5.4 Infodemic: lies and untruths 156 8.5.5 Regrouping 157 8.5.6 Covid couture 157 8.5.7 Civic consumption 158 8.5.8 Callous consumption 159 8.6 Conclusion 160 References 161 Chapter 9 Research comics as translation: knowledge transfer and new audiences 9.1 Introduction 162 9.2 Inter and multidisciplinary bridging 162 9.3 The translation theory turn 164 9.4 Translating in and translating out 166 9.5 Literature translation and bridging devices 167 9.6 Inter-semiotic analysis: emotionality in translation 168 9.7 Multi-representational translations 169 9.8 Media intellectuals: translating for new audiences 169 9.9 Hiding theory, exposing humour and satire 172

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The attention market: supply and demand Conclusion 175 References 175

Chapter 10 Alternative shapes of knowledge 178 10.1 Introduction 178 10.2 The liberation of knowledge 178 10.3 Creative knowledge translation 180 10.4 Alternative shapes of knowledge 181 10.5 Future knowledge audiences 183 10.6 Conclusion 184 References 184 Appendix 1: Toxic Play: Consuming Beer Pong Appendix 2: 10 Business Days Afterword: Origin story Index

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Welcome The overall aim of this book is quite simple: to inspire more creative applications of the visual in social science research. However, to stimulate an enhanced enthusiasm for creative visual research, greater access to creative explorations must be facilitated, and abilities nurtured. In doing so, the book contributes to a growing body of exciting academic work advancing perspectives on research design and celebrating the range of methods and diverse tools available to social science researchers (Pink, 2014; Kozinets & Belk, 2007; Serigina & Van den Bossche, 2022; Eisner, 2008; Gauntlett, 2007; 2013). Due to this book’s methodological focus on revitalisation in research design, it is intended to be valuable for a diverse audience across the social sciences: to be illuminating and enriching for visual novices, experts, and all in-betweeners. The book offers access to the foundational concepts central to visual culture, as well as diverse theoretical perspectives on communication technology, media, and comic books. Also offered throughout the book are an array of novel conceptualisations, creative exercises, illustrated examples, and practical applications to support any researcher’s quest for knowledge. The arguments and perspectives presented in this book have been shaped by a diverse literature and eclectic gaze, drawing from anthropology, education, sociology, marketing, psychology, philosophy, archaeology, design, geography, art, and media, cultural, and translation studies, film, documentary, and museums, and many other niche subjects, contexts, and phenomena affiliated with visual culture. Regardless of discipline or sub-discipline, researchers, educators, artists, scholars, designers, and comic book enthusiasts, anyone interested in the visual, or enhancing their creative talents in research settings, will be exposed to creative approaches to knowledge production. Many researchers and students acknowledge the illuminating powers of visual research but are limited in opportunities to explore their potential and/or may lack the confidence to fully immerse themselves in visual art. Beyond the necessary theoretical and conceptual grounding, the book facilitates essential opportunities for personal development and creative growth. It offers numerous hands-on visual activities and guided illustration exercises, designed to nurture readers’ creative sensibilities while enhancing the application and appreciation of visual research tools and techniques. The book contributes to an expansion of the methodological toolkit available to social science researchers. Researchers have long desired methodological revitalisation – an academic reinvigoration – an exploration renaissance characterised by the emergence of creative methodologies and alternative approaches for capturing the vivid richness of cultural life (Gergen & Gergen, 2000; Sefton-Green, 2005). An objective of this book is to reignite academic passion for the visual and foster intensified dialogue among those interested in methodological innovation. In recognition of the vivid sensory and emotive values of visual research (Banks, 2007; Pink, 2007a), the creative potential of the comic book medium and how it can assist researchers in the production and communication of knowledge are explored thoroughly in this book. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-204

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Despite comic books being key components of global popular culture for over 100 years (Jenkins, 2020), the illustrious potential of the comic book form is vastly underexplored in education contexts, and for the most part denigrated as a legitimate tool to produce science (Hoover, 2012; Fink, 2022; Bitz, 2004). Academic research is only beginning to address its myopia and explore the illuminating versatility of the comic book form (Kim, 2017; Sousain, 2015; O’Sullivan & Kozinets, 2020). Despite providing easy access for audiences, comic books allow for the integration of complex forms of knowledge and the representation of concepts difficult to express through text or traditional linear communication (Short & Reeves, 2009). The comic book inspires levels of audience transportation and narrative co-creation unique to the form. Comic book audiences are welcomed to a “curious elsewhere” (Gergen, 1997), whereby they must explore lateral possibilities and engage in personalised forms of meaning-making (Freedman, 2011). Reading comic books, despite false associations with reduced literacy, develops higher-order thinking skills and the “as if” imagination among readers (Dallacqua, 2012). Comic book readers are much closer to semiotic investigators – cultural translators – far from passive readers given the intensified engagements and personalised narratives evoked (Whitlock, 2006). Researchers tend to forget that research should be designed idiosyncratically and intended to have the maximum impact (Munari, 2008). While scientific standards must be upheld, researchers require new methodological tools capable of capturing the complexity of contemporary social life and realities of the sceptical age (Mickwitz, 2016). The efficacy of traditional, passive, and flat methodological communication tools is diminishing, giving rise to the need for more active, narrative-orientated, and dynamic tools capable of incorporating story-worlds into the communication of social science research. Put simply, the academic “dark age” of clinging desperately to tradition is overdue creative disruption: new tools are required to do new jobs. The opportunity and responsibility is to develop methodological tools capable of representing multiple forms of complex data, that can aid analysis and interpretation, and most importantly, welcome audiences as co-producers of knowledge in scientific narratives. This book can be understood as a direct response to the mounting calls for change to research processes – to contribute to the establishment of a more vivid, engaging, impactful, and creative culture of social science research (Sword, 2012; Essén & Värlander, 2013; Dewsbury, 2014; Eisner, 2008). In doing so, the book is not only an encomium to the creative potential for the comic book form, but advocates for the intense experimentation with any alternative media capable of enlivening research design. Researchers are enthused to become playful academic explorers, innovators, bricoleurs, and designers, by developing, testing, and adapting tools, methods, and practices for improved knowledge production. The underlying argument presented is that by playing more actively within the research process, more creative thinking can be inspired, and a research environment enthusiastic of diverse approaches to knowledge production, public translation, and interaction could be realised.

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Chapter 1 lays some conceptual common ground while working towards the rationale for this book. The chapter opens by exploring visual culture, the alternative perspectives on what it is, the optimisms, opportunities, downfalls, and dangers (Barnard, 2001). The chapter highlights the intertwined relationships between technology, communication, and visual culture (Mirzeoff, 1999). The socio-cultural impact of communication technology on human behaviour is conceptualised in four fluid stages, organic narrative, modern order, illusion of life, and digital claustrum. Contemporary media are shown to be diminishing people’s capability to think and imagine, thus limiting human abilities to conceive new worlds and imagine better futures (Demos, 2017). The trajectory of digital media is shown to have established cultures of knowing, comprised of digital dogmatic believers limited in lateral thinking, underdeveloped in application of the “as if” imagination and problem-solving competencies, giving rise to a societal crisis of creativity. This book can be considered a direct response to the crisis of creativity in society, designed to enhance imaginative engagements and alternative forms of knowledge production and translation. Chapter 2 details a history of visual scholarship and the diversity of research exploring visual culture (Mitchell, 2002). The discussion moves to ethnography, its hybrids, and the dominant visual methods in social science research. Drawings, photography, and film are discussed, and methodological milestones, cultural developments, and the trajectory towards more creative media emphasised (MacDougall, 1997). The chapter highlights the calls across the social sciences for more creative research explorations and resonant representations (Belk & Kozinets, 2005). The conversation is then drawn to the value of art-based approaches to research, noting their performative and transformative powers (Seregina & Christensson, 2017). Reflecting on the key elements of Chapters 1 and 2, a creative visual research agenda is proposed to add enhanced stability and focus to the creative visual approaches to social science research. Finally, a role for the comic book is explored, emphasising how it could assist the creative visual research agenda, support researcher and participants, and draw new audiences to scientific work. Chapter 3 explores the cultural blueprint of the comic book form. It begins by exploring the cultural antecedents of illustrated narrative, the murky origins of “broadsheet” circulations, and emergence of fuller graphic narratives in magazine form (Sabin, 2006). Understanding its captivating powers, publishers explored the boundaries of the comic book form, evolving it in style, pictorial artistry, and writing (Eisner, 1997). A number of evolutionary milestones, the humour market, continuity of characters, ritualistic narrative engagement, and colour technology are discussed. A diverse range of action, superhero, adventure, war, children, horror, comic classics, and fan favourites are drawn from to guide discussion. The ideological interplay between comics and society is discussed throughout the chapter, exposing comics as a medium that facilitated multiple transitions in society (Gordon, 1994). Chapter 4 explores the magic of the comic book form. It explores how the structure – the anatomy of magic – inspires novel forms of engagement and personalised meaning-making unavailable through other media (Short & Reeves, 2009). The chap-

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ter opens by considering the nature of the comic book form, and examines whether comics should be classified as literature, art, a hybrid, or unique form (Baetens, 2008)? The underlying communication logics of the form, the language, and grammar are deconstructed and discussed (McCloud, 1993). An emphasis is placed on the comic splash page and pagination, the images and panels, the multimodal nature of communication, the narrative binocularity and gutters that contribute to the unfolding of the comic narrative (Chute & DeKoven, 2006). The unique anatomy of comics is shown to work in unisons to foster novel excitements among a diverse global audience (Norton, 2003). An increased examination of the underlying logics and enhanced understanding of the magic of the form will inspire increased adoption, adaption, and evolution of the comic book (and other media) in research design. In Chapter 5, having established a firm theoretical and conceptual grounding in the prior chapters, the focus shifts towards actively supporting the research process via creative engagements. The chapter illustrates how the comic book’s structure can contribute to creative forms of data collection and generation. It opens by discussing a “making is connecting” philosophy (Gauntlett, 2013), highlighting the value of active embodiment practices to recording data, processing information, and expressing knowledge. The chapter features both comic-related and illustration-based exercises for researchers to support data documentation, facilitate elicitation, and foster more conversational style knowledge exchanges (Young & Barrett, 2001). In this chapter readers gain familiarity with numerous creative visual processes and develop a range of visual narration skills (Marcoci, 2007). Readers are encouraged to engage with full artistic spirit, to grab a pencil, stylus, or whatever is comfortable, and to get involved. Chapter 6 explores how the comic book structure can support the serious processes of inference, analysis, and interpretation (Spiggle, 1994). The chapter opens by discussing the scientific requirements for achieving veracity (Stewart, 1998). Following this, it explores data management and manipulation processes: how data is shaped into scientific meaning (Goodall, 2000). Data manipulation operations such as categorisation and abstraction, and analytically procedures such as triangulation, comparison, iteration, and negative case analysis are explored (Wallendorf & Belk, 1989). Creating a comic book is shown to be a valuable structure to aid the process of inference, as it stimulates the back-and-forth between data and interpretation. When scientifically managed data is applied to the comic book structure it is shown to heighten the understanding of the context and aid the identification of themes worthy of further exploration. Two original examples of analytical research comics are provided, and their vibrant contributions to methodology discussed: the analytical steps involved, support to the research process, and the reporting and communication benefits. Chapter 7 explores the potential of the comic form to support the external communication of research and illustrates its potential as an impactful reporting and representation tool (Pink, 2007a). The chapter begins by discussing the responsibility and importance attached to research representation (Hall, 2006). From there it ex-

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plores debates in the field on what is an acceptable form of academic representation, typified by the crisis of representation, it highlights the importance of imagining the audience and communicating findings with multiple audiences (Kozients & Belk, 2007). The ethnographic comic Toxic Play is provided as an illustrative research comic example, a visual scientific representation arising from a longitudinal research study. The chapter builds on examples offered in Chapter 6 and shows how these were contributory to the production of more sophisticated forms of knowledge. Instructive steps and much reflection are offered as a guiding framework helpful for other researchers to follow or build upon. Steps discussed include the creation of scientific story-worlds, data utilisation, the reanalysis and reinterpretation of data to produce story-world codes, hyper-intense reinterpretations, the specifics of illustration, storyboarding, visual contextualisation, ethnographic prose, and dissemination. Chapter 8 attempts to visually and theoretically preserve aspects of the Covid-19 experience. It displays the usefulness in adopting the research comic as a methodological tool, highlighting the responsiveness and flexibility of the form to support the production of intense scientific and cultural knowledge. The Covid-19 research comic 10 Business Days is introduced, followed by a discussion on the novel research design employed. Walking is discussed as a valuable supplementary research method (Jung, 2014), which facilitated the production of photographs, fieldnotes drawings, poetry, film, and informal conversations (Pink, 2007b). Walking was supplemented with a global netnographic approach employed across digital media platforms discussing Covid-19-related information and experiences (Kozinets, 2017). Following this, the chapter offers a more academic and theoretically driven discussion, exposing the underlying themes directing Covid-19 behaviour, as per 10 Business Days. Chapter 9 explores how the research comic contributes to the translation turn in methodological design (Zanettin, 2015). It opens by discussing the benefits and challenges of inter and multi-disciplinary work, highlighting the need for methodological devices that can aid knowledge transfer across boundaries (Youndblood, 2007). Translation encompasses diverse perspectives beyond inter-linguistic translation, how readers of multimodal media translate from one semiotic language to another, for instance (Kourdis, 2020). Translations of the multimodal nature are shown to be expansive rather than narrowing (Rundle, 2014). The research comic is shown to initiate multiple forms of translation, translating in, on behalf of the researcher, and translating out, in terms of the communication, narrative binocularity, and personalised meaning-making of the audience. Alternative comic adaptions are discussed, focusing on establishing understanding and dialogue across boundaries. The potential of adopting the comic translation turn is discussed in terms of how it could help researchers develop bridging relationships and attract new audiences in the hypercompetitive public attention market (Jacoby, 2008). Chapter 10 offers a conclusion and places the research comic book in a broader academic discourse on knowledge production and transfer (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988). The discussion opens by exploring the nature of knowledge, its forms, shapes, and ap-

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plications (Davis et al., 1993). Following this, the liberation of knowledge is discussed and the potential use of alternative shapes of knowledge explored (Esiner, 2008). From here discussion moves beyond the comic form and argues for the application of all creative media capable of establishing more welcoming relationships with audiences. The argument is that academia must realign its intentions, as focusing on the production of scientific knowledge has been culturally isolating. Instead, academia must aspire to adopt scientific structures that welcome audiences to participate in the meaningmaking and production of culturally relevant knowledge. Finally, an impassioned call is made for creative approaches to research design, highlighting that researcher creativity is no longer a side-piece, novelty, or luxury, it is a must. A commitment to revitalisation is urgently required to capture the attention of contemporary audiences, to shake people from the brainless involvement, and reawaken imaginations, because unfortunately there is much to be lost by not trying (Demos, 2017). The book’s Afterword offers an origin story, an honest personal reflection on the spark of inspiration, the spider bite, and initial use of the form that shaped the creative explorations in this book.

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Seregina, U., & Christensson, O. (2017). Art-based research of consumer culture. Research in Arts and Education, 2017(1), 74–84. Seregina, U., & Van den Bossche, A. (Eds.). (2022). Art-based research in the context of a global pandemic. Taylor & Francis. Sherry Jr, J. F., & Schouten, J. W. (2002). A role for poetry in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research 29(2), 218–234. Short, J. C., & Reeves, T. C. (2009). The graphic novel: A “cool” format for communicating to generation Y. Business Communication Quarterly, 72(4), 414–430. Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Harvard University Press. Spiggle, S. (1994). Analysis and interpretation of qualitative data in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(3), 491–503. Stewart, A. (1998). The ethnographer’s method (Vol. 46). Sage. Sword, H. (2012). Stylish academic writing. Harvard University Press. Wallendorf, M., & Belk, R. W. (1989). Assessing trustworthiness in naturalistic consumer research. ACR Special Volumes. Whitlock, G. (2006). Autographics: The seeing” I” of the comics. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 52(4), 965–979. Youngblood, D. (2007). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and bridging disciplines: A matter of process. Journal of Research Practice, 3(2), M18–M18. Young, L., & Barrett, H. (2001). Adapting visual methods: action research with Kampala street children. Area, 33(2), 141–152. Zanettin, F. (2015). Comics in translation.Routledge.

Chapter 1 Visual culture, communication, and creativity 1.1 Introduction The goal of this chapter is to introduce readers to visual culture, the key concepts and perspectives on communication, technology, and media, and offer a rationale for the book. The chapter opens with a discussion on visual culture, what it is and who it impacts, and the opportunities and challenges for the future. From there the chapter explores the nature of technology, its impact on human behaviour, cultural innovations, and underlying ideologies. The socio-cultural impact of communication technology (media) is discussed in four fluid stages: (1) artistic narrative, (2) modern order, (3) illusion of life, and (4) digital claustrum. The consequences of the current communication media trajectory are assessed, exposing the transition towards cultures of knowing: masters of options, limited in opportunities for knowledge exploration or to nurture the “as if” imagination, resulting in the emergence of the passive public and a societal crisis of creativity.

1.2 Visual culture Visual culture is an interdisciplinary subject, an emergent academic discipline, a radiating beam of interest among scholars of anthropology, cultural, media, and translation studies, sociology (visual studies), marketing, consumer research, education, geography, design, art, and history, and many other fascinating fields and sub-fields. Mitchell (2002) implies visual culture is a “grab-bag of problems” unaddressed by the respectable disciplines and sub-disciplines mentioned above. Evans and Hall (1999) suggest that visual culture expands upon the self-serving narratives of individual disciplines by investigating instances of culture across all media. At its crux, visual culture explores how the structure, ideology, ethos, and perspectives of society and individuals are expressed visually. Or as Mirzoeff (1999, p.1) puts it: “visual culture investigates the means by which cultures visualize themselves, ranging from the internal imagination to social encounters and visualized media”. Researchers exploring visual culture acknowledge the centrality of the visual in contemporary culture (Boylan, 2020), and are interested in exploring the “materiality and power of images, their multimodal nature, and ability to orchestrate the behaviour of individuals and society” (Rampley, 2005, p.15). As Mitchell (2002) emphasises, visual culture explores the social construction of the visual and the visual construction of the social, hence, studies both the visual elements of culture and the culture of the visual. By association, any researcher with an interest in the visual and/or society should be interested in visual culture and should enthusiastically intermingle with the exciting interdisciplinhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-001

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ary theory, perspectives, and practical applications offered in visual culture literature (Mitchell, 1994; Mirzoeff, 1999; Evans & Hall, 1999). Visual culture is an expansive research interest; vast, dynamic, vivid, and without hard boundaries; it is inclusive of all the objects in the room, all the images on TV, the brand logos, iconic photographs, social media apps, advertising characters, bus design, selfies, tattoos, famous paintings, design, cartography, city tourist maps, nature, family photographs, cartoons, graffiti, comic books, one’s “mind’s eye”, and all of one’s visual memories (Boylan, 2020; Mirzoeff, 1999). Visual culture has fluidity, a trans-culturalism linking ancient and present expressions of humanity in a vivid kaleidoscope of signs, symbols, and co-shaping socially constructed meanings (Hall, 2012). It is important to recognise that artistic quality is not the sole basis of evaluation in visual culture: all visual images possess cultural significance and impress on us in some way. Visual culture is not limited to the study of media but extends to the study of everyday practices of seeing and showing (Mitchell, 2002). Visual culture is perpetuated by temporal, reflective, and projective elements, an understanding of such elements can provide valuable insights on human behaviour (Mirzoeff, 1999). Visual culture is comprised of layers of complex meaning – there’s an underlying (in)visible logic, a shrouded order to the visual systems of society. According to Wolffin (2012) the visual analysis of the style of a shoe can provide as much insight on the values of a particular society as an examination of its esteemed institutions. Similarly, Munari (2008, p. 139) in the field of design interprets the endless variety in cutlery design as the visual manifestation of the intensifying culture of excess. Boylan (2020, p. xv) too, highlights that when baby manuals are examined closer, “the hopes, anticipations, and anxieties of culture are visible”, of course little to do with babies but more so the culture about to shape them. It is precisely because highly visual objects are “normalised”, accepted, deemed unimportant, predictable, or mundane, that they can reveal so much about the perspectives underlying culture (Barthes, 2013). When examined closer the visual can shed light on the dominant ideologies of society and expose its moral fabric (Rampley, 2005; Spalding, 2013; 2022). Barnard (2001, p. 2) adds some clarity to visual culture research by demarcating between the strong and weak dimensions of visual culture. The weak dimension of visual culture explores the visual objects within the environment, broadly referring to all the 2D and 3D images produced and consumed in daily life. It is inclusive, subsuming all forms of art and design, and publicly visual phenomena. The strong dimension of visual culture research emphasises the cultural dimensions, relating to the identities constructed and values expressed visually – the objects, institutions, and practices that maintain and project cultural identity (Belk, 1988). The strong theory of visual culture draws attention to the oppositional nature and darker dimensions of the visual, particularly its capacity to divide people and maintain power-relationships. Visual images amalgamate and give rise to a visual environment. For instance, in the field of geography, Edensor and Bille (2019) discuss lumitopia, in which illumination

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in a space is integral to the atmosphere and mood, serving to orchestrate behaviours within. Examples include amusement parks, hotels, night clubs, and urban public, etc. All contemporary visual environments contain a swirling collage of separate visual meanings which become understood, normalised, and mapped onto future behaviour, directing our lives, identities, and bodies (Elkins, 2010). No visual material exists in isolation. When we see something, we also see what surrounds it, what it reminds us of, and other visual memories and sensations (Berger, 2008). The visual generates multiple meanings for negotiation and re-negotiation, which can go on indefinitely. Visual culture is never neutral. Optimistically, visual culture can be used as an opportunity to share good ideas, creativity, and future visions with the world (Boylan, 2020; Hinton & Hjorth, 2019). From this view, visual culture is playful, indulgent, collaborative, and elevating. This book adopts an optimistic view for visual culture, calling for more researchers to contribute to it, as there is much to be lost by not trying (Demos, 2017). Pessimistically, visual culture has the power to be life-alerting, traumatising, and even deadly; for example, the racist representations in the United States during the “Jim Crow” era or the bombardment of propaganda from state-controlled news in oppressive dictatorships (Mirzoeff, 1999). There has always been deep conflict about the meaning of images, their authority, who produced them, who consumes them, and where? Who is featured, who isn’t, and why not? (Evans & Hall, 1999; Hall, 1997). Naturally, given the capacity of the visual to manipulate and deceive humans, darker dialogs highlight its ominous and dangerous potentials. The warnings highlight CCTV, location tracking, social media, severely diminished personal privacy, the loss of control of one’s image (AI, deep fakes, etc.) (Nayar, 2015). These arguments are intensified even further with the introduction of biometric and facial recognition technology and image capturing drones (Marciano, 2019; Mir & Moore, 2019). Powerful institutions are increasingly concerned with the “surveillance of public and private spaces in order to contain the possibility of change” (Mirzoeff, 1999, p. 11); accused of establishing a surveillance society based on manipulating control and maintaining power-relationships (Evans & Hall, 1999). Visual culture from this perspective can be viewed as giving rise to a variety of “scopic regimes” – contextually controlled visual combinations of meanings, media, and subjects that influence behaviour (Feldman, 2004). Anti-facial recognition makeup, masks, hairstyles, and clothing have emerged in resistance, expanding further the complexities of the relationship between individuals and society, and the authority over the visual in culture. Over the last 30 years, visual culture has itensified at a remarkable rate. Consumer culture and its mirage of visual complexities – objects, brands, adverts, gadgets, apps – reveal both hopefulness and anxiety about the future of the visual in our lives (Biehl-Missal & Saren, 2012). Visual intensification has occurred in all aspects of daily life – the visual literacy central to smartphones, the gross enlargement of TV screens, and hyper-clarity of display (Rampley, 2005). The cultural obsession with visual intensity and detail, from megapixels to UHD4K, continues to reinforce the spectac-

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ular nature of contemporary culture and dominance of mixed-visual media (Mitchell, 2002). There is growing anxiety surrounding visual culture’s unyielding dependence on technological and sensory spectacle controlled by profit hungry commercial entities. For instance, there are clear benefits to the visualised data generated by personal feedback technologies to the areas of health and medicine, but on the other side contribute to dehumanising, quantification, and the gamification of society (Dymek, 2018). Social media platforms are of particular interest due to their coercive powers; their ability to store, display, and disseminate numerous types of sensory intensive media. Advances in augmented, virtual reality, AI, and deep learning technology have evolved from the uncanny to the hyper-real (Wang et al., 2015), and further replace the lore of real-life experiences and human interaction (Blakeman, 2018a). Visual replicas, counterfeits, fake news, and deepfakes continue to blur the boundaries between what is visually perceived as real and unreal (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 19). Increasingly, individuals and society are dependent on non-human corporate visual creators to generate crucial information about body functionality, weather patterns, flight paths, logistic networks, and galaxy, etc. (Gottschalk, 2021). Computer programmes generate and display more and more of the key images guiding consumer behaviour, which tends to go unacknowledged in society (Demos, 2017). The future trajectories of communication, commercial technology, and visual culture appear undetachable – relentless in their ability to captivate people (McLuhan, 1994). Not least because of techno-commercial dependencies, Boylan (2020, p. xix) argues that “visual culture has become the most important part of contemporary life to navigate, explore, and theorise”. In attempting to contribute to visual culture via the production of research comic books, it is vital to understand the powers of media, their effectiveness to captivate individuals, and orchestrate behaviour. An understanding of which can expose the underlying broader socio-cultural impacts of media, which tend to go unnoticed from immersed practice alone.

1.3 Understanding communication media Before communication coming to mean the instant transfer of complex information experienced today, it encompassed roads, bridges, rail, sea routes, maps, rivers, and canals; it referred to the speed and ease at which humans could move, share, and interact. Communication at a basic level can be defined as instances of social interaction structured by messages and media. Messages are the coded, symbolic, or representational aspects of a shared language of meaning, employed to evoke the receiver (audience) either to respond or act in a specific way (Gerbner, 1972). The media of communication are the apparatuses, the means, vehicles, and vessels, all the things that can store and disseminate information/messages. Each medium, each technology of communication, achieves its task in a unique way, inspiring varying degrees

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of evocation and triggering different ratios of sensory engagement among receivers (differences between poem, advert, opera, email, etc.). The purpose of technology (of tools) is to bring about practical changes in humanity. The invention of any new technology should be viewed as an “irritant suppressant”, a solution to a problem, intended to make a desired outcome easier to attain (McLuhan, 1994). New technology is the novel application of knowledge intended to extend capabilities in ways unavailable prior. Any extension in human capabilities, whether skin (clothing), hand (hammer), or foot (bicycle), alters the socio-psychological make-up of society (McLuhan, 2001). For example, the horseshoe, increased the speed of agricultural work, the plough increased control and organisation, the combine harvester created a smaller workforce, and current day megafarming machinery establishes even more centralised power. Technology is a blessing but also a nightmare according to Baumann (1972), it makes life easier but renders users, or more accurately, those being used, helpless. Increasingly people satisfy assumed needs with technology they did not create; the ideological principles of which are unbeknownst, and functioning of which cannot be commanded without external (commercial) aid. McLuhan (1994) suggests that with every new technology accepted by homo sapiens (the toolmakers), humanity suffers an amputation in relevance of sorts – a considerable deskilling (Finkelstein, 1968). Mechanisation, the steam engine, electricity, and the Internet have had observable dramatic impacts on social thought, creating drastic shifts in the patterns of human behaviour. Communication media, similarly, whether visibly disruptive or not, operate in this transforming – cultivating– and shaping manner also. McLuhan (2001, p. 8) claims “the medium is the message . . . that the personal and social consequences of any medium . . . results from the new scale introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves”. The core of McLuhan’s (1994) argument is that the media delivering the messages shapes human behaviour in more impactful ways than the content of the messages. When society adopts media, beyond people acting on the individual messages, there is also an unconscious acceptance, an underlying ideological shift and change to the systems of behaviour. Much like how it is that the game plays the player (Caillois, 2001), it is the medium that acts on the audience, and not the other way other around. Society never formally accepts a technology of communication, in this regard media are mesmerising – sinister – in gaining their acceptance, extortionate prices, and high demand. Due to the immediate value assigned to the spectacular nature of the technology (medium) and dazzling contents of message, the power of them to shape perspectives and orchestrate behaviours goes unobserved, unacknowledged, and evades critique. The children’s story (and poem) The Pied Piper of Hamelin serves as useful metaphor and cautionary tale for today’s brainless media engagement: What Anthropocene? (Demos, 2017). Each medium, each technology of evocation, engages the senses differently, thus, requiring human brains to learn different processing and response patterns (McLuhan, 2001). The introduction of a new medium, every advance in communication technology, impacts the engagement ratio among the senses, and new patterns of sen-

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sory perception must be learnt to effectively use the medium. These patterns of sensory engagement subsequently impact our capacity for memory, imagination, and a range of other skills and functionalities (Gottshalk, 2021). Then, with no exaggeration, the experience of a different set of communication technologies is the experience of a different existence, each dehumanising in different ways (Gerbner, 1972). When new media are introduced, some senses are intensified and magnified in import. Others suffer a denigration and reduction in application, resulting in an ongoing spiral of human sensory reskilling-deskilling. The transition from telephone to smartphone, for instance, places greater demands on the eye rather than ear and mouth, resulting in reduced capacities for quick response conversation and increased social vulnerabilities amongst users. Given commercial entities control much of our experiences of technology, and sanctity of our private details and conversations, the ramifications and potential implications should be examined more critically. Profit seeking corporations are not only aware of the disorientating effects of technology but employ it as tactic to establish control, maintain power-relationships, and generate substantial material wealth (Saren, 2007). Rapid technological change can cause a displacement of the senses resulting in feelings of disorientation, disillusionment, and numbness (O’Sullivan, 2022), referred to as the “massacre of the innocent” (McLuhan, 1994): anxiety, depression, burnout, de-skilling, cognitive dulling, and social suppression are commonplace to rapid technological advancement (Baudrillard, 1994), each of which prevalent in today’s rapid-fire culture of busyness (Bellezza et al., 2017). The commercial dominance of visual (and communication) culture emphasises the control, centralisation, and abuse of power attached to technological innovation. But what have been the effects? How has the evolution of communication media impacted human capabilities, and our capacity for creativity? The purpose of the examination of the media to follow is not provide an accurate chronology of media but to exhume past communication technology to illustrate what media relationships were established, the sensory ratios that prevailed, the societal changes inspired, and ramifications for human behaviour. Figure 1.1 offers a summary of the socio-cultural impacts and four fluid stages of media progression.

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Artistic narrative

Modern order Storytelling, nature, cosmos, cave drawings, zoomorphic figures, stone circles, pictorial alphabet

Magic, myth, mystery aesthetic expression, endocultural diversity, religiosity

Illusion of life

Alphabet, print, press, typography, books, timetables, telegraphs

Modernisation, reproduction rationality, uniformity, mechanisation, standardisation, homogenisation, nationalism

Digital claustrum

Radio, photography, film, cinema, television

Empathic identification, surveillance, diminished privacy, mass structures of control, consumer culture, globalisation, tourism, objectification

Internet, software programmes, smart devices, instant messaging, video, streaming, social media, apps, AI

Hyper-intense, busyness, detachment, projection, exposure, compliance, dehumanising, tracking, regulation, universal languages

Figure 1.1: Socio-cultural media spiral.

The individual elements illustrated in Figure 1.1 and resulting patterns of behaviour will now be expanded upon in greater detail.

1.4 Artistic narrative One of the oldest stories told, “The Seven Sisters”, is based on the cluster of stars known as the Pleiades, and estimated by astronomers to date back as far as 100,000 years ago (Norris & Norris, 2021). Most interestingly, stories about the Pleiades were central to separate isolated cultures across the globe, with some versions of the story evolving in accordance with changes to the positioning of stars within the cluster. The astronomical synchronisation and cosmic interplay within these stories suggest that storytelling emerged to perform the function of recording the awareness of the wild world, although, wrapped in layers of myth, mystery, and magic, impossible to comprehend today. Information becomes a story when it is organised and arranged in a purposive order – the story becomes a tool to relay important information in an engaging manner. Storytellers, the shaman type character, played an important role in tribes and clans, operating as a kind of entertainer-teacher-historian all in one. Storytelling preserved

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knowledge by passing it from one generation to another, a practice that still upholds today although encompasses a much more complex series of stories and tellers (Eisner, 2008). However, embedded in ancient stories is a similar narrative format: a context, a problem, a quest, mentors, villains, solutions, and spiritual resolve. The “hero’s journey” (Campbell, 2003; Williams, 2019) can be observed in many religious, folk, popular movie, and advertising narratives (Holt & Thompson, 2004). Stories were often employed in conjunction with visual aids (stars, drawings) to communicate abstract ideas, unfamiliar concepts, and moral conflicts. Artistic visual markings intensified verbal narratives and added permanency to the preservation of knowledge, allowing for identity and cultural memory to develop (Straus, 1985). Deep in the multitude of caves across the globe (Bahn & Bahn, 1998), what in fact was being marked on grander scale for humanity was the development of an understanding of symbolism and abstract knowledge, clear indications of higher order thinking skills and complex consciousness in humans (Clottes, 2008). There are few aspects of the visual as fascinating or elusive as the deliberate markings of prehistoric humans. Regarded as one of the first stages of major human socio-cultural development, the “Stone Age” (comprising of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic) is characterised by many forms of evolutionary progression, particularly the global emergence of artistic visual narratives. Despite the vast range of evidence of illustrated human action, the meanings are unknowable out of context. When attempting to understand prehistoric humans, much speculation will be engaged in. However, the possibility for a deeper understanding lies in interpreting the globality of the practice, not the artistic content of the messages in isolated contexts. The many examples across the globe of recorded prehistoric human artistic creativity, from Lascaux to Newgrange, from Cumberland Plateau to Ubirr, are irrefutable evidence of the emergence of symbolic thought, aesthetic perception, and artistic expression (Straus, 1985). The types of artistic expression found across the globe are numerous and varied. Some can be found on immovable rock surfaces, referred to as parietal art, and manifest in the form of petroglyphs, rock carvings and engravings, and pictographs such as pictorial imagery, ideograms, and intricate symbols, the main entrance stone at Newgrange, Ireland, for instance. Other forms of artistic expression were mobile, comprising of small zoomorphic figures (see the Lion-man statuette found in Germany) or natural sculptures, local standing stones, and stone circles (such at the Rollright stones, in England). These artistic expressions of humanity are firmly grounded in contextual awareness – offering a glimpse of an organic intelligence shaped by the natural, cosmic, and spiritual perspectives of local experience. Artistic narratives generally feature animals, humans, animal-human hybrids, stars, and themes relating to food, fertility, life, death, and the afterlife (Ronnberg & Martin, 2010). The illustrative statements are highly impressionistic, clearly influenced by emotional sentiments that accelerated imaginations and intensified narrative processing and meaning-making. The extensive range of prehistoric

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creative art found across the globe suggests humans could have been better classified as “homo aestheticus” (Dissanayake, 2001), or “homo ludens” (Huizinga, 1950). There are logics to the styles of expression found in prehistoric art, underlying motivations include, decorative, ludic, educational, commemorative, magical, religious, ritualistic, and functional elements, or maybe these modern human concepts were conflated by prehistoric humans in ways unimaginable (Bahn & Bahn, 1998). Prehistoric and early human art was multipurpose, serving to establish communities of shared meaning and enrich cultural life (Ozenfant, 1952). The artistic narratives can be read as attempts by humans to administer control on the wider environment, to hunt more effectively, and to establish more complex systems of meaning, achieved through tribal ritual, and the documentation of sacred religious behaviours. The desire to preserve tribal rituals, the elusive essence of magic and myth central to prehistoric existence, manifested in the abstract forms of intelligence and expression, such as the ability to document the experience of life artistically. The visual-aural narrative conjunctions that emerged in the Stone Age suggests an emphasis was being placed on sensory evocation (Straus, 1985). The development of such a broad artistic skill set was an evolutionary progression to preserve information, document life, and maintain cultural identity through intensified forms of storytelling, reflective of the expanding nature of cultural progression. Thus, humankind is artistic by nature: abstract forms of narrative expression and representation are required to initiate new thinking and inspire social change (Dissanayake, 2001). Creative and artistic engagement can be considered innate in humans and fundamental to knowledge transfer, learning, development, and cultural progression (Bahn & Bahn, 1998). Ornamental calligraphy such as the Book of Kells, Islamic mosaics, Native American Totem poles, the decorative catacombs of San Gaudioso, Naples, and many other forms of artistic expression across the globe, are rich in cultural identity, sacred meaning, and anthropological knowledge (Belk et al., 1989). Every human community develops a language, whether comprising of tribal speech sounds and gestures, mimicking animals, or linear markings such as the Ogham writing system in Ireland (Graves & Limerick, 1876). The development of writing systems supplementing traditional oral/aural communication has been sporadic. Scholars argue that writing emerged in separate cultures across the globe and diffused with expanding trade routes (McLuhan, 1994): Writing systems stand at the nexus of language and vision (Mitchell, 2002). The pictographic and hieroglyphic writing used in Babylonian, Mayan, and Chinese cultures represent an extension of the visual sense for storing experience. Writing systems require communicators to normally understand elements of the associated spoken language to decode the meaning. The oldest sentence in the world was found on an ivory comb: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard” inscribed in the language of the Canaanites, a culture that existed between 3500 and 1150 BC, originating in current day Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine (Osborne, 2022). In moving from the expansive and imaginative nature of art, what can be observed from the Canaanite comb is an instructional functionality in the supplementary text.

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With the adoption of writing, humans underwent a separation from the more imaginative and abstract aspects of artistic tribal narrative. Endocultural diversity, the enchanting belief systems and myths central to idiosyncratic tribes were soon to be overlaid with an unyielding homogenisation. The message of the phonetic alphabet was that of establishing a continuity of meaning that could cross cultures. The magic of tribal idiosyncrasies, diversity of beliefs, values, and perspectives of artistic narratives were soon to be overlaid by the movement of cultures. The artistic awe generated by early humans was institutionalised, managed, and commercialised. Only alphabetic cultures have mastered linear sequences as dominant forms of psychic and social organisation (McLuhan, 1994). The “visionary ecstasy of the mystics” was beyond the rationality of dogmas (Sendler, 1988, p. 163): religious institutions did not evolve in a vacuum, they hijacked prior visual languages, expressions, and narratives, pagan imagery served as a matrix for Christian imagery. In the Roman empire, under certain circumstances the emperor’s image was legitimately used in place of his presence, at legal proceedings, ceremonies, precessions, etc. This application of the image attached new degrees of sacralisation to the image, which was transposed into Christianity, in which the image of the sacred was given miraculous associations with power of protection and healing. The icon adds another dimension to the image, a theological, metaphysical element, a transcendence that projects the image beyond the typical rationality of the normal world (Sendler, 1988, p. 1). Religious dogma has long impacted the authority of the visual. The sense of visual awe was contained in the architecture of temples, tombs, churches, and the grand cathedrals of Europe. Regardless of denomination the underlying communication logic is similar: captivation, awe-inspiring architecture, physical and ideological direction, cyclical narrative, and sacrifice to experience the fullness of spiritual enchantment and existential wonder. The pursuit of culture came to be associated with observable progress achieved through institutionally prescribed processes designed to enhance intellectual and spiritual cultivation. These established cultural hierarchies of appropriate and inappropriate action still feed into our basic debates about what culture is (and should be) (Rampley, 2005). Understanding culture from such a polar perspective is inherently anti-life; it induces reductionism, temporal evaluations, and the maintenance of unbalanced power structures (Clifford, 1997). It was from this point in humanity that communication media and structures of technology began cultivating groups via institutionally administered shared stories and icons – to perceive images and act in sequential ways as a result. In terms of non-clerical entertainment, adults were dependent on ballad singers, minstrels, jesters, and actors, who performed folk tales, fairy tales, and morality stories. The marketplace and the inn was where travellers, merchants, fisherman, and soldiers shared news, as a result, medieval communication was shaped by custom, myth, and superstition (Smythe, 1977, p. 27).

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1.5 Modern order The contemporary modern world, the rise of organisations, systems, standardisation, and associative linear modes of thinking can be attributed to the invention of the printing press (Kinross, 2019). While moveable type had been used in Asian cultures prior, the commonplace application of practical moveable type is assigned to Guttenberg’s printing press, invented in 1456. Prior, large amounts of writing, ornamental decoration, and script were generally conducted by hand; some woodcut printing had been produced but were crude and lacked sophistication. Print challenged the patterns of medieval society, allowing individuals to gather and share information at a much faster pace (McLuhan, 1994). People were exposed to new forms of information, and thus required to engage their senses in new ways, consider new perspectives, and assimilate to alternative modes of being. The printing press extended human functions into a realm of exact calculation, specialisation, and replicability; concepts amplified in relevance today (Kinross, 2019, p. 41). It fostered the thinking to imagine, prepare, and perform indefinite repetition. The concept of infinity emerged, birthing other concepts such as perspective, vanishing point, and exact replicability, which in turn contributed to increased realism in artworks initially (Ozenfant, 1952). The quasi-magical printing press established a realm of uniformity; it inspired the reconceptualisation of an outcome into a fragmented process – a series of tasks conducted in a specific linear sequence comprising of moveable and uniform parts. The principles of printing highlighted the possibility of mechanising most manual crafts by segmenting and fragmenting the integral actions required. All assembly line production systems operating today, from intricate motorcars to chocolate smothered biscuits, can be attributed the invention of the printing press, and the thinking it inspired. The widespread acceptance of the printing press carried an unbeknownst and drastic shift in power: standardised machine production was prioritised, the human had suffered a denigration in import and now the sanctioned replaceable servant to the machine (McLuhan, 1994) (see Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), “the factory scene”). The printing press arrived with a powerful underlying message, one of indifference to cultural diversity, rampant industrialism had arrived, characterised by standardisation, mechanisation, homogenisation, uniformity, and infinite production – conceptual pillars of the modern state of mind (Kinross, 2019, p. 73). Printing, like most disruptive technologies, was considered a “black art”, due to the then astonishing reproduction capacities and secrecy surrounding the practice. Initially, the industry was marked by vast inconsistencies across printers, in machinery, type, size, layouts, styles, formats, materials, and processes, which contributed to a lack of consistency in available published works. Publishers were not motivated to share production practices because it would increase competition; they were driven to maintain profit (power, status, and control), achieved through abusive labour practices and inferior raw materials, at the consequence of the quality of the finished product and reader experience. As printing evolved, it itself modernised (the spread-

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ing of knowledge about itself occurred) (Kinross, 2019, p. 15–16): it became more accessible, improved, adapted, and employed to more tasks (Garfield, 2012, p. 322). Printing is the art that has preserved all other arts. Printing refers to the act of material production, which later gave rise to typography, the consideration of how the printed word is consumed – a clear milestone in the history of visual design (Kinross, 2019, p. 16). To establish systemisation, or cultural overlay, some old typefaces rich in cultural tradition were rationalised and modernised, to increase their perceived visual order, applicability to context, and ease of evocation. Vast order and uniformity are required to achieve and maintain the print system: correct spelling, syntax, pronunciation, and the separating of popular and educated speech. The printing press also marks the imposed sanitisation of language, homogenisation of culture, emergence of class-based systems of knowledge, maintenance of power-relationships, segregation of humans, and dearth opportunities to contribute to the dominant modes of expression (McLuhan, 1994, p. 175). The uniform nature of print, the speed at which it could evoke, created opportunities for alternative kinds of social energy, perspectives, and behaviours to emerge (Kinross, 2019; Smythe, 1976). Nationalism is perhaps the most familiar unforeseen consequence of print; the perspectives of individuals could extend beyond boundaries and have considerable impact on a non-localised scale (McLuhan, 1994). Those with power could extend the abuse of power, maintain ideologies, and manipulate people indefinitely beyond the grip of current control. Prior to printing, the political unification of cultures by means of dialogue and the systematic implementation of control structures were unthinkable (Machiavelli, 1993). Nationalism arrived as a manifestation of the new visual group energy, in many ways reflecting the aggressiveness of the speed of the information being spread. An overlooked consequence of the printed word is the kind of detachment and non-involvement it generated. The analytical nature of the printed word caused a separation of thought and feeling, allowing for a reaction without action (Smyth, 1976); it gave rise to a system structured by possibilities for duplicity and dishonesty unavailable in typical one-on-one in person conversation (due to the removal of information modes). The printing press was by some considered to be an immorality machine given its power to magnify the importance of a voice, distort perspectives, manipulate, and extend control. Print was established as the dominant communication structure, and as such, rote learning and memory became the basis of knowing, and knowing the foundation of intelligence (Gattegno, 1971). Uniform education procedures permitted the expansion of ideologies by additive means (Catholic schools, for example.) The printed book, due to its typographical uniformity and consistency in visual order, can be considered the first teaching machine. No personal memory can match the knowledge stored in the eclectic variety of accumulative published works, and as such, here begins the process of outsourcing mental notes, memory, and knowledge. The book rather ironically became a symbol of independent learning due to its portability and accessibility, overlooking the coercive controls and order that had been applied to

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the senses: There is an overwhelming rationality underlying print; the exact sequencing required established an atmosphere of rationality in society, inspiring new forms of organisation and categorisation. It was the first mass market product, established uniform pricing, and later pricing systems used in marketing in general (Saren, 2007). The printed word was a catalyst for calculus, industrial production, entertainment, and science. The principles of publication – how private knowledge is transformed into public knowledge – have extended into all aspects of life. The clear and powerful ideology was that homogenisation was to be considered progress – civilisation. Even forms of cultural expression gravitated towards a rational single descriptive tone and linear narrative plane. Carroll’s masterpiece Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is often discussed as a critique of the rationality and the narrow planes of thinking that emerged in society as a result. The comic book, similarly, which will be explored thoroughly in Chapters 3 and 4, emerged also in defiance of the rational constructions of space-time and passive logics of print (Whitlock, 2006). The surrealism of Magritte and Dali too are considered critiques of the perverse rationality of the time (Forceville, 1988). The then novel commercial and political systems emerging in society required new means of communicating, designing, and disseminating information. There emerged the need for impactful timetables, persuasive election posters, clear packaging, and alluring advertising to evoke the desired audience responses. This inspired innovation in the functionality of printing machinery, service offerings, and overall sophistication of visual design (typography, typefaces, layouts, colour). Sanserif typefaces, bold type, and diverse fonts offered endless possibilities in variations, extensions, and exaggerations of visual information design, primarily due to their accessibility of order and versatility of perception (Garfield, 2012). Society experienced a sharp standardisation in public visual environments, shaped heavily by commercial interests and advertising tones (see Hustwitt’s Helvetica (2007) documentary). Arguments highlight the neutral look of marketplace typefaces – an attempt to impress without noticeable distress. It can be observed when global corporations rebrand in attempt to conquer new markets (visual cultures, scopic regimes); they follow the process of emphasising visual clarity and an exaggerated neutrality designed into all communications. The modernisation of corporate image and communication styles can be observed in the geometric and mathematically designed brand logos and typefaces, which increasingly require digital recomposition in grid structures to maintain their rationalising and controlling presence (Crouwel, 1970; 1979).

1.6 Illusion of life Like print, the principle of exact reproduction underlies the invention of the camera. Initially, artists placed lenses in large boxes so the light passing through would project an image onto a surface, which the artist could trace to aid accuracy (see camera ob-

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scura) (Lefèvre, 2007). What was desired most, was the ability to establish permanency to a projected image – a medium capable of storing detailed visual information indefinitely. To cut the story short, a global network of enthusiasts interested in art, light, and chemistry contributed to the emerging technological advancements (Daguerre, Tolbert, Cornell, and Archer, notable contributors; see Newhall, 1982). Photograph technology extended the application of mechanisation in the previous era, and marked the chemical turn in society. Advances in medical science facilitated the identification of light sensitive chemical solutions capable of preserving a permanent image. Although other photographs were also captured around this time, the first photograph published was on 7 January 1839 by Daguerre (Benjamin, 1972). The photograph drastically altered the perceptions of time, space, and humanity – granting the illusion of life. The photograph contributed a timelessness and spacelessness to humanity: the reality of holding and viewing an exact identical image of a remote location or person was magical for the time. People could now look upon themselves in ways unimaginable, exaggerating further the spiritual and material perspectives of the individual inspired by the mirror. Photography as practiced was far more subjective than one might initially assume. The medium did not initially possess the truth claims that became associated with images prior to digital photography. Photographers “framed” images, perspective, angles, and mood, photographs were considered to be poetic statements constructed without syntax rather than objective “truth” (Veer, 2022). As Sontag (1999, p. 80) notes, photographs usurp reality because they are not only interpretations of the real but contain trace-real elements. Photographs evoke novel emotional responses in people, beyond the contents, what Barthes (1999) refers to as punctum, the irrational subjective impacts – the dangerous supplement (Mitchell, 2002). Photography has a way of trapping, re-framing, and imprisoning reality (Sontag, 1977). For the first time in humanity moments could be frozen with great accuracy, life could be paused still for reinterpretation and be re-established. For this reason, the photograph can be seen a past-tense medium, recording what was where then, in a highly constructed manner (Sontag, 1999). The camera emerged as a cultural documentation device, its speedy versatility arrived in accord and to record the grand cultural progress in construction (shipyards, New York skyscrapers, etc.), war, regale events, and cultural celebrations. As a result, photography interrelated with the print world effectively. The emergence of the photograph imposed increased emotionality on the established textual rational systems of communication, contributing to the emergence of a universal visual language in society. The first images in newspapers were from woodblock prints, and the image quality was much cruder than the photograph. The photograph and printing press became effective tools for those in power to project a polished public image (McLuhan, 1994). Published photography directed the social construction of events events/people: these are important to everyone: everyone must live them.

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When Archer’s improved technology reduced exposure times to 20 seconds and created reproducible images, the mainstream popularity of photography rose dramatically, establishing a vibrant culture of photography. The photograph was initially considered an extension of art, and early applications heavily influenced by “high” cultural art traditions. As Bourdieu (1999) claims, photography is the art that imamates all other art, particularly evident in its use for portraits, in which the postures, stances, and trinkets of the powerful were mimicked. By the end of the nineteenth century, a substantial market for portraits had emerged. Portraits could be literally “touched up” and altered with fluffy clouds, spectacular backgrounds, some colour added to cheeks, and even ghostly figures of the deceased superimposed, evoking phantasmatic elements, and the belief that photography might capture ghosts or spirits. By the 1910s cameras were an affordable commodity; it drastically altered notions of privacy and disrupted the boundary of private-public life and space. The camera objectified widespread: transforming nature and people into the materiality of their images, private intimate moments were transformed into images with materiality. The camera was put to many narcissistic uses, primarily due to the novel perspectives on Self and Other offered (Sontag, 1999). Collecting photographs became an immensely popular hobby, “carte de vite” were small-sized portrait photographs of strangers that people collected, marking a clear milestone in the societal appetite to gaze upon the Other – to project meaning and objectify (Berger, 2008). No longer was the authority on one’s external public image their own, the camera marks the acceptance of being gazed upon, the exposure of the vulnerable human, and lack of agency nonetheless: “society has been transformed into the brothel without walls”, remarks McLuhan (1994, p. 214). The visual and emotional identification inspired by photography eroded the rigid boundaries of nationalism by fostering a new sense of globality through imagery. Photography allowed for a global comparative to emerge, new ways of arranging information and organising life visually emerged, such as family albums. Science was long hampered by a lack of appropriate means to visually store and share information. The power of the photograph to highlight natural, biological, and cultural diversities has been explored with full enthusiasm (Tufte, 2006). The photograph also isolates, and therefore contributed to our ability to conduct longitudinal studies as changes in landscapes, biodiversity, and weather could be recorded. The flight of the bird could be paused still, which lead to the invention of the airplane, facilitating further the exposure of humanity. The wandering eye of the camera could now move with even greater speed. The underlying message of the camera was one of immediacy, transferability, and identification. The fact that a location or place had been photograph spoke to its aesthetical beauty or ideological importance. In a roundabout way, photography reversed the purpose of travel, giving rise to tourism as an evolution, in which the world has since been transformed into a museum of visuality. Because of the camera the world became more accessible, it inscreased the speed of communica-

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tion globally. The visual empowered scientific theory and thinking, leading to X-rays, satellites, and microscopic and telescopic imagery. A field as diverse as subatomic physics could not have developed without the invention of the photograph. Each new visual technology concretised its primacy by verifying science visually, which in turn legitimised the veracity of the visual in a spiralling co-evolution (Jay, 1991). The photograph greatly influenced commercial packaging design, retail layout, and the overall shopping experience. The vivid comparable mass started to emerge. The living person began to be visually standardised – what to recognise – how to dress – how to look – the process of people being morphed into mass consumers began. A global market for a wide number of grooming products emerged. The photograph added new layers of narcissism, vanity, and insecurity to a disorientated society. Photography also inspired a boldness of expression that had been supressed in print. The painter no longer able to depict a world that had been much photographed, instead focused on revealing the inner processes of creativity and abstract interpretation. The photograph disrupted the art world and contributed to the emergence of expressionism and avant-garde styles (Denvir, 1975). Because of the effectiveness of the camera to generate the illusion of life, artists prompted audiences to become more involved in the meaning-making (Barthes, 1999; Sontag, 1977; Berger, 2008; Benjamin, 1972). Around this time also society was introduced to the authoritative voice of the radio, marking the physics turn in society. The illusion of the human voice heard in real time remotely was remarkably effective at generating a sense community and shared emotional reactions (Hilmes & Loviglio, 2002). Political speeches, sporting events, and monumental occasions were broadcast to generate the feeling of being present. What was remarkable about radio was the ability to capture the reactions of the public at live events, it provided an experience of what it felt like to be somewhere else for the tele-masses. Understanding the captivating power of the radio, dedicated commercial stations began to emerge, each with an allocated catchment area and AM/FM channel coordinate. Stations produced a weekly programme comprising news, political speeches, music, dramas, lectures, and sports. Radio consumption transcended generational, cultural, class, and socio-economic conditions (Douglas, 2013). The underlying message of the radio was the reorganisation of society into new forms of electric communities (McLuhan, 2001). An illusionary extension had been added to society – that of the authoritative voice, hence why radio was frequently abused by dictators. (Smythe, 1976). Advancing technology allowed for the transmission of remote voices on an international and global scale, effectively transforming earth from a vast rugged social geography to a globally connected convergence network expanding in media consumption indefinitely. The illusion of movement was the next progression in the illusion of life. When photographs examining the gallop of a horse were viewed in quick succession it projected the illusion of movement. The next technological advancement was the application of the photograph to the machine: the projected illusion of the moving image generated even more vivid experiences and more spectacular shared illusions. The

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Lumière brothers were to film what Archer was to photography, in 1895 they introduced people to an accessible world of film. The first films screened included the French “realities” , these captured everyday moments and were set to music. The emotional aspect of these films tends to be downplayed; they featured moments of transition and ecstasy: train arriving, factory workers leaving for the day, and infants playing/fighting, moments with great empathic access, intensified further by the nature of moving images. The Lumière brothers shaped a world of mass narratives (Allan, 2008). Cinema emerged as a global spectacle and longstanding social consumption ritual. The United States advanced cinema experience with grand movie theatres inclusive of real-time sound, making the illusion of life even more spectacular and vivid. Soviet cinema contributed to a sophisticated visual language and emotional structure to cinematic storytelling. For example, Eisenstein’s (1925) Battleship Potemkin, the runaway baby carriage scene being the most well-known, was remarkably advanced in terms of narrative cuts and emotional framing for the time. The realisation that audiences understood visual language and empathic titles without requiring direction by text led to far more exciting and provocative films. The vast volume of titles, genres, and styles which have emerged globally since owes much of its popularity to the self-found narratives and emotional reflections people find in film (Bordwell, 1997). Television (TV) has played the most dominant role in shaping consumer markets and ideological perspectives, through advertising narratives, capitalist manipulation, and government propaganda (Baumann, 2013; Bathes, 2013). Powerful media institutions can easily reinforce or alter global structures, markets, and control public narratives. According to Gerbner (1976, p. 51), “mass communication is the technologically and institutionally based mass production and distribution of the most broadly shared continuous flow of public messages”. Mass communication works to create a mass structure, to orchestrate the behaviour of individuals, from which standardised emotions, thinking, and experiences of culture emerge (Baumann, 2013). TV originally borrowed its scheduling format and content style from radio, and the financial capital for stations/networks was heavily supported by advertising fees. As Finkelstein (1968, p. 71) notes, “no programme even exists unless it is judged to be a satisfactory setting or public trap for the advertising messages”, TV shows must be cheaper to produce than the advertising revenue draws in. The creative person contributing to such media becomes alienated, suffers a dilution of soul, passion, and original vision (Finkelstein, 1968). The TV schedule organised people into imaginary communities of shared feelings and perspectives. For instance, the pep of morning news, drama of evening viewing, and the spectacle of shared faux-events. The narratives, the objects, the characters to be identified with, the celebrities, idols, stars, each strategically selected by marketers attempting to pair an image with a particular agenda (McLuhan, 1994). TV promoted increased consumption, established a materialistic culture, and made dazzling consumers a priority (Fiske, 2010). While programmes on TV were generally without financial cost, the underlying cost to the public was a loss of freedom unprecedented with past media. The public were bliss-

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fully unaware of the emotional deceit, vulnerabilities embedded, standardisation processes, and universalisation of watching, a form of perverted isolation (Zizek et al., 2013). Narcissus staring into the mirrored lake, unaware he is staring at himself serves a useful metaphor for the captivating power of visual media and the illusion of life – a sense of reflective hypnosis being abused further and further in visual culture (Barthes, 2013).

1.7 Digital claustrum Morse’s electrical telegraph in 1844 was arguably the most imaginative communication medium; unencumbered by geographical constraints the electrical circuitry and compression of complex language were translated using a binary system of signs (Morse code). Telegraphy initiated a radical revolution in mediated communication by establishing an information world beyond the localised (Stowlow, 2006). Boundless information transmission inspired alternative perspectives on time-space and the global-local. It was the first globalising telecommunications infrastructure: championed for its rapid, unidirectional, and asynchronous transmission of information across limitless distance. The underlying message of telegraphy represented a precursor to the Internet, a catalyst for the contemporary global communications environment, the proliferating networks of computers and satellites, and the institutional architecture governing transnational flows of digital information (Stowlow, 2006). In 1972, the Apollo 17 mission took the famous “Blue Marble” photograph of earth. It provided humankind with a unique cosmic gaze; it placed humanity within a more complicated network of possibilities, evoking novel perspectives on humanity, life, and being (Google Earth, for example) (Poole, 2008). People could now gaze-in on themselves from the cosmic ocean: objectifying humanity in an obscene techno-religious manner and further legitimising technological innovation as the pinnacle of cultural progression. The “Blue Marble”, kratophanous in aesthetic is both beautiful and chilling – an astonishing vista that now emphasises the extent to which humanity was to be encrusted with sophisticated forms of evoking, watching, and listening technology. The range of gadgets, diversity of devices, formats, specifications, and networks structuring communication accelerated rapidly in visuality and sensory demand. Communication technology continues to close in on the person and disrupt the sanctity of the Self. Pressures are magnified further by the weight of comparative consumer culture, and the performative metrics of identity projection and self-exposure of social media. The bombardment of digital communication media has resulted in widespread disorientations and compliances in society (Baudrillard, 1994). The excessive amount of communication and messages being transmitted on digital platforms daily alone should be a worry for humanity, yet there is little talk of a “sustainability of communication”, because communication is a trillion dollar industry: Communication is big business with a forecast of $1.5 trillion for 2024.

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Claustrum is a metaphor borrowed from psychology (Emanuel, 2001), it emphasises the objects and relationships that induce forms of claustrophobia – the feelings of containment, pressure, suffocation, and collapse. In neuroscience, the claustrum refers to the part of the brain essential for managing attentive consciousness – the hidden spring that synthesises various stimulants/inputs such as colour, sound, and touch to form reality (Solms, 2021). The digital claustrum conceptualisation highlights the extent of the social, psychological, and biological confinements experienced by people due to the frequency, intensity, and variety of digital communication inspired by the Internet (Curtis, 2007). Gottshaks (2021) uses the term terminal, over digital, to highlight the macabre potential: the slow march to nothingness being ushered in by techno-commercial visual culture (Demos, 2017). “Terminal culture” encapsulates the colonisation of everyday life by terminals: the gadgets, laptops, tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, and other sinister devices that force users to interact with software, online content, or with other users as part of the designed functioning and consumption process. Most worryingly, the digital elements of visual culture are rewiring the human brain rapidly: thoughts, perceptions, emotions, disposition, and neural development are being impacted negatively due to the obsessive interaction with devices. “Software thinking” is a term used to capture how human thinking has been cultivated in line with the simplification of software structures/logics (Gottshaks, 2021). The adult brain has been cultivated to that of a young child, unsatisfied, in a zombified constant state of seeking (Cronin & Cocker, 2019), reactive to buzzing noises and dazzling lights (Blakeman, 2018b). People adjust terminals to self and self to terminals, trapped in a wicked cycle of technological, physical, and emotional cultivation. The more consumer-users adjust to simplified thinking, the more they are rewarded for doing so, enslaved beneath layers of dopamine control algorithms (Hinton & Hjorth, 2019). Moments dedicated to self-reflection or pause have been replaced with screentime’s permanent presence bleed – being everywhere and nowhere at once (Hinton & Hjorth, 2019). Increasingly people engage in child-like complacency, compliant in the digital bombardment, offering all sorts of personal data and privacy to profit hungry corporate-parents (Oliver & Belk, 2021). The living person is being transformed into the performer, act, and audience. Consumers are no longer just consumers of the visual world but “prosumers” – active in producing and consuming narratives on social media. On many platforms the collective and shared nature of content is vital to the production and consumption of experience (Cova & Dali, 2009). Consumers willingly “create content”, share detailed personal information with the digital world, project illusionary identity narratives, manage the perceptions of their “personal brands”, and expose a variety of talents on commercial platforms, from YouTube to OnlyFans. Social media apps record, mirror, and project narrative desires in a constant filter loop, a digital trap designed to reorganised society into networks of narratives centred on specific forms of escapist consumption – networks of desire (Kozinets et al., 2017). The fantasy narratives of social media serve to reduce the chasm between the

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ideal and actual self created by advertising narratives (Hackley, 2010; Hill & MacDonagh, 2020). When societal communication behaviours are interpreted collectively, they expose a widespread behavioural disorder: dreams, fantasies, and delusions are the easiest means to escape an unstable existence (Huizinga, 1950). The problem with digital platform narratives is they interrelate and store several kinds of information, evoking dazzling multisensory experiences – psychological numbing while fantastically escapist. Each platform possesses its own language and grammar, communication logic, and ideological priorities. Each has its own trap. Each platform, despite the liberatory facade, is highly directed, structured, and sneaky in its sensory engagement tactics. Democratic in appearance yet maintains strategic kinds of unawareness in society: one of social media’s greatest tricks is that it projects action, productivity, purpose, and importance. Twitter (rebranded X) and others are an uncanny abstractions of neoliberalism: restrictions, measurability, traceability, sensationalism, misrepresentation, misinterpretation, low threshold, normative pressures, social conformity, scapegoating, imaginary audience, and volatility. The competitive psychology central to the identity games of Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, etc. promote compliance, which contributes to the ongoing gamification of communication culture. Digital communication homogenises and reinforces consumerism rather than inspire diverse ideologies and perspectives. The pre-digital era allowed for greater information control, behind the personalisation of digital devices lurk the marketer’s eyes and ears, collecting information and observing user behaviour. Devices increasingly require biometric access and generate GPS and tracking data. Technologies of self (Focault, 1988), devices such as fitness trackers and smartwatches that monitor performance and provide biofeedback, are slowly transforming the Self into visual data, which contributes to the dehumanisation and detachment of our time (Goodyear et al., 2019). Forms of social and physical tracking contribute to the ongoing gamification and metrification of society, exemplified by rating systems on apps which increase the normative pressure to perform as prescribed (likes, shares, hearts, etc.). Widespread anxiety and depression emerge because of the pressures to project a particular image, from negotiating the ever-changing kaleidoscope of marketplace identities, the blurring of work/home boundaries, mass un-skilling, and diminishing health in adults and children (Frost, 2012). While there was a level of inactivity associated with TV consumption, social media is hyper-inactive, rampant in faux activity (Hinton & Hjorth, 2019). People are becoming increasingly detached and isolated from nature, from the reality of biodiversity collapse. What seem like harmless toys and gadgets, under closer inspection, are exposed as the technologies cultivating human behaviour, shrouding thinking, and training people to become prosumers, lost in extended forms of narcissism. Soon the ability to solve problems and think outside the closed system may be impossible – a serious existential threat. The most profound concern as highlighted by Gottschalk (2021) is the potential for mutative technologies to reach the point of singularity, suggesting it could programme its own evolution and design our existence (or annihilation).

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Because of the escalating compliance, detachment, and delusions being performed in society people may not even realise. The media usage central to communication culture in the digital claustrum is directing humans towards the Anthropocene – the time between now and complete biodiversity collapse. Due to the sensational nature of the media dominating the claustrum, the thread between humanity and nature is being lost within the network of spectacle (Demos, 2017). Each culture develops a notion of the ideal human; the highly commercialised digital claustrum has concretised intelligence as being the master of consumption technology. The idolisation of technology helps explain our overly compliant relationships with it, particularly communication technology, and the social buzz surrounding new technologies. We are accepting of new remarkable sensory extensions without ever realising the cognitive, emotional, and physical amputations occurring: the ship of cyber-fools. Forms of human intelligence and creativity are moving towards passive dimesnions (Anchor, 1978) – cultivated by the system – a master of simulated options. This argument is strengthened further by advances in AI technology and deep learning such as ChatGPT (King & ChatGPT, 2023). Chat bots, deep learning, and projective intelligence highlight the ongoing evolution towards media relations characterised by uncanny digital software capable of generating illusions of human memory, thought, and action. Such technological advances mark a transitionary cusp characterised by a complete implosion of the poles of real and unreal (Baudrillard, 1994) and when the poles collapse it causes a spiral, hence the shape of Figure 1.1. It is no surprise that the culture responsible for producing Dolly, the cloned sheep (Kolata, 1997), evolved to the realm of homo-digital fabrication, the illusion of thinking, the illusion of knowledge. Chatbots simulate knowledge but cannot show interpretative increments. With the onslaught of simulation, it is vital to show humanity in action and to illustrate the human behind the thinking, ideas, and interpretations contributing to understanding and knowledge (before it’s too late).

1.8 Cultures of knowing: the crisis of creativity The societal apathy fostered by digital media is typified by passive indifference (Baudrillard, 1994), and the move from explorations of knowledge to cultures of knowing – digital dogma – the disregard for complex structures of knowledge as experience and instead learning is transmitted through sign and symbol (Gattegno, 1971). The ideology of cultures of knowing is an undisputed awareness, whether from retention or outsourced remote digital access, but not a contextual awareness deduced from repetition as is the case with the quest for knowledge (Gattegno, 1971, p. 74–75). The indifference induced by the spectacle of digital culture contributes to a paradigm shift – widespread reductionism in cognitive, social, and scientific veracity. Increased time and energy are made available for leisure when knowledge is replaced by homogenised cultures of knowing. Digital media is known to reaffirm beliefs rather than lead to more multifaced

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belief systems. As such, current media tools keep people looking inward, content in knowing. Commercial interference offers a multitude of invitations to wander deeper through the system of deterrence (Baudrillard, 1994), such as leisure time’s increasing association with screentime, digital engagement, and brainless scrolling. Knowledge as an exploration is being replaced by systemised zones for the selection of sanctioned options, which maintains a celling on imagination and causes a complete implosion of creativity (Pavlik, 2023). The association cortex, the part within the brain responsible for identifying connections between things, holding them in memory, and enabling humans to focus has been hijacked. Software thinking and speed of access to answers has redesigned our brain architecture to accept available options rather than imagining and seeking novel solutions. People will be less likely to cultivate pre-terminal knowledge, skills, or solutions: Comparable to a paralysis of the human pro-active imagination. The implications of current media consumption are exposure, projection, dehumanisation, detachment, and creative confinement. Digital communication technology has generated new ways not to think, not to solve problems, and not be creative. There is not only risk attached to the forms of productive creativity demanded by the contemporary workplace, but pressure. Reflected in the amount of pop culture articles sharing the habits of creative people, tips on how to be creative, or how to access altered states of perception that inspire creative thinking (ComyFusaro, 2021). Provocation of thought can be achieved through more operational procedures; De Bono’s (1992) “lateral thinking” exercises, for example, are particularly useful to generate new connections between previously unobvious elements. However, novelty alone does not produce creative value (only spectacle); the idea must also be useful, illuminating, and challenge perspectives in a manner previously unseen. Creativity meaning a problem-solving activity has become worn, its challenging atmosphere lost in favour of pacified mass perspectives. When advertising positions choosing among visible ingredients for a sandwich as being creative, the meaning of the word has imploded. Some of the deflation can be attributed to the words “creative” and “creativity”. At its base, being “creative” means bringing into being, creating a traffic jam is being creative, dancing on TikTok is considered creative. But what really is the societal value or problem-solving application? Creativity in its application and appraisal has evolved into a synonym for a variety of expressive self-glorifying consumption activities perpetuated by the multitude of media structuring the digital claustrum’s faux-creativity. Creativity can seem illusive and magical. Many view it as something belonging to exceptionally gifted people that possess vast insight, intuition, or rare talents. Such perspectives contribute to the grand view of creativity, renowned artists, inventors, Nobel Prize winners, and so on. Historical creativity (h-creativity) refers to ideas that are novel with respect to humanity and more traditionally associated with the artists and genius rather than the everyday work of business managers, chefs, or social science researchers (Boden, 2004). However, there exists also a commonplace creativity

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referred to as psychological creativity (p-creativity), meaning ideas that are novel with respect to the person that produced them. Creativity in this broader sense can include everyday ideas, writing, management, and self-presentation. By promoting opportunities for instances of p-creativity instances of h-creativity can be facilitated and cultures of creativity fostered in contrast to the deterrence associated with cultures of knowing. The capacity to generate an “as if” world and opportunities for agentic p-creativity are diminishing. If our capacity to activate the “as if” imagination process suffers limitations, the possibility to identify opportunities for positive societal change will be impeded (Anchor, 1978). The invisible links and colourful sparks of imagination that proceed creativity must be nurtured. Creativity comprises of three elements, a symbolic domain (film), a person who brings novelty to that domain (Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994)) and an audience appreciative of the novelty (cultural and commercial acclaim). It is associated with employing a new combination of elements, or the bi-association of typically unrelated materials (Csikszentmihalyi, 2015). Creativity is the ability to generate in one’s brain novel contexts and representations that elicit associations with symbols and principles of order (Gauntlett, 2007). Because creative, lateral, and novel thinking is something that can be inspired in most people, the focus can turn to how the crisis of creativity, of passivity and of detachment, can be addressed. If education and science are to impact societal thought, then audiences must be provided with sensory experiences and mental stimulation as practiced in noneducation settings. As McLuhan (2001), argues, there should be no basic difference between entertainment and education; as such, rather than trying to attract public attention to academic work, academic work should attempt to contribute more to the domain of (visual) culture. New media and tools capable of performing new pedagogical duties are required. Short and Reeves (2009) highlight McLuhan’s (1994) conceptualisation of media as either being hot or cool, based on the effect of the evocation, impact on users’ sensory engagement ratio, perceptual processing, and cultural conditioning. The terms “hot” and “cool” are taken from jazz slang, where a style with low dynamics, understatement, and subtlety came to be known as cool because listeners had to feel and negotiate the rhythm and interpret musical gaps (hear Miles Davis, see Finkelstein, 1968). McLuhan’s (1994) conceptualisation is applicable to all communication technology and transcends usage context and occasion. A hot medium is one that is high definition in terms of information, it simulates experience, it appeals in a linear and more passive unfolding. A hot medium like television limits interpretive leaps as what you see is what you get; academic journals are also hot, as the diligent reader is prescribed the knowledge. Cool media, on the other hand, require more audience interaction than hot media; they have an openness for interpretation and for audiences to foster their “as if” imaginations. Cool media demand an interpretative act in the process of communication, inspire engagement, personalised forms of meaning-making, and knowledge transfer (Finkelstein, 1968). To expand McLuhan’s (1994) polar concep-

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tualisation considering evocation, a conceptualisation considering weight of narrative is useful. A heavy medium is one in which engaging narratives dominate and interplay with an individual’s perspectives, and a light medium then is one void of strong participatory narrative and is passively consumed. Ideally, the goal in education would be to avoid hot-light combinations in favour of more heavy-cool media applications. Heavy-cool approaches can work to establish ideological solitude, resilience, and confidence in interpretation, which is essential for creativity, problem solving, and intellectual growth. Whereas hot-light media, typified by buzzing, distracting, and hyper-social communication culture; they are sticky in that they draw people in, create time investments, and limit possibilities for creativity outside the networked system within the culture of knowing (Jenkins et al., 2013) – it is why contemporary minds are like gardens and not meadows. The crisis of creativity perpetuated by the culture of knowing contributes to what Moore (2013) terms as an apocalyptic ontology. The core of the argument is that the time for radical change in the design of education and scientific communication is long overdue. A key argument is that learning should be reconceptualised as a process and quest for knowledge rather than access to content so audiences can be better prepared for uncertain futures, and worlds not yet known. Groff (2013) notes there is the likely probability that today’s children are a generation of visually dominant cognitive processors yet immersed in verbally dominant education environments. In attempting to address the crisis of creativity, social science researchers must tend to the power of the visual by reassessing and revitalising visual scholarship, which will be explored in the following chapter.

1.9 Conclusion To summarise, the goal of this chapter was to introduce the foundations of visual culture and explore its fascinating complexity. It highlighted visual culture to be one of the most dominant aspects of daily life, and explored the evolution of media adoption in society. An enhanced understanding of the unobvious impacts and underlying implications for human thinking has been established. Readers are hoped to have developed a healthy scepticism for the kinds of passive software thinking central to the digital claustrum and understand why the human mind and body must be applied to more creative tasks. The emotive value of visual narrative should be adopted more creatively in education and research, to attract new learners, shake people from their passive involvements, and provide the foundation for lateral thinking and problem solving. As such, the next chapter explores visual scholarship in detail.

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Rampley, M. (2005). Exploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concepts. Contexts, 31. Ronnberg, A., & Martin, K. (Eds.). (2010). The book of symbols. Cologne: Taschen. Saren, M. (2007). Marketing is everything: the view from the street. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 25(1), 11–16. Saren, M. (2017). Marketing Graffiti: The writing on the wall. Routledge. Schwenger, P. (1999). Fantasm and fiction: On textual envisioning. Stanford University Press. Sendler, E. (1988). The icon: image of the invisible. Translated by F. S. Bigham. CA: Oakwood Publication. Short, J. C., & Reeves, T. C. (2009). The graphic novel: A “cool” format for communicating to generation Y. Business Communication Quarterly, 72(4), 414–430. Smythe, D. W. (1977). Communications: blindspot of western Marxism. CTheory, 1(3), 1–27. Solms, M. (2021). The hidden spring: A journey to the source of consciousness. Profile books. Sontag, S. (1977). The image-world. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sontag, S. (1999). The Reader of The Lost Art: Visuality and Particularity in Art Criticism. Interpreting visual culture: Explorations in the Hermeneutics of Vision. Spalding, T. (2022). ‘A striking air of modernity tempered with tradition’: Vernacular modernism and the design of the public house in Cork and Dublin, 1934–1969. Journal of Design History. Spadling, T. (2013). Layers: The design history and meaning of public street signs in cork and other Irish cities. Dublin: Associated Editions. Stolow, J. (2006). Techno-Religious Imaginaries: On the Spiritual Telegraph and the Circum-Atlantic World of the 19th Century. Straus, L. G. (1985). Stone age prehistory of northern Spain. Science, 230(4725), 501–507. Tufte, E. R. (2006). Beautiful evidence (Vol. 1). Cheshire, CT: Graphics press. Veer, E. (2022). 11 Everyone’s a Photographer. Art-Based Research in the Context of a Global Pandemic. Wang, S., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Rochat, P. (2015). The uncanny valley: Existence and explanations. Review of General Psychology, 19(4), 393–407. Wölfflin, H. (2012). Principles of art history. Courier Corporation. Whitlock, G. (2006). Autographics: The seeing” I” of the comics. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 52(4), 965–979. Williams, C. (2019). The hero’s journey: A mudmap for change. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 59(4), 522–539. Žižek, S., Fiennes, S., & Fiennes, M. (2013). The pervert’s guide to ideology. Channel 4 DVD.

Chapter 2 A creative visual research agenda 2.1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the types of visual scholarship being conducted, explore the dominant visual research methods being employed, and establish a creative visual research agenda to provide stability for future action. The chapter opens by exploring how the visual is approached in different disciplines, following this, bridging perspectives and methodological linkages are emphasised, specifically ethnography, and its evolving hybrids, such as visual ethnography. Next, the focus is placed on the historical use of drawing, photography, and film to produce social science knowledge. From there, the exploration moves to art-based approaches to research, approaches that draw on abstract forms and emotive powers to produce knowledge. A creative visual research agenda is then proposed with an emphasis on addressing the crisis of creativity. Finally, a role for the comic book to help achieve the objectives of the creative visual research agenda is explored.

2.2 Visual scholarship Visual culture inspires visual scholarship. Jay (1988) highlights the occulacentric nature of contemporary culture, how visual epistemologies and metaphors dominate the social sciences – “enlighten”, “illuminate”, “to see”, “shed light on”, and “foreshadow”. These can be read as an acknowledgement of the pedagogical power of images (Hernáiz, 2010; Becker, 2008). Visual research encompasses a vast range of studies, inclusive of all visual themes relevant across the fields of anthropology, psychology, education, semiotics, sociology, geography, marketing, consumer research, design, and so on. At its foremost, visual research explores the production, organisation, and interpretation of images (Prosser, 2007). Visual data relevant to the social scientist comprises of all visual communications, objects, technology, photographs, drawings, signs, symbols, video, diagrams, cartoons, paintings, fashion and all dynamic visual social patterns. Because of the number of different disciplines exploring visual culture, each with its own set of axioms and norms, different elements are being explored, emphasised, critiqued, and ignored. The vibrant field of visual research is for scholars comfortable with disorder, overlap, incompleteness, excess, and magnification (Becker, 2008). Visual research is an incredibly broad term (Banks, 1995), used to mean (1) researching the visual environment, objects, images, advertisements, etc. (Schroder, 2006); (2) utilising visual data collection tools, such as using photography to document the behaviour of shoppers (Schwartz, 1989); and or (3) visual

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representation, such as videographies or photography exhibitions constructed from visual data sources to represent findings (Rokka et al., 2018). Researching the visual elements in culture should lead to exploring creative ways of recording and representing knowledge, however, this has been far from the case. It would be expected that the visual is explored, theorised, and adopted more vigorously and creatively in communication across the social sciences (Kozinets & Belk, 2007; Gauntlett, 2007). However, barriers persist, and not only to the wonders of the visual, but many forms of legitimate creative expression that evoke audiences have been doused within science; narrative styles like rhetoric, fiction, satire, and radical subjectivity have largely been excluded from formal research presentation. The main concern with non-traditional modes of expression is that they are deemed overly metaphoric and allegorical, assumed to be based on the invention of truths more so than the rational documentation of facts. Nonlinear and other creative styles of narrative were believed to provide opportunities for author imposition and the distortion of the truth. Audiences were believed to be too easily manipulated by author imagination, speculation, and the subjective sparks of interpretation (Goodall, 2000). Changes to the understanding of culture should inspire an evolution in how to represent it (see Bakhtin, 1984; Geertz, 2002; McLuhan & Parker, 1969). As Bakhtin (1984) observes (and represents): no society comprises of a single culture but instead must be viewed as a plurality of cultural voices and values swirling in constant interplay. Researchers, by playing on the stratification of meaning, in content and form, can dissolve the hard boundaries between art and science, resulting in the generation of novel interpretations, creative translations, and accessible knowledge (Harper, 1987; Kafka, 2014; Geertz, 2002). Anything we understand as culture is inherently emergent, ephemeral, and fluid. As highlighted in Chapter 1, visual culture comprises of multiple visual dialects, each of which becomes a tangible expression of the life of a particular community (Elkins, 2010). Visual cultures collectively negotiate the visual environment by synthesising the shimmer of shared meanings, each interpretation exists amongst a plurality of other communities with other ranges and intepretations of expression (see Becker’s (2013) study of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians for a vivid example of negotiated visual fluidity). The contemporary visually dominated world, where the plurality of faces, voices, values, meanings, and practices are in constant interplay (Clifford, 1996), produces visual patterns of meaning, shaping and reshaping in perpetual flux, like a murmuring of starlings or a lava lamp. Visual research aims to capture the to-ing, fro-ing, and flowing of meanings; it’s considerate and celebratory of the plurality and elusive ambiguity of images (Mitchell, 2002). Anthropology has always been interested in the visual (Collier & Collier, 1986); collecting field data is a highly visual practice. Visual associations and metaphors shape the way cultural phenomenon are documented from jotted notes to scientific representations (Emerson et al., 2001). However, early documentation of indigenous cultures resulted in the crude practice of displaying humans as curiosities – objectified entertainment – humans were forced to museums, lectures, world fairs, and colonial

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exhibitions (Banks, 1995). It emphasises the negative powers of the visual to frame and establish dangerous stereotypes, power relationships, and longitudinal abuse. Advances in technology allowed for an emphasis to be place on “showing” rather than putting on display (Grimshaw, 1997). Artefacts, photographs, and films were employed to represent native people and recreate the rich diversity of cultural, although through the unsavoury lens of European colonialism. As anthropological perspectives evolved more radical adaptions of the visual began to be employed. The value of the indigenous peoples’ perspectives was acknowledged and consideration of their narratives and media production deemed essential for generating holistic understandings (MacDougall, 1997; Womack, 2015). Such an evolution in perspectives and approaches established a more creative field of visual exploration, experimentation, and appreciation. A new era of data collection was established – all expressive material and systems communicated visually could now be interpreted (Hall, 2009): historical photographs, news photography, sports events, comic books, postcards, body decoration, indigenous art, home movies, family albums, typography, theatre, architecture, children’s games, carnivals, ceremony, pageantry, facial expressions, gestures, graffiti, advertising, and industrial design – anything in which the visual component is essential to the construction of shared cultural meaning could be explored. (Rampley, 2005). With regard to sociology, a demarcation can be observed between the empirical wing of visual studies, which is interested in the study of social life by producing images, and cultural studies, which studies the dominant images of society to advance understandings of the self, gender, class, stereotypes, and/or symbolism (Evan & Hall, 1999; Hall, 1997). Regardless of approach to visual culture, each accepts that the visual has been an effective tool for the transmission of ideas and maintenance of values in any given community across time and location. The visual has always been a way for the intellectual to manifest and cultural to evolve (Ozenfant, 1952). There are two general perspectives from which understandings of the visual emerge: the hermeneutic/phenomenological and structural perspectives. The structural perspective accepts visual meanings as being manifestations of structures – media, class, narrative, religious, commercial, etc. Understanding from the structural perspective is achieved by identifying clearly demarcated concepts through which social realities can be ordered – such as work or play (Turner, 1974). The hermeneutic/ phenomenological perspective proposes that visual interpretations are idiosyncratic (Barnard, 2001), that the varying interests, positions, beliefs, and values of the individual contribute the majority to the meaning-making (Eisner, 2008a). It emphasises the role of individual consciousness and subjective feelings (Solms, 2021): understanding is assumed to be produced by individuals as a product of their situated and contextual experiences (Berger, 2008). The difference between an anthropologist’s and sociologist’s approach to visual phenomenology is that the anthropologist aims to provide a

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credible (visually supported) representation of a novel culture or aspect of cultural experience, whereas the sociologist explores the ways in which common-sense (visual) understandings can be constructed/contested visually. You see someone quickly closing their eyelid and opening it again, was it a wink or a blink? A hermeneutic or phenomenological approach may assume it was a blink, possibly an involuntary unconscious movement, or maybe an intentional movement, a blink to remove dirt, ease pain, or increase waterflow. What other experiential ques were present? A structural approach, however, might first assume it was a wink. Depending on previously acquired knowledge of cultural structures and systems, one could then explore what kind of wink? Joking? Enticing? Congratulative? Sympathetic? Thus, the structural approach benefits from a hermeneutic/phenomenological approach as support to explore the potential meanings embedded in the visual, and the underlying impacts of such (Barnard, 2001). Generally, contemporary critical visual research explores both perspectives, recognising the interplay of the multitude of signs and symbols and how they contribute to meaning within all communication structures and cultural systems (Schroeder, 2006). Signing is vital to human existence; it underlies all forms of human communication, thus any scholar interested in the visual should explore the perspectives and theories relevant to the field of semiotics. Semiotics arises from the Greek word semeiotikos, meaning interpreter of signs. Signs are amazingly diverse; the semiotic field includes supernatural life (mythology), artificial life (nanotechnology to cyborgs) and natural life, including non-biological life (galaxies, rocks) and biological life (plants, animals, humans, etc.). Gestures, facial expressions, slogans, graffiti, road signs, medical symptoms, marketing, music, body language, drawings, paintings, photography, poetry, design, architecture, film, landscape gardening, Morse code, clothes, food, heraldry, rituals, and primitive symbols, are just some of the considerations branched under the subject of semiotics. Signs are important because they mean something other than themselves (Hall, 2012). To see how signs work:

Figure 2.1: This means that.

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Signs are not isolated; their meaning is dependent on the structures organising them and the cultural context in which they are read. An apple in a technology store takes on a different meaning than in a grocery store. Semiotics explores the variety of tools, processes, structures, and contexts that aid the creation, interpretation, and understanding of meaning (Hall, 2012). Whether literal, analogical, or metaphorical, signs reflect the perspectives of society, they become mirrors of humanity, much like other aspects of visual culture (Munari, 2008). Acknowledging the importance of signs to visual systems of meaning should raise questions about how scientific knowledge could be communicated more effectively. It is strange that the person, the living, feeling, and moving human is primarily invisible in research representation (Kozinets & Belk, 2007). Academic research is one of the few areas of contemporary culture not dominated by images of the human; academia lacks visual enthusiasm and continues to lag in terms of societal relevance, engagement, and impact (Posner, 2001). The absence of the person in academia strengthens arguments for the need to revisualise knowledge imbalances (Bailey & Gardiner, 2016). Social science research should adopt more creative, more visual, and more accessible approaches, make use of the principles of shifting perspectives, hyperintensity, and narrative transportation in communications (Schroder & Zwick, 2004). The development of a creative visual research agenda in the social sciences could consolidate the diverse scholarship occurring, generate exciting interdisciplinary dialogue, and build linkages that foster visual collaborations across disciplines. Ethnography, in particular, lends itself to an interdisciplinarity discussion due to its historical dominance and it being a catalyst for methodological innovation across social science (Stewart, 1998; Goodall, 2000). As a research methodology, ethnography utilises multiple modes of data collection and is flexible in application and theoretical framing. Ethnography provides a common ground starting point to segue to an epxloration of the primary visual data methods employed within social science research design. Ethnography is highly sensory dependent (Pink, 2014): translating between sounds-images-words-theory has always been a prime characteristic of good ethnographic fieldwork (Geertz, 2002). The ethnographer must attempt to amalgamate what is seen, observed, and heard, via recorded fieldnotes, interviews, sketches, drawings, tables, diaries, and translate them into formally written academic texts, lectures, and polished presentations (Geismar, 2014).

2.3 Ethnography, adaptions, and hybrids Ethnography refers to the practice in which a researcher spends periods of time immersed within a specific culture with the objective of relaying the differences observed in the world of the natives to an audience (Clifford, 1996). Ethnography was developed by anthropologists from Britain and France to understand the “alien worlds” of their empires (Elliott & Elliott, 2003). Traditionally ethnographies com-

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prised between 2–6 years of studying an exotic culture, the people, relationships, tools, dwellings, objects, dances, rituals, socialisation practices, and complex patterns of shared behaviour, to understand life from the native’s perspective (Van Maanen, 2011; Stewart, 1998; Lofland & Lofland, 1995). Arnould and Wallendorf (1994) suggest five key elements guide ethnographic practice: – The researcher gives primacy to data collection and the recording of behaviour in a natural setting. – Extended periods of time and experiential immersion/participation are conducted in a specific cultural context. – Multiple modes of data are incorporated; the sequence of collection is dictated by the nature of the investigation (not the researcher). – A broad theoretical gaze is employed to generate holistic and richer interpretations. – Produce a resonant representation that both participants and audiences find credible and enlightening. Ethnographers aim to develop “thick description” of the social world of Others. In order to achieve this, the researcher must participate in as much of cultural life as feasible and gain a richer perspective resulting from the feelings of living an authentic cultural experience (Lofland & Lofland, 1995). Knowledge of the cultural system is enhanced due to personal immersion and deeper emotional identification fostered (Fernandez, 1994). Ethnography provides opportunities to access the complex nature of relationships and unobvious interconnectivity within a particular culture (Geertz, 2002; Goulding et al., 2002; Goulding, 2005). The rich content of ethnography’s findings, and open-endedness, make it adaptable to a variety of circumstances; it has been used to understand and represent the behaviour of people for centuries. No two ethnographies have been conducted in the same manner because ethnography relies heavily on the researcher-as-instrument, as intuitive cultural receptor. The following steps guide good ethnographic practice (Kozinets, 2002): – Making entrée – Gathering and analysing data – Ensuring trustworthy interpretation – Conducting ethical research – Providing opportunities for cultural member feedback The strict formalisation of the ethnographic method is of limited value (Fetterman, 1989; Goulding, 2005), if not impossible, considering the idiosyncratic nature of the research design process and diversity in data available in each context (see Table 2.1). However, supportive methodological guides that aid good ethnographic research do exist (see Emerson et al., 2001; Stewart, 1998; Wallendorf & Belk, 1989; Lofland & Lofland, 1995; Van Maanen, 2011; Elliott & Elliott, 2003; Goulding, 2005).

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Table 2.1: Potential ethnographic data sources. Potential ethnographic data sources (ethnographic research design is idiosyncratic and not limited to the data examples) Observations (participant and non-participant) In situ jotted fieldnotes, followed by retreated expansion Sketches, maps, diagrams Interviews (phenomenological, semi-structured) Informal conversations (range of participants) Photography (produced by researcher and community) Videography (produced by researcher and community) Cultural artefacts (documentaries, anthems, objects) Diaries (researcher autoethnography and participant reflection) Member checks (findings presented to participants) Online observations (netnographic, historical digital lurking and participation)

Ethnography can be defined as “simply an account resulting from having done fieldwork” (Marcus & Cushman, 1982). Fieldwork not only involves immersion into social worlds but also providing “written accounts and descriptions that bring versions of these worlds to others” (Emerson et al., 2001). Geertz (2002) highlights that fieldwork (data collection) is more than describing – it’s bringing to life. His work contributed to the growing recognition that the ethnographer is the storyteller as well as the scientist (Goodall, 2000). The ethnographer must be committed to exploring a representable truth, develop understandings that transcend the researcher’s perspective and are applicable more broadly to human behaviour while presented in a proactive format. As Van Maanen (2011) attests, “the real trick of ethnography” is to display the culture, or aspects of a culture in an enlightening and resonant manner without distortion. Researchers must engage in periodic reflection to ensure faithful ethnographic representations. Ethnographic, and research representation in general, will be expanded upon in Chapter 7. A significant development in the application of ethnography occurred in the 1930s when critical sociologists began exploring the culture of cities, and street corners, as if they were exotic far-away lands (Bennett & Kahn-Harris, 2020), giving rise to many ethnographic studies of “deviant subcultures” (Hayward & Yar, 2006; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995). Regardless of the community being explored, the central concept remains, ethnography is concerned with “the nature, construction, and maintenance of a culture” (Goulding, 2005). The adaption of ethnography to study local or niche global cultures has gained increasing application in anthropology, sociology, geography, mar-

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keting, and consumer research (Elliot & Elliot, 2003). Because ethnography involves direct immersion, it is particularly well suited to explore the eclectic world of consumer experience and array of marketplace cultures (Cova et al., 2007; Richardson, 2013; O’Sullivan & Shankar, 2019). In the field of consumer research, Kozinets (2017) highlights that to satisfy requirements for a holistic understanding of a specific culture, a digital component should be employed, as the culture under investigation is likely to utilise digital and social media platforms to maintain group ethos, perform rituals, and sacralise behaviours (O’Sullivan et al., 2011). Kozinets (2017) argues for a blended ethnographic approach by employing combinations of both traditional ethnographic data collection and online methods to develop insightful understandings of group behaviour. When researching communities online a netnographic approach is advised (Kozinets, 2002). Netnography marks an evolution of ethnography, it was devised specifically to investigate the behaviour of online consumption communities; it utilises communications and interactions that are publicly available to understand the decision influences on behaviour (Kozinets, 2006). Netnography is a multi-method approach comprising of computer-mediated communications of online community members, inscribed observations of the researcher, and interviews with participants (O’Leary, 2020; O’Sullivan, 2015). Netnography is particularly valuable to researchers given the dispersed nature of contemporary culture and high levels of intra-community communication occurring in virtual places (Muniz & Schau, 2007; Cova & White, 2010). The netnographic researcher is unimpeded by geographical boundaries and adheres to the same steps and ethical principles underlying good ethnographic practice (Kozinets, 2006). The logic of Kozinet’s (2017) argument, the need for increased digital research to match developments in society, can also be legitimately applied to the visual. Increased visualisation in society requires an increased visualisation in methodology (Bailey & Gardiner, 2016). Visual ethnography involves the systematic collection, analysis, and communication of visual records of culture and behaviour. There is an abundance of visual evidence of culture in most human action, from elaborate social rituals to personalised food preparation: Visual ethnography is the effort to understand culture by making it visible. Like traditional forms of ethnography, the overall goal of visual ethnography is to build social theory (Pink, 2007). In trying to understand the dynamics of a culture, an ethnographer cannot begin everywhere, but steady progress can be made by documenting, examining, and interpreting the aspects of culture immediately visible (Redfield, 1955). The visual’s strengths lie in providing detailed physical records, it integrates the study of culture by investigating images and texts, and communicating the context or phenomenon (Banks, 2018). Representing culture visually allows for greater emotional access and enhanced empathic identification (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988).

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2.4 Visual research methods Writing is so unreal, so terribly unreal, lending the illusion of movement to quite and stillness. (Deacon in Gesimar, 2014)

Words have little more to say once written (MacDougall, 1997), whereas the visual entices more to be pondered and interpreted – it stimulates forms of narrative transportation, visceral responses, and empathic identification (Packard, 2008). Visual media foster participatory engagement and a heuristic meaning-making process that inspires speculation, theorisation, and unique associations with other mental processes. It marks an appreciation of audience engagement that differs radically from traditional written scientific communications, in which the reader is primarily passive and obedient (Dewsbury, 2014). The visual offers quicker access to the humanly interesting themes because of the intensified empathic identification and confrontation with the shared nature of existence. Drawing, photography, and video have been incorporated into ethnographic research “as cultural texts, as representations of cultural production, and of individual experiences” (Pink, 2001, p. 1). The visual has been adopted sporadically in the social sciences, and predominantly in a supportive manner – as evidence of being there – exemplary of the surrounding text. As Chaplin (2002) notes, using visual research is not simply a way to record or display data, but rather a way to generate personalised forms of knowledge which otherwise would lie dormant, unexposed, and unutilised. As Barthes (1999) attests, the visual can inspire an emotive prick, in which the reader applies feeling (punctum) as well as thought (studium), resulting in different kinds of knowledge production. As Lewis (1986) illustrates, the painter can elaborate detail without sacrificing the intended overall effect – the message – its meaning remains intact. The intensified image can retain its narrative simplicity despite the collage of expansive detail available (HD versus 4K). Using too many words, expanding in detail on a specific element of a story may harm the overarching meaning and decelerate knowledge transformation. Visual media allows knowledge to be constructed not through prescription but through a form of acquaintance – an intuitive immediacy. Valuable scientific insight can be acquired by observing, analysing, and theorising about the visual manifestations of culture. Visual methods, when utilised within research design effectively, can facilitate an extension of both the eye and the mind (Bateson & Mead, 1942). Visual data can be organised into three categories: researcher generated, participant generated, or publicly available (Wall et al., 2013). The analysis of visual data can lead to a variety of personal and theoretical associations, while providing valuable opportunties to re-live and re-access cultural experiences in a more reflexive manner (Penazola & Cayla, 2006; Stanczak, 2007). Visual research is malleable to a variety of research contexts, particularly useful to represent those unseen in society, to confront authority, and destabilise the status quo, expose abuse within the system, and intensify life itself (Harper, 1987; 1988). Packard

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(2008) illustrates how participatory visual research methods have developed explicitly to minimise the power imbalances between the researcher and participant – between subject and object. Participants can be invited to the research process as collaborators. The visual can be a tool for empowerment, enabling economically disadvantaged people, with little status or avenues of formal expression, to communicate effectively (Hurworth, 2003). Visual methods, when employed to reduce power imbalances, can improve the quality and amount of data collected and the overall flow through the research process. As Packard (2008) attests, “nobody knows the situation of the participants more than the participants”, so rather than exploring narrow themes important to an academic agenda, the themes of interest can be shaped organically by research participants (Palmas, 2021). Visual research comes with its own unique set of ethical considerations. The most important of which moving forward being that the visual media adopted to capture and/or represent people will not be harmful then or in the future. It can be difficult to anticipate the risks involved with the visual, much like one’s digital footprints and so on. The participant’s image has the potential to reach large global audiences at ferocious speeds and may persist for decades (popular Internet memes, for example). Those being represented should be consulted on numerous occasions prior to their image being used/appropriated in the development of scientific knowledge. Images being used should be relayed back to the community for collaborative input as a form of member check and also to ensure any indulgent researcher framing can be avoided. Pauwel (2011) introduces an integrated framework for visual social science research; it promotes the use of different visual operations during different research process, from origins, subjects, media, techniques, competencies, presentation, and reports. Similarly, attempting to promote the use of visual methods, Wall et al. (2013) suggest that an examination of the shared methodological pathways could generate insightful new perspectives on visual research. Pathways for exploration include: the types of research questions asked, the tools chosen to answer them, the intent with which the data are collected, and the relationships with the participants and audience. With new stances towards the visual, shared access to technologies, and fresh perspectives emerging on an interdisciplinarity level, exciting new possibilities for visual research collaboration is on the horizon (Seregina & Van den Bossche, 2022). Prior to adoptting visual research methods it is vital to explore the linkages between theory and method and understand how images produce different kinds of expansive knowledge (Mitchell, 2002). The dominant visual methods of drawing, photography, and film will now be explored and the theoretical and stylistic milestones of significance emphasised.

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2.5 Drawing, sketching, illustrations Drawing at its most basic can be defined as purposively marking a receptive surface. It has been widely respected as a unique mark of humanity, and considered to be individualistic, intimate, and a process-orientated cognitive activity (Lyon, 2020). Despite its deceptive simplicity, the evolution in drawing marks the emergence of the abstract thinking that led to complex art and science (Ozenfant, 1952). Drawing as a knowledge preservation tool has ancient roots, associated with astronomy, the cosmos, tool making, and cartography. The natural sciences elegantly used illustrations to compile artistic taxonomies of species, and astonishingly beautiful categorisations of butterflies, birds, and beetles, for instance. Eighteenth-century colonial expeditions required an illustrator to capture, enrich, and support the documentation process, to bring the vivid flora, fauna, animals, and humans encountered outside of Europe to life for home audiences. As a result, anthropology took influence from zoology, botany, and geology in its style and approach to recording the human world visually. The use of objective drawing is the attempt to record an objective truth and preserve realism; it does so by privileging rationality and capturing the mimetic characteristics of objects and people: how drawing is used in archaeology and architecture (Wickstead, 2008). Anthropology placed an emphasis on describing aspects of cultural life that could be illustrated and demarcated visually (Banks, 1995). Early ethnographers, in a similar vein, used objective drawing to preserve native life and cultural experience (Taussig, 2011). Nineteenth-century ethnographies are frequently supported by drawings that portray the richness of native life, capture the intricate body decorations, costumes, jewellery, musical instruments, weapons, ornamental design, advanced architecture, and tools (Collier & Collier, 1986; Geismar, 2014). Drawing was mostly adopted as a form of visual support – evidence of being there – an epistemological sidekick to the primacy of the polished written accounts of humanity. As drawing gained increased application in ethnographic research, it evolved to be more idiosyncratic in character, more emotive and more revealing. In contrast to objective drawing, subjective drawing acknowledges the expressive and emotive elements central to composition, regardless of whether created for self-preservation (autoethnography) or as an external research representation. Subjective drawing contains emotional texture and captures the psychological intuition of the illustrator, regardless of context, content, or style. As Taussig (2011, p. 13) notes, “drawing intervenes in the reckoning of reality in ways that writing, and photography do not” it can render extraordinary meanings visible that otherwise would go unexposed, unexperienced, or unfelt (Afonso & Ramos, 2004). Drawing generates an immersed snapshot, comprising of many subjective and objective layers of reality, achieved via multiple expressive and embodied interactions. Drawing evokes a concentrated freedom characterised by flow states, altered perspectives, and the exploration of transformations. Creative engagements of this manner are considered essential to children’s development and

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learning, yet absent for the most part from adult education (Comoy Fusaro, 2021), thus limiting the embodied forms of open exploration that can be inspired in adults (Gauntlett, 2007; 2013). The most accessible form of subjective drawing applicable to social research is that of the sketch. A sketch implies a roughness – a rawness – an unpolished engagement and unprimed in terms of aesthetic. Despite this, sketching compellingly captures a wealth of experiential and emotive nuances, each stroke is rich with subjective detail, and expansive in terms of identifying themes for a more sophisticated theoretical framing. The researcher can sketch as a tactic to depart from learnt academic rigidity; it’s an unconscious research engagement useful to document and process the emotions and atmosphere underlying a context. Sketching as a documentation process implies empowerment on part of the researcher absent from elsewhere in social science research design. It is an inherently open-ended process of discovery through which dynamic concepts can be exposed, explored, and represented in an uncritical manner. Drawing evokes a freedom of engagement, an avenue of linkages in terms of abstraction, representation style, and nature of the content and form: limited only by the hand and imagination of the illustrator. Ingould (2007) claims that research drawing can be regenerative and creative. Drawing is a form of improvision and play, a form of thinking in of itself – an embodied practice reflective of layers of knowledge (Gauntlett, 2013). As with many forms of illustrative engagement, aesthetic quality is not the primary focus, it is not a beautiful end-product being sought after by the researcher but the unpredictable and unconscious cognitive engagements: the conceptual twists and turns and valuable realisations that underlie the process of making marks (Ingould, 2013). Sapochnik (2013) shows how drawing is particularly useful to access tacit meanings and unconscious perceptions. Visual forms are fundamental to the process of coming to know and contribute to more holistic understandings and creative applications of knowledge (Hendrickson, 2008). A milestone in the application of drawing was the acknowledgement of the value of natives’ visualised meanings that materialised within their cultural system. Native drawing was adopted as a methodological tool, allowing for the native’s expression and subjective viewpoint to be explored in absence of a shared language. By putting pencils in the hands of natives it established a visual language, identity, fostered expression, and exposed what was important from the native’s perspective (Bateson & Mead, 1942). Drawing, regardless of the illustrator, produces visual material and concrete evidence, haptic detail, and undisputable expressions of culture. Participant drawing was considered an invaluable data generation tool capable of exposing complex elements of cultural and spiritual existence. For instance, Deacon’s exploration of intricate sand drawn turtles exposed the cultural, mythical, and artistically complex dynamics of the Vanuatu people (Geismar, 2014). Drawings can be used to generate a “mirror paradigm” (Kelly, 2004), a representation of the world the way the illustrator sees it. In other words, drawings can provide an analytical window into the internal psyche of the illustrator

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(Jolley, 2009). From this perspective, drawing is a resource for experiential translation, in which the drawn line illuminates the ontology of being. Because of its ability to expose emotion and subconscious thoughts, drawing has been primarily employed to research children (due to the assumed lack of rational language, undeveloped brain, and sensitive context). Drawing is rare within contemporary social science research design. It is primarily employed as an elicitation tool to foster rapport and allow for a more conversationalstyle knowledge exchange to emerge. This technique is generally referred to as “drawwrite-speak”, whereby drawings are used to elicit reflections, perceptions, views, and experiences (Lyon, 2020). Drawing from this approach can support knowledge transfer in many ways: aid participant comfort, establish intimacy, fill conversational voids, provide a stable frame of reference, conceptual map, and shared tangible resource. The iSquare team (Hartel et al., 2018), for example, explored how people visualise the concept of information. Audience participants (students, delegates, members) were given squares of white paper and asked to visualise the concept of information within seven minutes using a black pen. The goal of the technique is to gently guide participants towards a succinct visual expression, achieved by evoking a range of analytical perspectives visually, enabling the researcher to identify other relevant themes for further investigation (Lyon, 2020). Drawing should be considered a creative knowledge generation activity, adaptable and flexible enough to suit distinct requirements of specific research paradigms (O’Sullivan, 2022). However, because of the primacy given to the rational eye of the camera, drawing came to be associated with representing an overly subjective view that could not be depersonalised like photography could. As a result, there are far more ethnographic film and photography courses available to postgraduate students than drawing, and it is much easier to find a good camera than a willing illustrator. Unfortunately, the thinking hands of researchers remain primarily absent from representations of scientific knowledge.

2.6 Photography, the camera, and the subjective snap Both the anthropologist and archivist alike sought to collect objective concrete visual evidence. The power of the camera was that it convinced people it captured a concrete reality. Photography was remarkably easy and quick in comparison to drawing. Cameras, however, were not given to the natives, as the technology was assumed to be beyond their comprehension. As a result, the camera became a symbol of scientific objectification. The camera was perceived as a techno-rational device, the outputs of which believed to be dependent on machinery and the reactions of chemicals and light, unmanipulated by the operator’s emotions, biases, or culture (Soukup, 2014). Pinney (2011) suggests it was the adoption of the camera as a research tool that solidified anthropology as a legitimate science; because it allowed for an accurate comparative sci-

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entific catalogue of humankind to be complied. Early anthropologists photographed the dimensions and body proportions of different cultures to conduct a bogus interracial comparison. Humans were removed from their natural environment and photographed amongst black-and-white checked grids, and along scales, to prescribe an evolutionary ladder of humanity visually (Soukup, 2014). Thankfully, there was a move towards presenting natives as living beings and photographing their way of life and eclectic existence rather than characterless anthropometrics (Rampley, 2005). Portman (1896), for instance, photographed the tools being made by natives, step by step, preserving the process. While many researchers took artistically beautiful photographs, the aim was to objectively record the ethnographic reality and preserve valuable anthropological information for future scientists. Hence, the photograph was seen as a recording tool, to document artefacts, people, events – a source of ethnographic evidence – that it could not display culture but could support fieldnote taking, memory, and understanding (Penalzoa & Cayla, 2006). The trap of photography is that it gave the impression of objectivity, assumed to be a machined moment in time, but every photograph is loaded with diverse meanings and opportunities for interpretations, reinterpretations, and misinterpretations, beyond the control of the photographer. Im Thurn (1893) expanded the boundaries of visual ethnography, by offering a collage of highly constructed photographs displaying the author’s view of native life and culture. The multimodal and hyper-interpretive nature of an image’s content can be read and reread in many ways by each individual spectator (Hall, 1989; 1997). Because of this, photographs were added to completed written ethnographies as examples rather than being expansive of written content. The meaning of presented photographs were highly directed and employed in a linear manner, contained by captions that limited potential interpretations. It is important to understand the relationship between a presented photograph and captions guiding the reader. Each individual researcher must decide on whether captions are descriptive, short, or cryptic, or noting only location, date, and time, or absent entirely and confident in letting the image speak for itself, as Banks (1995) recommends. Goldstein (2007) rejects all notions of objectivity and asserts all photographs lie: they are two-dimensional illusions, emulations that cannot replicate human vision, movement, or life. Every photograph contains a manipulated reality with forced subjective elements embedded, thus it belongs to the realm of the artist (Veer, 2022). The photograph recaptures, recreates, reframes, and realigns, it can distort emotions, perspectives, and identities (Barthes, 1999). Hence why questions persist as to whether photography can form a rigid scientific methodology itself or does it have to be embedded within a more complex research design and comprise of only part of a traditional ethnographic exploration, for instance (Pink, 2007). Photography can generate a visual description: it is a form of looking with intention just as observation is (Sander, 2007), thus, a legitimate method of investigation for identifying social patterns, drawing conclusions, and building social theory.

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In the field of geogrpahy, Sanders (2007) illustrates how societal perspectives ground themselves and manifest in the visual environment. Photography is particularly useful to illuminate social processes difficult to capture and represent in other means, such as gentrification, social exclusion, community disintegration, and social movements (Hall, 2009). Visual atmospheres and environments can be manifestations of wider social processes, such as nostalgic or futuristic tendencies (Edensor & Bille, 2019). Researcher produced photography promotes critical observation and comparative forms of social research through the documentation and observation of change across time and space (Heisley et al., 1991). Photographs expose links and cultural behaviours that can inspire linkages and further investigation (Harper, 2005). However, as Pink (2001) notes, photography should only be considered an aspect of the culture, framed shimmers of meaning, and partial materialisations of knowledge with many enticing incompleteness and unbeknownst contrasts. Hall (2009) illustrates the value of collaborative photography as a method, in which photographs can be produced with or by research participants. Photographs taken of participants are quite different from photographs taken by the participants. Photography produced by participants addresses some incompleteness by illuminating life from the participant’s level rather than the framed meanings prescribed by the researcher. The photographs produced by participants can be used to establish rapport and useful to support elicitation in interview or focus group settings. Besides photo-interviewing, the photo-diary technique has been used by Young and Barrett (2001) as a tactic to combat the barriers of their outside adult position when exploring the meanings children assign within culture. Researcher produced photography can also aid knowledge exchange, Burgess et al. (1988) used researcher-produced photographs to aid interviewing when exploring people’s attitudes towards public places, open spaces, and city parks. Photographic essays originated as a form of journalism, and although less common today, they are still found in popular culture. Some academic journals publish photographic essays (Helisley et al., 1991), but they appear sporadically and rarely, despite the narrative flexibility and opportunities for audience engagement they offer (Hamilakis et al., 2009). The photographic essay can be adopted phenomenologically by representing the subjective experiences of a phenomenon from both the insiders’ and researcher’s perspectives: the end result intended to recreate cultural experience by evoking the feelings and the emotional texture of human experience (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988). In contrast, Harper (1987) discusses the narrative mode in which the aim is to tell the research story, emphasise emotionality in the process, and establish a clear start, middle, and end. Generally, most photographs taken during research explorations remain unseen beyond analysis and interpretation. Some of the more provocative or exemplary photographs may be included in lectures and conference presentations for impact but the potential for wider engagement is contained. Photographs of social scenes, cafes, bars, shopping malls, public parks, town squares, and so on, can help researchers theorise the

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boundaries of social structure, cultural identity, and all manner of psychological and ideological expressions useful to people beyond academia. Many researchers call for more creative applications of photography in the social sciences (Penaloza & Cayla, 2006), but practical discussions on how to achieve this are lesser observed. Research photographs inspire “an imaginative logic of discovery” as noted by Taussig (2011, p. xi). Pink (2007) too places an emphasis on how photography celebrates the ambiguity of meaning and disrupts common hierarchies to knowledge in society. Photography produced in this evocative educational spirit provide opportunities to critique and deconstruct meanings held in cultural memory. Novel degrees of emotional resonance and narrative identification can be achieved with photography. The beauty of photography is that it generates an interpretative space for audience participation – for feeling – in which taken-for-granted meanings can be abstracted and revised.

2.7 Film, video, and moving pictures The first anthropological film made was a four-minute sequence shot by Alfred Haddon in 1898, only a few years after the moving picture was invented. Haddon with a cumbersome cinematograph led a Cambridge University expedition to return to the Torres Strait Islands to document indigenous people on film re-enacting ceremonies, performing rituals, and recreating ancient masks. Early anthropological film was closely related to expedition film and emerged in the precinematic techniques of recording. Because both professional (sponsored) and amateur (unsponsored) anthropological cinematographers shot footage, it resulted in diverse variations in style, length, format, and so on. Film footage was generally used to illuminate lectures, either at the sponsoring institution, museums, or for corporate sponsors. Collecting motion pictures as well as material artefacts had been conventionalised by the early 1910s (Griffiths, 2013). Still photography had been largely abandoned in favour of “untrammelled” filming as the dominant method of visual inquiry and ethnographic documentary. By the 1920s it was clear visual anthropology had been influenced by cinematic language and the techniques of the commercial filmmaker. Robert Flaherty’s (1922) Nanook of the North (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkW14Lu1IBo) documents life of the natives of Hudson Bay while making use of tension, suspense, atmosphere, and climax – qualities then not associated with anthropological science but with cinema (Banks, 2018). Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman, best known by pseudo name Dziga Vertov, is the director of the master piece Man with a Movie Camera (1929) (https://vimeo.com/ 251988511). It draws attention to the methodological challenges that face the researcher/ filmmaker, and has influenced many generations of filmmakers, anthropologist, and film theorists. His work inspired the movements of cinema verité and cinema direct. Producing cinema direct the filmmaker assumes an objective stance, the uninvolved bystander, whereas with cinema verité the filmmaker/artist occupies the role of provocateur (Rakic & Chambers, 2009).

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Vertov’s film highlights the challenge faced by ethnographers, specifically, how they perceive the nature of reality (ontology) and the creation of knowledge (epistemology). Traditionally, at an the ontological level, a researcher/filmmaker can subscribe to either a realist or a relativist position, while at the level of epistemology, either a subjectivist or an objectivist approach can be adopted in creating, editing, and representing film. Vertov’s work, influenced by earlier Soviet cinema such as Battleship Potemkin (1925), expands film theory by blurring the philosophical boundaries of approach to truth and reality. Although it was believed the camera could capture an objective truth and reality, Vertov reminds viewers that only fragments of a reality can be caught by the camera lens, and what is caught is guided by the subjective eye of the camera man (his brother) and subjected even further by the eye, ear, and mind of the editor (his wife). While the camera may be an objectifying tool, recorded data is then subjectivised by the researcher (analysed, edited, produced). Research film does not deal with an objective reality but a reconstruction that carries plural meanings that parallel, contradict, contrast, and mirror the realities of everyday life. While early anthropological film work was characterised by a naïve realism, following Vertov, approaches were characterised by subjectivity, relativism, and reflexivity (Rakic & Chambers, 2009). The idea that documentaries captured “reality” was a utopian ideal; the line between documentary and fiction film is always tenuous, both are created by operations of analysis and editing, and thus either wittingly or unwittingly encompass a worldview and promote a perspective. Similarly, Zora Nealle Hurston’s adventure in ethnographic filming expanded the boundaries in the application of the medium (Womack, 2015). Hurston was tasked with documenting the daily performative acts of the life of rural African-American communities: to collect as much of the “writing, oral music, poetry, folklore, and voodoo practices” as possible, before the old traditions of the culture disappeared. In many ways Hurston was employing the visual as a form of salvage ethnography – to preserve the rich heritage and cultural memory of rural “Black folk”. Hurston studied under Boas, he believed training minority researchers to conduct ethnography would allow for much deeper knowledge to be produced due to the researcher’s established cultural access, ease of entrée, and contextual awareness (Womack, 2015). The idea is that holding a privileged cultural position can provide more opportunities for richer data collection, and preserve the rich cultural dynamics, rituals, daily social life, and commonplace beliefs from which the researcher must draw to develop social theory (Lofland & Lofland, 1995). Hurston then can be considered one of, if not the first, social scientist to collect ethnographic film data in a natural setting, where the researcher already held acceptance and possessed cultural knowledge. Charnov (1998) highlights what a remarkable methodological figure Hurston was in that she could maintain the participant/observer position in widely desperate communities. Hurston, although more well-known for her written works (Hurston, 1927; 2022; 2023), uses the spy-glass metaphor to conceptualise the privileged nature of her participant observation role. In establishing her emotional spy-glass – close and de-

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tached – she overexposes certain types of knowledge while expected and assumed knowledge remains hidden. Thus, what is unseen within her work is as important as what is seen; the open–ended encounters that refuse neat interpretation magnify the highly coveted racial knowledge. She highlights the variety of stances a visual researcher can take when documenting community life. She adopted creative methodological approaches in style and composition lending to both a sense of the scientific and artistic. For instance, the camera is handheld to record children playing and on a stand on other occasions, and the world moves around it with children moving in and out of frame. The camera was also used as an extension of her person, serving to establish a unique participatory feel in her films (Womack, 2015). Hurston’s research marked on a grander scale the urgent need for the United States to figure itself out, to attempt to reconstruct (technology, racial tension, work, social life), while not forgetting the darkness of slavery (Charnov, 1998). It is remarkable that Hurston’s films were created and remain preserved; they should be treasured and celebrated as a milestone in visual ethnographic research. By the 1930s audiences of anthropological film were no longer looking at neutral pieces of work comprising of raw footage, but polished pieces produced from a series of (re)constructed scenes. Blackwood’s (1936–37) Kukukuku (https://vimeo.com/ 88908952) is beautifully naturalistic in many ways, but framed in the style of European cinema in terms of narrative, perspective, camera angle, framing, and timing. The practical difficulties of camera work limited the application and appraisal of film by anthologists, resulting in mostly amateure work being conducted until the 1960s. Anthropologist began to collaborate with professional commercial television companies but it served to establish tension surrounding the disparity in ideology between the academic and cinematic. However, given the innovation to digital visual video recording devices experienced over the last 20 years, there has been a resurgence of interest in academic film making. The most common use is video-based data collection such as recording group or individual interviews in field settings, a research facility, or as a focus group. The advantage is that video can capture body-language, proxemics, kinesics, and other forms of kinetic body expression. Once captured, video must be coded, analysed, and interpreted (Belk & Kozinets, 2005). The drawback is that this style of recording can lead to an overdose of talking heads and mute the power of the medium without additional active footage included in representations. The second most dominant use of film to support social science research is to record naturalistic observations (Kozinets & Belk, 2007). In this application of video-recording the researcher is interested in what people do and how they behave. Ethical concerns come to the fore when attempting to document “life caught unawares” (Rakic & Chamber, 2009). Camera observations are generally obtrusive and impose despite unobtrusiveness being desired. In early anthropological documentary, given how the camera altered people’s behaviour, filmmakers achieved a sense of the natural in many ways: using zoom to film at a distance, hiding cameras, using mock cameras to distract attention, or using many cameras to force comfort. Al-

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though the issue of people being uncomfortable around cameras has reduced considerably, the presence of a camera still influences behaviour, from freezing to hyper-activity. Researchers have utilised hidden cameras on their person or participant, CCTV, and public live stream cameras, such as Earthcam; each presents its own unique set of ethical concerns (Norris & Armstrong, 1999; Graham, 2002). The third most common use of video is to attempt to understand the behaviours of others by allowing them to capture it on video themselves. This marks a departure from anthropology’s early construction of technology as belonging to the hands of the scientist only. The autobiographical or autovideographical technique involves “giving the natives” the camera and providing those hidden in society an active opportunity in shaping the direction of the study. In terms of research ideology such an approach is similar to grassroots and action research projects (Gauntlett, 2007). The video diary method was adopted by Harrison et al. (2021) to explore psychological resilience “live” among extreme sport participants that were attempting an endurance challenge, which involved summiting the top 100 peaks in the UK, over 25 days, whilst wearing weighted 30lbs backpacks and cycling from peak to peak. The video diaries exposed the stressors within the extreme environment, the strategies employed to maintain functioning, the cycles of emotion, and impacts on energy, as they unfolded. Without the presence of the researcher, participants can be more spontaneous and emphasise what is important to them rather than the investigation. Palmas (2021) utilised collaborative ethnographic film as a pathway into exploring the complexity of youth gang experience in Barcelona. The shared nature of visual media provided an opportunity for gang members and researcher to collaborate on films; they provided greater access to subcultural experiences, generated valuable insights, and achieved degrees of empathic identification that could not have been established otherwise. Another approach towards video is the film archivist, who utilises previously recorded footage, and despite the historical focus, can still yield considerable insight applicable today. For instance, a film archivist could explore home movies, national news media records, or documentaries, searching for a specific context, such as, attitudes towards recycling to highlight cultural blueprints, barriers to behaviour, or novel common perspectives, and so on. Teleography (Parker, 2012), for instance, employs ethnography to a TV series to examine cultural processes and generate novel insights on society. There are numerous popular culture and cult TV series that have left undeniable cultural marks, on gender issues, romance and relationships, fashion, buyer behaviours, language, and expression, and thus worthy of a deeper investigation. People are accustomed to using visual digital devices as a portal into the worlds of communication, information, entertainment, buying, selling, working, and playing (Kozinets & Belk, 2007). Given the performative nature of social media, there are numerous opportunities to conduct video-based research on platforms like YouTube and TikTok (Pace, 2008) The observed is no longer a participant but rather naïve exhibitionist. A range of ethical considerations emerge regarding the use of such framed data resources retrieved by the unblinking all seeing Internet eye. Visual methods

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such as digital footprint diaries and screencast recording are also on the rise in application and adaptable to produce videographies of online behaviours (Kawaf, 2019). Regardless of how video data are produced, they must be treated scientifically and subjected to analytical operations, such as coding and categorisation. Video analysis follows the same procedures of textual interpretive analysis (analysis will be expanded upon in Chapter 6). Once data are analysed, the presentation of the data must be envisioned. Videographic data can not only complement traditional ethnographic texts but can serve as their substitute by achieving what textual representations can’t: Audio-visual emotionality, reconstruction, recreation, and multi-vocal representations of co-existing realities. In some fields, particularly consumer research, the current use of videography marks a revisualisation of film, in which the researcher has retaken control of the camera, the process, and style (Kozinets & Belk, 2007). The Association for Consumer Research Film Festival has been running for over 20 years and has produced an exciting catalogue of films capturing perspectives on consumption from across the globe. A vast array of topics have been featured, including carnivals and festivals, food and drink, everyday objects, tourism, sustainable lifestyles, leisure, and inter-species relationships. Videography can engage the audience with a multi-sensory set of resources, making it easier to access the emotional pathways into an alternative ontology (Schembri & Boyle, 2013). Videographers are aware they are foremost telling a story – a scientific one however – complied using dramatic audio-visual collages that attempt to shape audience perspectives on issues of social and cultural import. This draws the ethnographer much deeper into the realm of the artist – the researcher with a movie camera – the scientist artists. It is important to acknowledge that editing, trimming, cuts, speed, titling, scoring, colouring, and all “post-work” added to a video are capable of intensifying experiences and determine the emotional impact and resonance of knowledge. By adding the visceral effects of music, sounds, imagery, pacing, and so on, the researcher manipulates the audience to feel and think in certain ways. Because of the exciting emotional pathways offered, many research paradigms minimise the value of ethnographic film on the grounds of it not being scientifically rigorous. Visual data are much less amenable than other data to a positivist scheme (Stasz, 1979), but as Chaplin (2002) notes, any account whether visual or textual is highly constructed. Because videographers tend to be attracted to extreme, sensational, or sensitive research contexts, it might reinforce the negative journalistic stereotypes. The use of film in research representation has always been torn between two (not so distant) poles of the realist documentary and cinematic emotional story. Epistemologically, most ethnographic films are distinguished by a refreshing break from pseudopositivist pretentions of objectivity – the audience is provoked to suspend its disbelief and be absorbed fully into the scientific story (Belk & Kozinets, 2005). A weak research film will expose itself much quicker than a weak academic paper capable of hiding behind intuitional norms, codified language, and theory. The research filmmaker isn’t afforded the

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safety of such structures. Visual literacy is high among contemporary audiences; they expect good visual design, and can be highly critical of bad or mundane visual work. Videographers are aware that audiences learn unfamiliar conventions by experiencing them – by audiences being involved in the meaning-making process (Eisner, 2008a). However, to achieve this the scientist must evoke the mantle of art. Education is not so different from entertainment: the audience must be engaged along a path of participatory and experiential learning. Symond and Gorard (2010) argue that methodological pragmatism and obsessive functionality are hampering the development of research as craft, and limiting the creative development of the researcher (Goodall, 2000). To reach contemporary audiences the employ of art and craft will be as essential as operation and experiment – typified by the expanding field of art-based research (Seregina & Van den Bossche, 2022).

2.8 Art-based approaches to research There is an observable trajectory woven through the above discussion on visual methods: each was initially put to use in the spirit of objectivity, to accurately record the concrete truth, then in more subjective ways following sparks of individual creativity, followed by collaborative endeavours, and later evolving to celebrate emotional narrative, vivid expression, and abstract associations. The application of visual methods in social science research has been evolving towards the realm of the artist. Art-based research foregrounds art as a way of engaging with research topics or supporting interactions among researchers, participants, or contexts. It privileges creative engagement as the central approach to knowledge and is reconfiguring how researchers design, conduct, and communicate research (Seregina & Van den Bossche, 2022). Artbased research provides an opportunity to illuminate a range of expressions, experiences, and processes traditionally excluded from science, or underdeveloped in research. Art-based approaches relate more with active, embodied, and affective processes to knowledge production, such as learning through making and sensing (Gauntlett, 2013). There is an overlap in design between art-based approaches and the creative application of visual methods: both aim to generate multisensory, emotional, experiential, interactive, and embedded forms of knowledge (Stavraki & Anninou, 2022). Art-based research seeks to inspire interpretation; its aim is not to be overly prescriptive but to generate a multitude of meanings and contemplations about a context. Artistic skill is not always of importance, as engaging in the artistic process alone will generate alternative perspectives on the context or phenomenon being explored (Finley, 2003): creating art cultivates reflexive thinking and adaptability during research. Kushins (2006) puts forth an argument based upon Gardner’s (2000) proposal of multiple intelligences, claiming visual artistic representations generate insights by inspiring reflections about the individual and external worlds of audiences. The value of art-

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based approaches lies in their ability to encourage audiences to seek extra-ordinary viewpoints and render “visible” implicit meanings (Afonso & Ramos, 2004). Dewey (1948) too highlights that art-based approaches elicit and accentuate understandings of human experience by stimulating connections with the “universe beyond one’s Self”. By challenging the researcher and audience to disrupt comfortable assumptions, art-based research generates alternative meanings and translations. They offer powerful insights and can inspire people to feel differently about their life, or the lives of others, promoting an emotional intimacy lacking from traditional science (Brown, 1996). Creative works of art and science are fundamentally similar: both seek to discover truths about the social world although asssume different shapes (Gauntlett, 2007). The benefits of art-based research methods highlight the value of developing more playful and creative approaches to knowledge production. Gauntlett (2007) extols the use of hands-on methodologies from Lego and pipe cleaners, to sketching and drawing, any approach that faciliates the production, representation, and reflection on complex types of knowledge not easily accessed otherwise. However, Eisner (2008a) argues that any discussion about art-based research must take into account the ideology of the specific art form (media, technology) being employed. While this book is a focused exploration of the comic book art form, there is value in exploring other art forms that can support the researcher (Sherry & Schouten, 2002; Downey, 2022). For some researchers, art-based approaches may encompass their central focus, but typically art-based approaches are incorporated as an element of a larger project, to achieve a particular outcome, or inspire a creative response (O’Sullivan, 2022). The development of a creative research agenda will promote stability and focus and foster more creative approaches to visual research design.

2.9 A creative visual research agenda What does creativity mean in the context of research? And why should researchers be creative? Researchers often ponder how they might pursue creative research, or more accurately, how they might support a current research design with more creative approaches. However, researchers (without a background in art/design) can rarely articulate or visualise what they are trying to achieve beyond attempting to be creative: The aim here is to add much needed stability to focus. Without a refreshed discussion about what creative visual research could mean, it will be difficult to identify the value of creative explorations, defend, or legitimise new methods or tools. It must be emphasised that creative visual research should be epistemologically fluid, adaptable, an open space for all manner of paradigms, flexible to the variety of disciplines, subjects, approaches, and thematic investigations adopting visual media (Banks, 2018). The creative element encapsulates any activity within the research process aiming to inspire lateral “as if” thinking, and disconnect people from the comfortable reliance on the options central to the culture of knowing. Creative visual research

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must foremost attempt to address the problems of the crisis of creativity, a pragmatic intent to extend the boundaries of impact. How this might be achieved will now be explored. Most problematically, it appears academia sufferers not from a media problem but a methodological problem – an epistemological neophobia of form. Research should yield the maximum affect (Munari, 2008). Different media evoke different responses, each a tool employed for a specific task, but the adoption of “off-the-shelf” and “copycat” methodological approaches limit evolution, innovation, or revitalisation within research design (Blankenship, 1961; Gauntlett, 2007). As a result, new audiences are not drawn to scientific research, it is perceived as dry, boring, cold – Frankenstinian (Brown, 1996) – and thus not performing its communicative function (Kushin, 2006). Anyone with prior experience in visual media will be aware of their pedagogical powers (Belk, 2011) – their capacity to engage a variety of audiences in alternative ways and generate multiple perspectives on a single context (Holt, 1991). Any proposed research agenda must allow opportunities for researchers to access emotionality (Fernandez, 1994), engage in confessional tales (Van Mannen, 2011), and experiential science marked by increased levels of researcher reflexivity. Engaging in creative visual research can be cathartic, ease the tensions, anxieties, and traumas of the research while nurturing the researcher-as-instrument. Accepting that the goal of education is to improve the relationship between one’s inner and outer worlds, visual research can play the important role of fostering a synthesis between informative inner awareness and outward purposive action. If social science is to become more vivid, advances must be taken to display creativity, imagination, personal engagement, and even humour when producing knowledge (Fine & Martine, 1990) – we must energise, invigorate, and vivify what has become dull, jargonridden, passive, impersonal, and wordy (Sword 2009; Dewsbury, 2014). Similarly, Essén and Värlander (2013) call for research that allows for the illumination of the “embodied, emotional, institutional, material, political, and social dimensions of research, that attempt to facilitate knowledge transfer by using sensuous images, colours, smells, and even when possible sounds”. Creative visual researchers must welcome audiences to a “curious elsewhere” (Gergen, 1997), as co-authors in narrative adventures, and inspire the co-production of meanings (Lincoln & Denzin, 2000). Audiences should be welcomed to contribute to knowledge production, and gain more personalised understandings of the world as a result. Sherry and Schouten (2002) compellingly argue for alternative scientific narratives, claiming that unlike traditional scientific representations, “audience members engage their own imaginations to “read between the lines” and draw on their personal storehouse of knowledge and emotion” and be moved to an understanding rather than simply informed (Canniford, 2012; Hill, et al., 2019). Thus, creative visual research should prioritise punctum (Barthes, 1999), and implement nonlinear co-created narratives in the production and communication of science to inspire more personalised emotional engagements (Drew & Guillemin, 2014).

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Creative visual research design should create opportunities for participant and researcher collaboration in data collection, meaning-making, and representation. It promotes a democratic perspective, intended to give those with little opportunity to contribute to the production of science a voice, a face, and look in. Thus, creative visual research should attempt to address power imbalances, hierarchies to knowledge, the social blind spots within culture (Pendlebury and Enslin, 2001), and allow for what Cary (1999) refers to as the unexpected stories of fluid knowledge to emerge. Making is connecting, Gauntlett (2013) attests, by collaborating on ideas, new perspectives, approaches, and understandings can emerge through the process of connecting with new people, materials, processes, and life stories. In focusing attention on the researcher, participant, and audience relationship, visual culture research can become a site concerned about impact and evolution, intentions and outcomes, agency and new creative structures. It will be a shame if the creative spirits of those enthusiastic of visual research go unnurtured due to lack of an established path to build interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and collaborative bridges for methodological revitalisation (Pourtney & McPhail, 2017). The creative (visual) research agenda can guide social/phenomenological researchers attempting to inspire change, to solve problems, and generate richer knowledge exchanges. It is far from a definitive agenda, but can be adopted as an invitation to explore alternative approaches in academia. Interdisciplinary sites and unconventional grab-bags like visual research must explore underutilised media to generate an understanding of evocation and inspire the creative interpretation required to generate cultural knowledge. One underutilised creative visual medium that warrants investigation is the comic book.

2.10 A role for the comic book Comic books have become foundational to contemporary life in less than a century; they are found in newspapers, books, television, movies, in advertising, on packaging or products themselves, and numerous other places and devices – the comic book narrative structure is ubiquitous in consumer culture (Jenkins, 2020). Comic books can be defined as the intermingling of a sequence of closely related words and images designed to unfold an entertaining narrative (Norton, 2003). Terminology used to describe similar forms of illustrated narrative include: comic book, graphic novel, long form cartooning, picture novel, sequential fiction/art, long-range pictorial reading, manga, and comix (Labio, 2011). Each term comes with its own set of assumptions, priorities, and ideologies (McAllister et al., 2001). Eisner (2008b) argued for the term graphic novel as way of forging for comic books the range of narrative ambition, and legitimisation literature enjoyed. Graphic novel evokes a seriousness and sophistication, while comic book evokes a playfulness and accessibility, and thus will be adopted

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throughout the book, as this perspective aligns better with the aims of the creative visual research agenda. Academics argue a role for comic books in education on the basis that they require the reader to construct meaning, make hypothesis, and ponder future developments (McAllister et al., 2001; Gillenwater, 2009). The underlying pedagogical philosophy is that comic books require the audience to read pictures, not just look at them. The comic book structure provides exciting storytelling possibilities –additional resources for time/space, building tension, generating atmosphere, developing characters, and playing with themes (Sabin, 2006; Chute & DeKoven 2006). Chute (2008) argues that comic books explore the “conflicted boundaries of what can be said and what can be shown at the intersection of collective histories and life tales”; unbound by a single life theme, they are an “original ensemble of productive mechanisms of meaning” (Groensteen, 2007). Comic books are innovative pedagogical aids, adaptable to guide learning for children, young adults, and even university students (Snyder, 1997; Hall & Lucal, 1999; Bitz, 2004; Norton, 2003; Gerde & Foster, 2008). Hall and Lucal (1999) argue that like fiction, film, and music, comic books can be used to establish learning links between the classroom and a “real world” context. Gerde and Foster (2008) argue that comic books can be a creative means to represent and teach the complexities of the social world, and to illuminate the conditions of others in the sceptical age (Mickwitz, 2016). Comic books not only provide relevant dialogue, but drawings serve as graphic illustrations of a setting, the spacing of the actors, their dress, gestures, and emotions expressed (Snyder, 1997). Yang (2003) identifies five attributes of comic books that enhance learning experiences: motivating, visual, permanent, intermediary, and popular. When adopted appropriately in knowledge sharing contexts, comic books can bridge socio-economic, generational, and cultural gaps among an audience (Snyder, 1997; Hall & Lucal, 1999; Gerde & Foster, 2008). Research on comic books has explored the ways comic books communicate (McCloud, 1993); their potential as an educational and literacy tool (Gower, 1995); their effect on children (Bitz, 2004; Smetana et al., 2009); the persuasive rhetoric of the form (Edwards & Winkler, 1997); literacy levels (Hansen, 2012); gender and race (McGrath, 2007), the psychoanalytic nature of comic books (Adams, 1983); the history of comic books (Baker, 1989); their commercial nature (Spiggle, 1986); and comic book fanatics (Brown, 1997). However, utilising comics in the research process has been far less common. The creative practices in the field of comics, defined as “narrative work in the medium of comics”, is something with which academic attention is only starting to explore (Sousains, 2015; Barberi & Gruning, 2021; Peterle, 2021). Researchers are beginning to understand the power of graphic narratives to evoke a moral and ethical responsiveness regarding the experiences of others (Whitlock, 2006; Gerde & Foster, 2008). The versatility of the comic book structure provides limitless possibilities for representing cultural life or phenomenological experiences (Hansen, 2012; Juneau & Sucharov, 2010; Kim, 2017).

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Parents, citizens, politicians, and educators applied considerable scrutiny to comic books. Peculiarly, more so than other art forms, the comic book has been the source of much controversy and denigration, associated with low culture, and thus deemed inappropriate for scientific use. Given the power of the comic book to disseminate and intensify diverse forms of knowledge, it could be put to use to achieve the aims of the creative visual research agenda. The comic book is a vivid, emotive, democratic, collaborative, and imaginative narrative tool, and could be employed to get people thinking in different, more empathic, and nonlinear ways. However, prior to its adoption for research purposes the cultural blueprint of the form must be explored. As such, the antecedents, origins, the formats of old, the risqué cultural and political critiques, slapstick themes, graphic violence, horror, and whimsical lack of earnest central to the genealogy of comic books will be explore in the following chapter.

2.11 Conclusion The goal of the chapter was to introduce readers to the exciting atmosphere central to visual scholarship, and discuss the types of visual research being conducted across the social sciences. It emphasised methodological bridging by first introducing ethnography, its expanding hybrids, and visual ethnography. The chapter explored the history of visual research, the methods employed, drawing, photography, and film, and exposed the trajectory towards more art-based approaches. The creative visual research agenda proposed draws from art-based research to promote welcoming and collaborative approaches to social science. Given the power of the comic book to attract and engage new audiences, and inspire intense personalised narratives, it should have a more central role in social science research. The origin and evolution of the comic book will be explored in the next chapter.

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Hurworth, R. (2003). Comparative review: the use of the visual medium in qualitative research. Qualitative Research Journal, 3(1), 67–73. Im Thurn, E. F. (1893). Anthropological Uses of the Camera. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 184–203. Ingold, T. (2007). Writing texts, reading materials. a response to my critics. Archaeological Dialogues, 14(1), 31–38. Ingold, T. (2013). Making: anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge. Jay, M. (1988). The rise of hermeneutics and the crisis of ocularcentrism. Poetics Today, 9(2), 307–326. Jenkins, H. (2020). Comics and stuff. In Comics and stuff. New York University Press. Jolley, R. P. (2009). Children and pictures: drawing and understanding. John Wiley & Sons. Juneau, T., & Sucharov, M. (2010). Narratives in pencil: using graphic novels to teach israeli-palestinian relations. International Studies Perspectives, 11(2), 172–183. Kafka, F. (2014). The metamorphosis: a new translation by Susan Bernofsky. WW Norton & Company. Kawaf, F. (2019). Capturing digital experience: the method of screencast videography. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 36(2), 169–184. Kelly, D. D. (2004). Uncovering the history of children’s drawing and art. Greenwood Publishing Group. Kim, A. (2017). Brains!: a neuroscience comic book for kids. Synthesis: A Digital Journal of Student Science Communication, 1(1). Kozinets, R. V. (2002). The field behind the screen: using netnography for marketing research in online communities. Journal of Marketing Research, 39(1), 61–72. Kozinets, R. V., & Belk, R. W. (2007). 25 camcorder society: quality videography in consumer and marketing research. Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods in Marketing, 335–344. Kozinets, R. V. (2006). Netnography. In Handbook of qualitative research methods in marketing (Vol. 129, p. 142). Kozinets, R. (2017). Netnography: radical participative understanding for a networked communications society. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, 374. Kushins, J. (2006). Recognizing artists as public intellectuals: a pedagogical imperative. Culture Work, 10(2). Labio, C. (2011). What’s in a name? the academic study of comics and “the Graphic Novel”. Cinema Journal, 50(3), 123–126. Lewis, G. (1986). The look of magic. Man, 414–437. Lofland, J., & Lofland, L. H. (1995). Developing analysis. Analyzing Social Setting, 183–203. Lyon, P. (2020). Using drawing in visual research: Materializing the Invisible. The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods, 297–308. MacDougall, D. (1997). The visual in anthropology. Rethinking Visual Anthropology, 276–295. Marcus, G. E. & Cushman, D. (1982). Ethnographies as texts. Annual Review of Anthropology, 11(1), 25–69. McAllister, M. P., Sewell Jr, E. H., & Gordon, I. (2001). Introducing comics and ideology. Comics and Ideology, 2, 1–13. McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art. Northampton, Mass, 7, 4. McGrath, K. (2007). Gender, race, and latina identity: an examination of marvel comics’ amazing fantasy and arana. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 15(4), 268–283. McLuhan, M., & Parker, H. (1969). Counterblast. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. Mickwitz, N. (2016). Documentary comics: graphic truth–telling in a skeptical age. Springer. Mitchell, W. J. (2002). Showing seeing: a critique of visual culture. Journal of Visual Culture, 1(2), 165–181. Munari, B. (2008). Design as art. Penguin UK. Muñiz, Jr, A. M., & Schau, H. J. (2007). Vigilante marketing and consumer–created communications. Journal of Advertising, 36(3), 35–50. Norris, C., & Armstrong, G. (1999). CCTV and the rise of mass surveillance society. Crime Unlimited? Questions for the 21st Century, 76–98.

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Chapter 3 Origins of the comic book 3.1 Introduction The aim of this chapter is to provide some historical context and insight on the emergence, evolution, and cultural impact of the comic book. It opens by discussing the murky origins of illustrated narrative before moving on to the illustrated magazines of the Victorian era. The early age of comics is then discussed, the establishment of continuous characters, colour, and style, and how they provided opportunities for unique engagement are emphasised. Next, the children’s market is examined with a focus placed on highlighting the disparities in the boy and girl markets. Following this, superhero comics are discussed, and are shown to establish identity myths, reflect the ideology of times, and spawn supersystems of narrative engagement through cross-media adaptions. The mature comic forms, such as, comix and graphic novels are discussed in terms of their ability to engage and excite adult audiences on themes of import. Finally, a brief discussion is offered focusing on the global context of comics.

3.2 Origins of illustrated narrative Although comic books are an invention of the nineteenth century, its antecedents involve prehistoric humans and the artistic narratives found in caves across earth. Graphic sequential narratives, prior to comics, are commonplace in religious and other artworks (Ozenfant, 1952). The paintings of Bruegel are of note, particularly Children’s Games (1560), the illustrative narrative is a magnificent preservation of play. It shows over 250 children playing 90 games and reveals a dazzling narrative about the progression of play and time (Snow, 1997). While during the Middle Ages there had been illustrations, paintings, and artworks deigned for public consumption, the public had to travel to see them, it was not until advent of the printing press that images could travel to the masses with such ease. A notable early French example is a book titled The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel (1565); comprised entirely of illustrations of grotesque and fantastically monsters dressed in religious or royal garb, intended as an obscure critique of authority and power. In Britain, the genesis of the comic book form were broadsheets: Anonymously created woodcuts pressed on a single side of paper, which were sold on the streets and featured content focused on current affairs. Broadsheets utilised combinations of words and images, primarily because the audience were assumed to be illiterate. Drawings were crude and reproduction standards questionable, yet they effectively connected society through visual narratives nonetheless (Eisner, 2008). A market for

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this form of visual documentation grew, particularly for artistic impressions of public executions. Attendees watching gruesome public hangings or burnings purchased the broadsheet impressions as grim souvenirs. Publishers were motivated by financial gain so prints were of poor quality, scenes frequently reused, and produced in advance of the events being depicted. The prioritisation of profit over quality contributed to mediocre standards and established terrible labour practices in the industry. Artists were not adequately compensated for their work, few could sign their names to illustrations, and as a result, few found fame or fortune. Publishers identified a market for illustrated sheets involving stories with humorous content. The humorous turn in broadsheet illustrations, first targeted the affluent middle class and adopted a political focus. Later publishers targeted the working class with mostly slapstick themes and contexts. Broadsheets communicated information using a structure that would be recognised as comic art today (McCloud, 1993). For instance, they possessed the emerging language of pictorial joke-telling inclusive of captions and panel boarders, with some narratives even being relayed over sequential images in strip format. These broadsheets were often to referred to as “the comicals” or “the comics” in recognition of the subversive power of illustrated satire (see Sabin (2008) for an extensive history on comics). The “comics” unique style of storytelling was remarkably effective at disrupting social order and ridiculing authority. Comic artists could hold a mirror to society and expose the powerful in ways unthinkable with text (Lamb, 2004). Illustration was thought a safer means to engage in political, religious, or regal critique, however, many artists were murdered or imprisoned because of their illustrations. Noteworthy examples of early comicals include A Rake’s Progress (1755), an acerbic satirical critique of wealthy debauchery, and the strip John Bull’s Progress (1793), a commentary reflecting the social upheavals of war. Technological advancements in copper plating, produced more vivid, crisp, and impactful images; by the 1820s a strong satire industry had emerged in London, which expanded across the UK. The illustrative exaggeration, ironic juxtaposition of words and images, and arrangement of the story in a strip or sequence, established the aesthetic and narrative standards still relevant today. By the 1850s technological breakthroughs in photo-processing meant artists no longer had to line images, or have their image interpreted by an engraver for printing. Facsimile printing reduced production costs and in tandem with binding innovations contributed to the production of magazines, which comprised of many broadsheets bound together. This was a clear millstone in comic book history, the formatting, styling, and visual design resembling today’s comic publications can be pinpointed to the magazine (Sabin, 2008).

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3.3 Illustrated news, horror, and humour Victorian era technological advances established an exciting magazine industry, inspiring many thematic titles that were published on a weekly or monthly schedule. The dominant genre of the time was documentary. The documentary style magazine reflected a seriousness and consisted of prose accompanied with illustrations. For example, London Illustrated News (1842) built its reputation on the strength of its eyewitness illustrations of local stories and overseas war, serving to establish a broader market for reputable reports accompanied with sensationally explicit illustrations. The Illustrated Police News (1864) featured detailed illustrations and reports of murders, hangings, and crimes, and a clear descendent of the public execution broadsheets. The second most popular genre of the Victorian era was the fiction story, which came to be known as the “penny dreadfuls” due to their price of 1p and lurid contents. The “penny dreadfuls” were prosed narratives supported by illustrations. The stories glorified criminals, romance, and featured sensationalised adaptions of gothic novels. The most well-known of the “dreadfuls” was Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1878). Dreadfuls were mainly published for a working-class readership and read primarily by young men. Dreadfuls emerged in society as a reaction to the socially pointed propaganda of “wholesome” stories prescribing Christian values, moral character, honest work ethic, and patriotic duty. The humour magazine was the third most dominant style of the time. Although narratives utilised both visual and textual elements, it was a more visual style than the other genres, marking an evolutionary milestone on the road to what is appreciated today. Punch (1841) was a middle-class monthly political satire magazine which built its reputation on the quality of its ink drawings. Punch inspired numerous imitation publications following the same basic formula but with more debasing themes and further reduced prose. Humour magazines targeted both middle and lower class, assuming audiences could read, narratives still privileged images because of their powerful impact. The Victorian era illustrated slapstick magazines privileged image over text, had multiple strips, and shocking narratives; they established the foundation elements and narrative structure of the modern comic book.

3.4 The early age of comics Clearly demarcated as the first comic, Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday (1884) was a blackand-white weekly penny (1p) magazine that mixed strips, stories, and cartoons, and was the first comic to feature a regular lead character – Alexander “Ally” Sloper. It had a remarkable influence on the comic medium, not only due to the employ of a continuous character but the aesthetical appreciation and commercial standards upheld. Ally Sloper targeted an adult audience; it was an alternative comedy of workingclass characters negotiating life in industrial capitalism; its style of storytelling forged

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connections with audiences in ways unimaginable prior (Sabin, 2008). Ally Sloper was a sensation; it captured the spirit of the time and inspired heavy merchandising, considered to be one of the first media-driven commercial phenomenon. The continuous character generated more opportunities to build narratives, for empathy, and empathic identification to emerge. Ally Sloper was a working-class man, he dodged the rent collector and spent what little money he acquired on alcohol and leisure. He had a red nose and was frequently hungover. Later, he becomes quasi-gentrified and the comedy arises from his social faux pas in upper-class contexts. There is much joy found in Ally enjoying the emerging Victorian leisure culture (Huggins, 2000), indulging in consumption to its fullest. The narratives, for audiences, were an escape from the pressures of tough industrial urban life. Sloper, and the intimate relationship forged with readers, became a vehicle through which Victorian life could reflect upon itself. Much of the success of Ally Sloper was due to its effective distribution and marketing strategy. Understanding the importance of usage occasion, it was promoted aggressively at railway kiosks. It was a suitable entertainment companion for the journey: brief, cheap, and disposable and known as railway literature. Marketing played up to this by offering free accidental life insurance, paid by the publisher to anybody with the comic found on their deceased person on a train. A dark and wacky marketing gimmick fitting for the product. Ally Sloper was “the biggest selling penny paper in the world”. Due to its popularity among diverse audiences, it inspired many imitators in terms of style, structure, and strategy. The Ally Sloper model became the template for all future comic businesses to follow. Unfortunately, the only way to compete with Ally Sloper was to undercut it in price, and outdo it for depravity. The “penny dreadful” was replaced with the “ha’penny dreadfuler”, such as Comic Cuts (1890). Profit maximisation for “ha’penny” imitators meant corners were cut, cheaper ink, smaller paper, and abused artists, meant aesthetic quality reduced drastically, even some content was pirated from the United States (Sabin, 2008). With tumbling ethical and artistic standards, the medium had been undermined to an almost unrepairable point, comics had come to be associated with debasement, frivolity, and excluded from legitimate institutional communication systems (Hoover, 2012). In the United States, the comic developed along a different path. The precursors were Swiss artist Rodolphe Toeppfer’s translated Mr. Pencil (1830) and The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck (1837). He is considered by many to be the father of the American picture story; he depicts narratives using detailed large panel illustrations with accompanying captions underneath (Ozenfant, 1952, p.74). There were also transatlantic equivalents to the Victorian era publications: Punch, inspired Puck, Life, and Judge, and London Illustrated News inspired Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper which featured sketches of war, crime, and murder. American culture was naturally receptive to illustrations accompanying text. Mark Twain accompanied his popular novels frequently with insightful story-guiding illustrations, possibly due to the vast range of contextual geography across the United States.

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The ferocious competition among newspapers, with publications running morning, noon, and evening, required a means of standing out and grabbing attention in a crowded market. Single-image illustrations were employed in attempt to boost sales, which evolved into multi-panel strips at the bottom of a page, and later, due to their popularity, to full-colour Sunday supplements between four and eight pages long. Hogan’s Alley (1895) published by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World was the first colour comic and first to popularise speech balloons (bubbles) although The Glasgow Looking Glass (1825) is considered the first to use speech balloons. Hogan’s Alley (1895) depicted the grim life of living in a slum alley in New York’s ghetto tenements. It featured a range of peculiar characters, the regular character the Yellow Kid, was a hyper Irishimmigrant street child in an oversized yellow hand-me-down shirt. People were so interested in the Yellow Kid’s antics they bought the papers just for the comics. The rival spin-off The Yellow Kid, resulted in a legal battle, in which it presided that both it and Hogan’s Alley were eligible to feature the Yellow Kid character. The illustrated narratives spoke to something in the immigrant population, who although were represented stereotypically saw some truth and humour in the comics: “To understand a joke is to understand a culture” (Geertz, 1973). Comics were dramatic, satirical, like caricature, not intended to be offensive but exaggeratory. The Yellow Kid narratives provided a necessary social link among working-class Irish and other immigrants living difficult lives in poverty-stricken slums. In a similar manner the Katzenjammer Kids (1897), featuring two unruly children Fritz and Hans, spoke to the German immigrants of the time, who like Irish immigrants saw caricatures of themselves in the representations. Comics functioned in society as a means of representing those who elsewhere in media were unseen or unrepresented. The reflective style of relatable cultural narratives linked diverse working-class and immigrant audiences, serving as an essential representation to establish a sense of identity and sense of place (Evans & Hall, 1999). Comics were so effective at boosting sales they were allocated more space. With the artist’s creativity liberated and playpen expanded, comics developed rapidly in sophistication of narrative, characters, contexts, illustrations, and overall aesthetical impact. Comics such as Hogan’s Alley/Yellow Kid, Little Nemo in Wonderland (1905), and Katzenjammer Kids contributed greatly to the evolving artistry and universalised much of the visual language and grammar (which will be discussed in the next chapter). The appreciation for visual narratives is remarkable, the visual language and grammar central to the flow of the narrative in comics never had to be explained; it didn’t require a legend or code to decipher; it was organically accessible (Marcoci, 2007). It can be argued that the visual language in comics developed prior to film, and thus aided filmmakers and audiences in understanding creative films like Man with a Movie Camera (1929), discussed in the previous chapter. As the popularity of the medium soared, and complexity of the form evolved, it was utilised to deliver more refined narratives and reflect more complex social worlds. For instance, Gasoline Alley (1918), was set in the garage of a mechanic, a

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novel and exciting social context for the time. Rather than just pure entertainment, it generated insight on a changing United States – how the emerging technology of the automobile was impacting society. Unlike other comic narratives, the characters of Gasoline Alley aged in real-time; it is one of the longest running strips ever, and has cycled through generations of characters, emphasising the “mirror nature” of comic narratives. Wash Tub (1920) is considered the original adventure strip, beyond gags, it created suspense, it had fracas and danger imbedded to ensure readers were invested enough for repeat purchase. Having a continuous and complex narrative allowed for increased audience engagement, ultimately resulting in impactful sales. The futurism central to Flash Gordon (1934), and others in the sci-fi category, feature narratives that explored the anxieties of scientific discovery in an increasingly secular society. Similarly, Charlie’s War (1932) addressed the anxieties and trauma from World War I. Comic books, besides providing laughs, had become central to how society processed and dealt with the effects of change (of technology).

3.5 The fun factory Edwardian publishers provided pull-outs for children within adult titles, featuring illustrations of funny animals and clowns, and minimal text driving the story. Puck (1904) allocated a section for children and within months it was entirely dedicated to children. By the 1930s the sociology of comics had changed drastically: the market for comics among the adult population was declining so publishers focused attention to children. DC Thomson published The Dandy in 1937, intended as an ideal Christmas present and for generations to follow comics became equally associated with childhood as sweets and toys. The Dandy was part-coloured and the first UK comic to use speech balloons, which generated quicker emotional access and natural narrative flow. Within a year, DC Thomson, expanded by introducing The Beano (1938). Both comic books were extremely popular among children, evoking vivid enchantment in contrast to the greys of industrial life. Comic books intervened to facilitate the emerging perspectives and notions of childhood in society: Children were now to be protected from the harsh reality of adult life (Oliver & Belk, 2021). Comic books provided colourful characters and vivid narratives, which generated astonishing degrees of fantasy and wonder in the pre-electric world: An amazing piece of communication technology, stimulating the senses like never before and engaging (children’s) imaginations like no other medium could. Comics became a symbol of empowerment for children; they were given the power to place themselves within the narratives, liberated to co-create idiosyncratically. Many consider comics to be the first interactive toys, because of the opportunities for adaption, change, and to relive the narratives individually (Sabin, 2008). Comic books became so popular they established a thriving consumer culture, old comics were/are circulated, swapped, ensuring not only the physical comics could be a linking factor, but also the narratives that

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have created a shared world of in-jokes among children and adults for generations (Norton, 2003). One of the most popular Dandy characters was Desperate Dan (1937), a largerthan-life cowboy with superhuman strength who ends up in all sorts of hilarious situations and scenarios. Desperate Dan was from Cactusville, a fictitious town characterised by both British and American cultural aspects, which spoke to the intensifying transatlantic cultural links. World War II disrupted the comics market greatly; paper and ink shortages meant even comics were rationed and printed on alternating schedules. Any disruptions suffered were fortified by the post-war baby boom. Post-war Britain required new characters and narratives. Dennis the Menace (1951) was an unruly boy accompanied by his faithful dog Gnasher, both expressively wild (not be confused with US Dennis the Menace (1951) (Blonde), different world, similar plot lines). Although the narrative appeared simple, Dennis would play pranks on the grownups, get caught, and be punished, his unwavering ideology of disruption was an exciting outlet for escape, establishing a sense of rebellion in children living in a strict and orderly society. The anti-establishment ideals and story themes reflected the increasing disruption to British values and traditions. Dennis was non-conforming, disobedient, and provided an ethical barometer for children. Dennis the Menace examined the moral fabric of society and questioned the class system openly, and from a psychological point of view, its illustrations invited readers in at ground level, welcomed in on the action, and as result were more immersed in the world of disruption – in on the act. Also, from the Beano, the Bash Street Kids (1954), marked an evolution in comics. Bash Street Kids was about a group of nine school friends, and the ramifications of their capricious behaviour in the school and surrounding community. The multiple lead characters allowed for increased opportunities to idolise, co-construct narratives, and over time, to establish a more diverse story-world. Bash Street Kids provided a realistic context for children to engage in narrative transportation, for lateral narratives to emerge, and to deal with youth trauma. Its narratives were supported by antiestablishment ideals of challenging the system, questioning authority, and sympathises greatly with the working-class. It deals with themes such as the precariousness of order, rules, and the working of systems. In the United States, publishers’ attention was directed more towards the teenage market. Archie (1939) established a loyal and ritualistic readership for generations (Norton, 2003). Archie details the lives of a group of teenagers from the suburban area Riverdale, located in temperate costal region in the United States. It comprised of roughly 20 stories, and addressed themes such as friendship, school, dating, and family. The stories are humour-driven and feature much play on words, puns, and saturated with sexual innuendo (Lipton, 2008). It differed drastically from the children’s comics genre in that the stories dealt with the mimetic tensions of teenage life. Comic books provide opportunities to deal with the tensions of life – for lateral narratives to emerge – where “as if” worlds can inspire degrees of psychological resolve.

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3.6 Crime, adventure, morality Following the stock market crash and great depression (1929) comics began to explore more serious narratives. Crime fighting emerged as a popular genre. Dick Tracy (1931) featured gripping stories of a brilliant police detective going after nasty criminals. The vivid illustrated narratives were heavily influence by realism and film noir. It dealt with emerging tensions of authority and order in society. It frequently killed off popular characters, which contributed further to suspense. Storylines had a tension and irrationality absent in other popular media narratives of the time. Dick Tracy was followed to market by similar strong characters, notably Flash Gordon (1934) and The Phantom (1936), each provided suspenseful action-based narratives that championed strength and moral fibre while dealing with trauma and transition. Similarly in Britain, as a pointed response to the wild popularity of comics featuring morally questionable characters, Morris Publishers introduced a more wholesome set of narratives. Eagle (1950), featuring Dan Dare (1950), the pilot of the future, who battled Aliens in space trying to conquer Earth. It championed duty, moral character, physical strength, and other masculine ideals of the post-World War II era. It was a publication with an underlying mission of pacifying disruption, seeding Christian ideals, and preserving decent British values being eroded by the Dandy and Beano. Dan Dare marked another evolution in comic art, it utilised forms of objective and archival style drawing. By the 1950s there was a market for increased attention to detail and contextual accuracy for uniforms, machinery, weapons, and planes. Illustrations were becoming so extravagantly detailed physical models and consultants were required to aid realism. This was partly due to the popularity of cinema, the accuracy of detail, narrative structures, and emotional resonance. The application and sophistication of framing, perspective, narrative flow, emotional resonance, and style coevolved in both comics and cinema, both contributed to the intensifying global visual language, grammar, and culture. Dan Dare is also notable because it commanded both a middle and lower-class readership; it was a cultural phenomenon selling over a million copies per issue, and even inspired crossover media adaptions performed through radio and on stage. Publishers explored many sub-genres in attempt to increase sales and reflect consumer interests. Hand in hand with television came the magnification of the celebrity, cultural idol, and sport superstar. The sport hero was another archetype to represent and champion battle, strength of character, and moral fibre (Bathes, 2013): Typified by the eponymous Roy of the Rovers (1954). It championed intricate illustration and storylines about the on and off field life of football (soccer) star Roy Race, the striker for the fictitious Melchester Rovers (and later player-manager). It was known for its intense action and cliff-hanger plot lines in which Roy was positioned to save the day. Roy of the Rovers inspired a range of adaptions and merchandise, even a chewy tangy pineapple candy bar, which became a cultural icon in its own right.

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3.7 An afterthought for the girls The focus of the comic market was predominantly male-orientated. Some comics featured female characters to attract female audiences, but female appearances were mostly sexist (Gibson, 2016; Toku, 2007). Women played the sidekick, subservient sex object, or victim character, primarily included as a device to keep the plot unfolding. Little Orphan Annie (1937), Tillie the Toiler (1941), and Little Lulu (1945) enjoyed some popularity but the girls’ market was less understood due to the male-dominated nature of the corporate boardroom. Wonder Woman (1942) is the most notable character, she championed women’s rights, strength, and independence. However, Wonder Woman (1945), and other idols like Sheena, Queen of The Jungle (1939), are argued to be equally directed at male audiences given the sexualised imagery (Emad, 2006). The teen girl comic craze emerged in the 1940s with many titles attempting to recreate appeal of Archie: Candy (1947), Dotty (1948), Vicky (1948), Kathy (1949), and fashion titles such as Millie the Model (1945) and Patsy Walker (1945). An extension of teen comic craze was the confessional style romance magazine. Young Romance (1947), that featured heavy eroticism was at its peak selling a million copies per issue. Some innovation in the British girl market also occurred in the 1950s. The first major comic title was School Friends (1950); the tone was middle class and “jolly hockey sticks” and themes revolved around boarding school, and social status, where nice girls stuck up for friends and disapproved of bad behaviour (Sabin, 2008). Girl and Kitty Hawk (1951) were sister comics to Eagle and Dan Dare and produced with exceptionally high quality, but the boy formula did not work in the girl market. The thematic focus instead turned to ballet, equestrian sport, love, and school. By the late 1950s the romance genre emerged, it flirted with an older girl audience and frequently alluded to adult relationships, true love, sex, marriage, and so on, while attempting to maintain the veneer of innocent sensibilities. Attempting to mimic successes in the boy’s market, publishers in the UK introduced a range of cultural icons: Keyhole Kate, Beryl the Peril, and Minnie the Minx. Observing the popularity of Dennis the Menace, DC Thomson introduced Minnie the Minx (1954) as a female equivalent. She possessed the same thirst for adventure and disruption as Dennis, and a similar look. DC Thomson also published Bunty (1958), which adopted a cheap and cheerful look but followed a different formula; it portrayed a child alone figuring out the world and trying to do the right thing; it was often cruel with stories involving bullying, pickpockets, bickering, misunderstandings, petty school rivalries, and hatred. The most popular strip, The Four Marys, was a tale about a boarding school but much darker than any girl comic prior. The Bunty formula was a massive hit and paved the way for the 8–12 year old girl market. DC Thomson followed with Judy (1960), Diana (1963), and Mandy (1967). Spotting changes in youth culture, hybrid publications emerged that mixed comics, women’s magazines, and pop culture content, such as Jackie (1964). In Jackie, characters were not school children but wage-earning adults enjoying their new-found freedoms, which

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was a major draw for readers (Sabin, 2008). Strips were romantic and adventurous in nature, with psychological depth and cinematic styling. Jackie became the natural lineage for Bunty readers. It was the final major success of the British women’s comic boom. Competition arose in the 1970s in the form of Tammy (1971) and Jinty (1974). New launches were frequently accompanied with free jewellery to inspire sales as the market dipped. Culture progressed rapidly and publications like Jackie (1964) got left behind, girls became more worldly in line with TV society.

3.8 Superhero and identity myths The superhero genre is probably the most well-known globally given the numerous cross-media narratives it continues to inspire. Influenced by the styling of crime and adventure comics, the superhero genre challenged the rudimentary chess-board style of narrative presentation. Detective Comics (1937) and Action Comics (1938) spawned the superhero craze which continues to inspire multi-media rejuvenations. The Phantom (1936), “the ghost who walks”, was the original superhero, although not the most well-known. Superman (1938), Batman (1939), and Spiderman (1962) epitomise the genre, debates over which has been the most impactful dominate comic book fan forums. Superman arrived as champion of the oppressed, capturing drunks, gamblers, and wife beaters, before his role evolved to hold the balance of world order. Superman, a modern Jesus-type character, provided society with the alternative identity myths it required, the new narratives to shape ideologies and guide future action (McLaughlin, 2005). Similarly, Batman provided an alternative mythology and a new barometer of justice, moral fibre, and psychology to reflect the times (Garrett, 2008). He had no actual superpower (besides gross wealth); it championed athletic capabilities, the importance of mentorship, and technological innovation. Superhero comics were an instant cultural phenomenon; the magnitude of successful titles alone is a testament to the artistic style and audience engagement evoked. Other characters like Captain Marvel (1941), Captain America (1941), Wonder Woman (1942), and Plastic Man (1943), and hundreds more, shaped the ideology of the time. Plastic Man for instance, “the miracle material”, flexible to any situation and indestructible, shaped perspectives on plastic, the environmental ramifications of which may never be addressed. In post-war America, Western movies were adapted into comic books, and were so popular they were compared to printing money: there was a socio-cultural appeal to hero narratives which reflected an America looking in on itself (Johnson, 2014). In the 1950s a backlash against comics disrupted the appeal for superhero comics. The establishment of the comics code resulted in a sanitised comic book era, plummeting sales, and reduced lines. Narratives switched to implicit rather than explicit action moments and illustrations focused more on suspense than gore. The fantasy nature of superhero narratives meant they could weave within the code while still

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providing excitement. Marvel focused on the personalities and emotions of the superheroes rather than mere endless action, thus creating more humanised kinds of fantasy engagement and massive appeal: The Fantastic Four (1961), Hulk (1962), and Amazing Spiderman (1963), later evolved into the Marvel universe because of the interplay and linking ability of narratives. Each comic, movie, and series, can be collected to build the Marvel universe, which continues to inspire a global club of loyal fans (Gibson et al., 2016).

3.9 Backlash: the comics code authority The opening of global markets intensified competition and increased experimentation in comics, giving rise to more gruesome illustrations and intense horribleness. The narratives were seen to be debasing society by sensationalising crime, and the romance storylines and curvy females were believed to be turning boys into sex-mad animals. Comics were seen to be sexually aggressive in an abnormal way (Emad, 2006). The comic production staff were not diverse, written by men for men and boys, and as a result featured sexist storylines. (Brown, 2004). Comic books, like other visual media, were influenced heavily by colonial arrogance and framing. The colonisers of the world constructed every other culture and race as inferior, and as a result, comic books perpetuated racism (Carrington & Short, 1984). Drawings and dialogue accompanying Irish, Black, Chinese, German, and indigenous people were stereotypical and exaggerated, perspectives far from enlightening by today’s levels of cultural awareness (Billig, 2005; Lockyer & Pickering, 2008; Hunt, 2019). Happy Hooligan, for instance, an out-of-work homeless silly Irishman who wandered the United States ending up in all sorts of mischief, portrayed Irish immigrants in a stereotypical although not an unreal manner (Ross, 2003). The etymology of the word “hooligan” began in comics, later transitioning into common language as a term for deviant. Comic books were blamed for all manner of societal and cultural ill; viewed to be dragging culture down by providing cheap thrills, overly stimulating, concretising slang, upsetting the status quo, and promoting vulgarity. Comics were associated with stupidity, simple minds, and thought to be brutalising education standards in society. However, the high-horse hysteria from parents, religious authorities, politicians, and teachers acknowledged the power of the medium, but they lacked an understanding of the nature of the form. Comic books were even demonstratively gathered and burned in a ritualistic sense of duty. As a result of the persistent backlash, publishers aligned to create the Comics Code Authority in 1954. Its purpose was to ensure a dilution of content and sanitisation of narrative. One way to circumvent the comics code was to write different kinds of stories; creators were pushed to find further niches and develop new ways of showing and telling. The rejuvenation of the superhero boom in the 1960s can be credited to the code, as narratives moved from pure action

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to covertness, emotionality, tension, and implied gruesomeness, which built suspensful narratives and intensified reader enjoyments.

3.10 Comix: the counter-cultural code The late 1960s saw the emergence of the “underground comics” movement, a genre humorous in style, politically radical, artistically innovative, and ideologically disruptive (Rosenkranz, 2002). These titles were antithetical to do the mainstream, referred to as “comix” to emphasis the explicit content. Comix spoke to the counter-culture: “the kids had grown up”, meaning topics such as drugs, war, protests, rock music, and sex featured (Sabin, 2006). The underground phenomenon emerged as a response to the comics code, and as such, more prevalent in the United States than in Britain. The comics code stipulated “no sex”, “no drugs”, “no violence”, and “no social relevance”, underground creators celebrated these categories to full extreme. Comix were essential to linking the thriving hippie counter-culture and contributed to the awakenings around the Vietnam War, civil rights struggles, anarchism, racism, socialism, women’s and gay liberation, and so on. Comix were where those unrepresented could be represented, interact, and co-shape alternative anti-mainstream sentiments. Resistance, radical disruption, and revolution encapsulate the main themes of the style. At the peak of the boom, thousands of self-published comix were being sold through underground circles. Like early “penny dreadfuls”, comix made use of savvy distribution and were sold primarily alongside drug paraphernalia, psychedelic posters, and other counter-culture artefacts (Estren, 2012). Zap Comix (1968) is considered the catalyst of the comix movement, followed by a host of other influential works by Robert Crumb. The dark satirical take on life, brimming with socialist and anarchistic sensibilities, and seething disgust for the behaviour and systems unfolding in society, held a mirror to society and encapsulated the desire for change (Jones, 2007). Crumb’s style was the totem for the genre, he inspired many Crumb-like illustrations with more spectacular narratives and even more abstract expressionism (Pekar, 1970). Art Spiegelman’s early work particularly Ace Hole, Midget Detective (1974) revolutionised how narratives unfold through the use of creative panelling. There was a solid market for women’s comix, they featured much darker female content than any previous female genre. Besides satire and sex, the horror genre was the next most popular in comix. The horror genre pushed writers’ and artists’ creative talents more so than slapstick or smut; horror required a solid plot that built suspense and evoked terror; illustrations had to be psychologically disturbing, and feature uncanny characters and gruesomeness. A number of things contributed to the comix bubble bursting. In contrast to the commercial production line format, the comix self-published nature meant that one creator controlled the entire process from writing to illustration (Sabin, 2006). Works were more diverse but much slower: many titles ran for only one issue or suffered

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chasms between issues. Because the barriers to entry in the comix market were low, many titles lacked nuance, consistency, and sophistication. As is the cycle, counterculture began being co-opted by the mainstream (Goulding & Saren, 2009), comix came into the spotlight, resulting in the pacification and sanitisation of the genre. Marvel published Comix Book (1977), which matched the tone of what was tolerated by mainstream consumers. Similarily, Griffith’s Zippy Stories (1977), about a clownsuit wearing free-associating idiot savant obsessed with artefacts illuminates the consumerist obsessions of the time. The sanitisation resulted in the comedy and political genres maintaining some relevancy but comix could no longer inspire the alternative perspectives it once did. The hippie counterculture energy that once supported the movement had been commercialised – zapped. The same comix energy didn’t emerge in the UK, no strong women’s market emerged, and a 1973 court ruling banned obscenities and pornographic material. The Punk movement in the UK began to dominate counterculture ideologies. Punk brought with it a dynamic social energy, a distrust of authority, it romanticised the working-class, and fetishised violence (Field et al., 2019): Comix by comparison seemed outdated. The social energy of Punk did inspire two impactful comics – 2000AD, most famous for Judge Dredd – and the materialisation of Thatcherite politics; it was a bleak warning for the dearth freedoms of the future and an instant Scifi hit. The other less specialised publication was Viz (1970), an adult humour title, violent, brutal, offensive, indecent, vulgar, and funny. It was a magazine-comichybrid and revised the narrative and illustration style of the Beano and Dandy. Pop stars, politicians, and royalty were savagely critiqued. Due to its significant cultural impact, as being the manifestation of counter-cultural identity it was a legitimate concern for the establishment. Right-wing media and politicians viewed Viz as a complete disregard for moral decency and left-wing media criticised the sexist narratives (only 15% female readership) (Sabin, 2008).

3.11 Critical comic industry Gordon (2000) credits the rise of comic art to the expansion of a culture of consumption – comics were used to sell toys, shoes, and even bread. The evolution of the comic medium benefitted from several commercial accelerations; originally they were only marketing gimmicks to sell more newspapers. The comic book medium was designed to be magnetic, to be sticky, to generate profit, and only because of its successful commercial application, was it given more freedom to evolve characters, continuous narratives, exciting contexts, colour, style, and genres. The evolution of the comic book is a result of the thirst for profits, writers’ humour, artists’ illustrations, and audience receptivity. It is easy to see why such an expressive medium rose to popularity; the speed of narrative addressed the intensifying pace of the changing

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world, and provided a liberation from the linear and rational structure of traditional textual narratives. The frequency of publications and unrestrictive nature of illustrative content allowed for significant market research to be conducted, which was later used to influence narratives, contexts, and characters (Sabin, 2008). Part of the popularity is down to this relatable nature of the narratives, unlike religious texts or great novels of the time, they were designed to be responsive and reflective of the needs of the time. As such, comics were much more sensationalist in comparison to other media, characters, themes, and content, could be swapped in and out from week to week to match the market’s desires. Characters that often only had one intended role to play became sensations and spawned their own titles: Popeye (1929), for example. However, behind the lines and laughter, were abusive working conditions. Anonymisation, a practice necessary in the early days of satirical art to avoid death, was enforced by publishers. Ostensibly not to break the “fourth wall”, arguing that if artists signed their work children would know they were illustrations and it would spoil the fun. A more plausible reason is that anonymisation reduced the artists’ power. Publishers maintained the rights to artists’ characters and promoted a culture centred on cutting corners to maximise profit. It is a testament to the skill and intelligence of the artists to be able to produce such wonderful narratives working under such terrible conditions (Chenault, 2007). The escapism, fantasy, and democratic ideology embedded in the comic book form speaks to their experience. By the 1990s the attention market was too competitive, the comic industry imploded and had to adjust to stay afloat among the digital media onlsaught.

3.12 Cross-media supersystems For the comic industry to survive it had to borrow from other media, while of course cartoons, short stories, and novels were adapted previously, comic books now had to interplay with, film, TV shows, and toys to maintain relevancy in an intensifying global visual culture. Although the excitement for comic books began to wane, the forms of cross and integrated storytelling that emerged reinforced the legitimacy and dominance of the visual. What Jenkins (2006) would call convergence: referring to the flow of narratives across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of audiences that interact with any medium in search of entertainment experiences. TV and film drew from comic book language to legitimise themselves and associate with the established comic audiences. The iconic television series Batman (1966), being a notable cross-media adaption, it even preserved some of the visual language central to comics, BAM!, SPLAT!, and so on. Many actors on the show became cultural icons due their roles, the series still enjoys a cult following. Narrative convergence is typified by the superhero film industry (Herbert, 2020), now estimated to be worth

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$3.19 billion annually in the US alone. (Statitsa, 2023, https://www.statista.com/topics/ 4741/superhero-movies/#topicOverview). Within entertainment culture, the comic book was relegated to niche and cult status. The comic book industry attempted to borrow from TV audiences by illustrating narratives such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Transformers. The cross-media convergence that began in the 1990s was a catalyst for entrainment spectacles (Fisk, 1986) and narrative simulacrum supersystems (Kinder, 1991; Baudrillard, 1994). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1984) was a major comic crossover, a multi and transmedia assault. Although the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book was a product of the non-commercial underground, the power and originality of narrative has been abused for commercial interests. The children’s TV cartoon was immensely popular and spawned all manner of merchandise. A specific travesty to the narrative was that toy manufacturing, and the spare parts in the factory, drove narrative innovation in the story-world, such as new characters, themes, and plots. In the transition from comic to TV, the commercial intervention transformed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into a narrative simulacrum – a profit supersystem consisting of movies, toys, objects, cartoons, comics, and computer games, captivating children in a media merchandise blanket and influencing their behaviour in commercial orientated ways (Carlson-Paige & Levin, 1991). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a billion-dollar supersystem. Disney maybe the pinnacle of the narrative supersystem – it has influenced generations of moral perspectives – a simulacrum supercluster comprising a multitude of supersystems. There is an established link between comic books and computer games (Guardara, 2017), some argue that the “as if” thinking and imagination central to comics inspired the creation of computer games. Both rely on the theory of subcreation and audience participation to build imaginary story-worlds within the narrative being presented (Wolf, 2014). Some computer game narratives transitioned to the world comics and enjoyed a modicum of success: Sonic the Comic (1993), Mortal Kombat (1994), and Street Fighter (2003). Due to the ease of narrative associations and imagination touch points in both comics and computer games, a multitude of digital comicgame hybrid have emerged and continue to evolve (Backe, 2020). The digital-comic culture supersystem inspires rich expression, cultural openness, and diversity, typified by Comic-Con community (Jenkins, 2012; Kohnen, 2014).

3.13 Graphic novels and moral seriousness Adults began losing interest in comics and perceived them as something that should come free with the newspaper, the colours became associated with youth and frivolity, and themes considered gratuitously vulgar. The graphic novel emerged as a matured and refined comics medium– positioned to adults as a “sophisticated” alternative to “childish” comic books. Graphic novels are generally defined as lengthy comics in book

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form with thematic unity, and a dramatic story arc with a distinct start, middle, and end. The graphic novel opened up increased storytelling possibilities (Stein & Thon, 2013). The fuller narratives provide additional time/space resources for building tension, generating atmosphere, and developing characters and themes (Sabin, 2008). Batman Dark Knight (1986) and Watchmen (1986) are considered to be the earliest successful commercial graphic novel. The most valuable dimension of the maturity embedded in the graphic novel form is its ability to confront the human condition, to explore themes of moral seriousness and moral responsibility and intensify them (Meskin, 2006). Take for example, Art Speigelman’s Maus (1986), comprised using research and interviews with his father, he represents his father’s life as a Holocaust survivor in Nazi Germany. Maus captures the hyperintensity of Auschwitz. The narrative deals openly with issues of moral seriousness: survival, sacrifice, oppression, family discord, and the hellacious nature of massacre (Hardy-Vallée, 2007). Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Tragicomic juxtaposed the story of the author’s coming out with her father’s closeted existence and suicide. Another example of the graphic novel’s ability to intensify the realities of human existence is Michael Sloan’s Welcome to the New World (The New York Times Pulitzer Prize 2018 for excellence in journalism). Welcome to the New World illustrates the story of two Syrian families who sought refuge from the war and devastating humanitarian crisis, and their subsequent assimilation experiences in the United States. The emotionally gripping narrative captures the disorientation, conflict, terror, cycles of hope and disappointment, and fear constant in the lives of those seeking refuge in the United States. Similarly, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis recounts growing up in pre-revolutionary Iran and the subsequent displacement and exile. Joe Sacco’s graphic journalism (The Fixer, Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde, and others) provides perspectives from conflict zones in Bosnia and Palestine. These illustrators placed personal narratives against powerful historical backdrops, produced detailed contextual knowledge on trauma while also serving as portent for future action. The atmosphere of maturity observed in the graphic novel comic book evolution will be useful for academia to explore.

3.14 Globality and blind spots The above origin story, milestones, examples and dominant cultural themes are reflective of my spoken languages (English, Gaeilge) and Irish cultural background, wedged between influences from the United States and Britain. Thus, the discussion has several blind spots due to linguistic and cultural barriers. For instance, the cultural blueprint in Japan alone warrants a detailed investigation beyond the scope of this project: The business volume of comics in Japan is 50 times that of the United States, making up 40% of the printed material compared to a miniscule 3% of the US print market. American comics enjoyed a long tradition of being translated globally. Disney’s global grip has reached children in every corner of the world: Arabic Mickey

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(1968), for instance, the Arabic translation of Mickey Mouse. American comics have had a significant impact globally, a role Japanese manga is now starting to play. Manga are usually published in monthly anthologies and then in small pocket–size book called tankobon, consisting of 300–400 black-and-white pages; they have inspired global adaptions, such as “nouvelle manga” in France, “spaghetti manga” in Italy, and “amerimanga” in the United States; unfortunately “paddymanga” has yet to emerge in Ireland. Following World War II, and the destabilised American dominance in global comic book culture, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Mexican, Scandinavian, and Japanese artist and writers created comic book stories, characters, and art, reflecting their national culture, rather than having the text in American comics translated. As Zanettin (2015) illustrates with regard to comic books, translating from one text language to another is not translating the comic but only one semiotic element. Different systems of signs and symbols structure the different visual cultures globally – thus illustrations take on different meanings – gestures, body language, and so on mean different things. While the narrative can still be enchanting and impactful, thin layers of impact are lost due to lack of cultural knowledge. France, Belgium, and Italy are the European countries where the comic book commanded the greatest levels of readership and widest recognition. The genealogy and application were not attached to newspapers as a sidekick but were respected as stand-alone media. Asterix and Obelix (1959) and Tintin (1929) are notable examples that have been translated into many languages globally. The most common French format is the album, 48–64 full colour A4 pages, typically hardbound, directed to upper-market readership, and distributed in bookshops. In Italy the most common format is the “notebook” or “bonelli”, format comprised of around 100 black-andwhite pages. However, in Italy, comic book stories were not confined to children’s themes, they explored gruesome horror and even pornography. Globally, the comic book continues to evolve because of the magic of the form, the way it captures attention and excites audiences. Thus, prior to exploring the ways in which the comic book structure can be adopted in research contexts, it is vital to explore the unique language and grammar underlying the form – how it works on audiences.

3.15 Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to provide some historical context on the emergence of the comic book form, its evolutions, milestones, and cultural impacts. The chapter emphasises the historical popularity of graphic narratives, their ability to captivate diverse audiences, and communicate a variety of cultural themes. The trajectory of the comic book medium displays a maturing effect in which the structure is being put to use for more emotionally gripping narratives and to document humanly interesting themes in difficult contexts. A number of fan favourites and cult classics have been

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referred to throughout the chapter. While supporting images would have improved reader experience, the space for images has been reserved for the novel research applications to follow. The magic central to the language and grammar of the comic book form will be explored in the next chapter.

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Hunt, W. (2019). Negotiating new racism:‘it’s not racist or sexist. it’s just the way it is’. Media, Culture & Society, 41(1), 86–103. Jenkins, H. (2006). Introduction:“worship at the altar of convergence”. In Convergence culture (pp. 1–24). New York University Press. Jenkins, H. (2012). Superpowered fans: the many worlds of san diego’s comic-con. Boom: A Journal of California, 2(2), 22–36. Jones, M. T. (2007). The creativity of crumb: research on the effects of psychedelic drugs on the comic art of robert crumb. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 39(3), 283–291. Johnson, J. K. (2014). Super-history: Comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present. McFarland. Kinder, M. (1991). Playing with power in movies, television, and video games: from muppet babies to teenage mutant ninja turtles. Univ of California Press. Kohnen, M. (2014). ‘the power of geek’: fandom as gendered commodity at comic–con. Creative Industries Journal, 7(1), 75–78. Lamb, C. (2004). Drawn to extremes: the use and abuse of editorial cartoons. Columbia University Press. Lipton, M. (2008). Queer readings of popular culture. Queer Youth Culture, 163–180 Lockyer, S., & Pickering, M. (2008). You must be joking: the sociological critique of humour and comic media. Sociology Compass, 2(3), 808–820. Marcoci, R. (2007). Comic abstraction: image breaking, image making. The Museum of Modern Art. McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: the invisible art. Northampton, Mass, 7, 4. McLaughlin, J. (Ed.). (2005). Comics as philosophy. Univ. Press of Mississippi. Meskin, A. (2009). Comics as Literature? The British Journal of Aesthetics, 49(3), 219–239. Norton, B. (2003). The motivating power of comic books: insights from archie comic readers. The Reading Teacher, 57(2), 140–147. Oliver, M. A., & Belk, R. W. (Eds.). (2021). Like a child would do: an interdisciplinary approach to childlikeness in past and current societies. Universitas Press. Ozenfant, A. (1952). Foundations of modern art. Dover publications. Pekar, H. (1970). Rapping about cartoonists, particularly robert crumb. Journal of Popular Culture, 3(4), 677. Rosenkranz, P. (2002). Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963–1975. Fantagraphics Books. Ross, S. D. (2003). Images of irish americans: invisible, inebriated, or irascible. Images that Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, 131–140 Sabin, R. (2008). Comics, comix and graphic novels. Snow, E. (1997). Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Children’s Games. Macmillan. Stein, D., & Thon, J. N. (2013). From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels. In Contribution to the theory and history of graphic narrative (pp. 37). Berlin and NY: de Gruyter publications, Narratologia Series, Book. Toku, M. (2007). Shojo manga! girls’ comics! a mirror of girls Dreams. Mechademia, 2(1), 19–32. Wolf, M. J. (2014). Building Imaginary Worlds: The Theory and History of Subcreation. Routledge. Zanettin, F. (2015). Comics in Translation. Routledge.

Chapter 4 How comic books work: the anatomy of magic 4.1 Introduction This chapter explores the underlying mechanics of the comic book medium, how its unique language and grammar works to excite audiences. The chapter opens by examining the nature of the form, its ideology, and underlying message. Discussion then explores whether comic books should be classified as art, literature, or something entirely unique? From there, the inner workings and exciting communication facilitators are explored in detail, such as the splash page, panel imagery, prose and text, visualtextual conjunctions, multimodality, narrative binocularity, the gutters and gaps essential for meaning-making, and the devices used to signify shifts in ontology. By understanding the functions underlying the comic book structure, it will be easier to adapt and employ to tasks within the research process.

4.2 Comic books: a unique magic It is useful to subject the comic book to a similar scrutiny applied to media in Chapter 1: What did the comic book offer society? What was its underlying message? With regard to their socio-cultural impacts, McAllister et al. (2001) question whether comics are a mechanism to legitimise dominant values and institutions in society or a means to critique them. Do they challenge or perpetuate power differences in society? Comic books arrived as the medium to facilitate the cultural transition from a world of words to one of images. They produced an alternative mythology that forced society to reflect on cultural issues, while providing links among those elsewhere unrepresented in society (Chute & DeKoven, 2006). Comic books forged an ideology of disruption that challenged the dominant systems of meanings in society: the rationality of time, sequencing, order, and tradition. The individual was liberated from institutional narratives and dogma and granted power to imagine personalised narratives, and alternative modes of existence (Pustz, 2012). In doing so, comic books fostered an imaginative agency, people were no longer followers as is the case with the consumption of religious, government, or news stories, but co-creators. This change contributed to radical shifts in social perspectives (Thomas, 2011). The comic book provided opportunities for new thinking; it challenged rational and linear thinking established with printing. The audience is more involved in comics, required for meaning-making, and thus, naturally more attached to the narrative. Such intense engagement allows for a multitude of possible lateral narratives to emerge (Borodo, 2015). The comic book is interactive, interpretative, and imaginative; it fosters multiple interpretations across time and audi-

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ence; it’s accessible and accelerative in how it captivates attention; magnetic in terms of narrative appeal. Because of the diverse range of titles, debates in the field of comics and graphic narrative focus attention to the categorisation of the form (Thomas, 2011; Baetens, 2008). Should the comic book medium be considered literature or art? With little room for disagreement, some comic books can display masterful levels of artistry but classifying them only as art is limiting (Short & Reeves, 2009). Many comic books also possess the characteristics indicative of great works of literature, such as being wellwritten, display an evolution of characters, plot, story arc, and depth of emotional engagement. As such, Alley Slopper’s Half Holiday can be legitimately likened to Joyce’s Ulysses or Hogan’s Alley/The Yellow Kid to Dickins’ Great Expectations. However, comparison to great works of literature is also too limiting. What can be surmised is that some comics can be classified as art, but not all, and some comics can be classified as literature, but not all. To avoid the polarity, Meskin (2009) suggests that comic books should be considered a hybrid art form that evolved from literature, a number of art forms, and commercial interests. Chute and DeKoven (2006) also argue that comic books are a hybrid form as they draw from both high and low cultural indexes, feature diverse genres and life themes, and are constituted in verbal and visual narratives that not only synthesise but are mutative of each other. As such, the meanings are not confined in comics, but are open to co-creation (Beatens, 2008). Sabin (2008) claims comic books should be classified as a unique stand-alone medium, because as the reader moves through the narrative it requires meaning-making like in no other medium. Comic books foster the intelligence and imagination of the reader, by inviting them in as narrative co-creator. Comic books are poly-semiotic texts, in that they use visual and or/auditory channels in addition to the verbal. In comic books different (culturally determined) semiotic systems coexist and interplay (Zanettin, 2015a). The multiplicity of semiotic systems, which Barberri (1991) refers to as the language of comics, includes visual systems such as illustration, caricature, painting, photography, and graphics, temporality systems, comprising of written narratives, poetry, and music, and mixed systems of images, because story-worlds are performed and characters are shown “acting” (cinema and theatre). What differentiates comic books is that the temporal narratives are formed by the juxtaposition of a sequence of two or three panels. The story-world is constructed by the reader as they move between the sequential gaps and fill them with expectations and world knowledge (Zanettin, 2015b). Comic books work through ellipsis, meaning the time of narration is independent from that of seeing/reading. Then, given the uniqueness of the reader experience and opportunities for creative narrative engagement, comic books should be classified as an exciting stand-alone medium, with its own unique communication logics that generate a sense of magic only it can create.

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4.3 The unique language and grammar Comic books can inspire the construction of vast story-worlds with unlimited possibilities of narrative trajectory, meaning-making, and knowledge generation. So how do comic books, a seemingly childish technology of communication, work to produce such engaging narratives? The enchantment central to the comic experience is due to the unique language and grammar established by the interplay of the visual, textual, and imaginative elements of audience engagement (Barberri, 1991). Whitlock (2006) provides clarity on the inner workings of vocabulary in the comic book medium: The vocabulary of comics represents figures and objects across a wide iconic range from the abstraction of cartooning to realism; its grammar is based on panels [images] and gutters [the gaps in the narrative] that translate time and space onto the page . . . and balloons [bubbles] enclose speech and convey the character of sound and emotion. (square brackets added)

Because of the multiplicity of the vocabulary at play, the range in the style of comics is far more variable than other narrative media (Horstkotte, 2013). Thus, it could hold much potential for adaption to support the research process (which will be explored in the chapters to follow). Over the years, the nature of how comics are consumed has changed, while people still read handheld paper comics that encourage pause and embodied engagement, others have moved to the digital consumption of web comics that provide a scroll and click engagement. Regardless of mode of consumption, all comics possess similar mechanics that captivate audiences and inspire personalised engagement. However, there is not a sole language of comics; global comic book culture is comprised of “comic dialects”, each cultural tradition rich in its own specifications and conventions.

4.4 Splash page: contextualisation Readers are introduced to the narrative world by means of a conventional starting point – the splash (or cover page). The splash consists of a full-page panel and sets the tone of the narrative adventure to come much like the establishing shot in a movie. The purpose of the splash page is to initiate interest in context, themes, characters, symbols, and atmosphere (Horstkotte, 2013). The comic book splash provides a window into the carnivalesque world inside. However, comic book covers were far more spectacular than the actual illustrations inside. As the medium matured in genre, artistry, style, and so on, the cover played a role in contextualising what the readership should expect (children vs teen, boy vs girl, war vs funnies, etc.) The splash page entices the viewer to ask: What is this story about? Where could it evolve to? The comic book splash page is a flash of excitement designed to catch attention and stimulate thinking about the world within.

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4.5 Panel images: windows of action In comics, panel imagery carry the bulk of the narrative. McCloud (2008) suggests panels are expressionistic and convey emotion through drawing and colour. Panel images make use of the principles of implication, identification, and shifting perspectives. They offer a vivid pathway into other senses by stimulating interpretive responses. The panel imagery fractures both time and space, offering a series of windows into a story-world (Whitlock, 2006). The arrangement of panels provides readers with lucid flashes of a reality – moments of action in an emerging narrative. Narrative panels transition from either action-to-action, moment-to-moment, or subject-to-subject to heighten humour, tension, or dread. Panel imagery can range from photographic realism, to abstract surrealism, or maximum iconicity, such as cartoonised drawings. Panels are interpreted by readers in the context of page layout and composition. The page is the unit of reading. When stories last several pages, each page is interpreted in relation to the pages preceding and following. Pagination has an impact on reading and is often exploited for dramatic purposes and narrative peaks. Despite panels possessing a logic of sequence, each reader engages with the unfolding images uniquely. There are many ways the panels unfold in the narrative, the Z-path style of reading, the gestalt reading of the amalgamated images, or the more traditional left-to -right readings, or in manga, right-to-left. Cohn (2013) suggests that because of the visual attention demanded, comic book readers are required to expand beyond their normal strategies of processing. Instead, readers develop idiosyncratic strategies via an interpretive ensemble, consisting of the identified narrative entry points, the navigation of blockages, impression of boarders, frames, and the negotiation of conflicting images. Despite the structural similarities, every comic inspires a unique form of engagement. Even different pages within an individual comic book may utilise alternative layouts or panel styles, requiring the reader to develop and employ new strategies of meaning-making. Thus, readers are constantly engaged, because they are required to move the moments of action along the lines of interactive narrative. Vivid colour, facial expressions, body language, gestures, movements, clothing, objects, physicality, spacing, and positioning try to fascinate the reader and intensify the context (Snyder, 1997). Within panel images, movement, action, and sensation is implied using speed lines, smell lines, light lines, and sparkling. Particularly evident in Roy of the Rovers, in which a white trail line depicts the path the ball has travelled, thus, adding a narrative expansion to the image. Traditionally, white-cross shaped bandages or a red bump indicates pain, sweat drops indicate nervousness or stress, and steam coming off someone indicates anger. A character suddenly falling to the floor in manga is typically used to show irony, humour, or reaction to a bad pun, the sudden growing of cat fangs implies feeling “catty”, and a bloody nose implies impure thoughts. Words can also have a graphic substance, in form, style, or positioning, which make them part of the picture, rather than as pure layered text. Sounds tend to be represented in a sonographic manner within comics, as onomatopoeic words like

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THUMP!, WHACK!, and SPLAT! and non-lexical strings of symbols called a grawlix: What the #@*%!?

4.6 Layered text: association and identification The major criticism of the comic medium, incited by those who don’t understand it, is the lack of heavy prose. It gives rise to the false expectation that comics diminish learning skills. However, the comic book project (Bitz, 2004), which saw the introduction of comic books in the classroom, facilitated multiple learning pathways into literacy and boosted language skills effectively. Prior to Yellow Kid and its innovative use of text within illustrations to accelerate the narrative (on kid’s shirt for example), text was kept separate and placed beneath images for explanation rather than interaction with the visuals. Like how text is employed in Mr. Pencil (1830) (Ozenfant, 1952, p. 74). Prose in comic books arrives in the form of speech or thought balloons (bubbles). Readers must distinguish in the narrative between what the reader knows, what all characters know, and that which is known only by certain characters in the storyworld. The inclusion of text boxes allows for third-party identification and for the narrative to be imparted either by a neutral observer or close to action confessor. Some contextual grounding takes place within the orderly space of text boxes, such as scene setting, locating time or space, or generating suspense to frame excitement. Although emotions can be implied by illustrations, the interplay between the textual and visual reveal intensified themes. Unlike novel or film, the comic book reader has control as to what unfolds. Within comic books text builds the narrative by closing off possible interpretations that emerged from the visual narrative interplay. The treatment of illustration and prose as separate in comics is unhelpful. An interaction and association exists between the visual and textual elements of a comic that generates multiple possible meanings. These visual-textual conjunctions are what contribute to the interactive logic and narrative magic central to how comics create meaning – why they can be humours – suspenseful – and cause dissonance. The power of visual-textual conjunctions to captivate is typified by Internet meme culture.

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4.7 Modality and binocularity Hirsch (2004) uses the term “binocularity” to discuss the distinctive visual-textual conjunctions that occur in comic books. Readers are required to interpret back-and-forth between the images and words: revealing the visuality and materiality of the words and discursivity and narrativity of the images (Hirsch, 2004). It is through this backand-forth process that each reader constructs a personalised narrative, which expands as more narrative resources unfold across the page. The unique relationship between the visual and textual modes in comic books enhances the potential for readers to feel the narrative (McAllister et al., 2001). A mode is considered any socially constructed resource for meaning-making governed by a specific cultural logic or language system (Kress, 2000). As such, pictorial images, gesture, posture, or gaze, should not be viewed as illustration of the textual but as separate modes that contribute to meaningmaking. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2002) emphasise that many modes contribute to meaning-making; the adoption “of several semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic product or event” is referred to as multimodality. Groff (2013) describes two visual processing systems central to the mind-brain relationship. The visual-object pathway process information about the visual pictorial appearance of detailed images, individual objects, and scenes in terms of their shape, colour, and texture. The visual-spatial pathway processes spatial relations, transformations, and dimensions. Royce (2007) refers to these elements within comics as the visual message, which includes the characters, their behaviours, and the processes, contexts, and situations presented. Identifying these elements within the narrative is the first stage of the multimodal analysis (reading). The second stage involves how the visual elements relate on the verbal plane of narrative. The comic book relies on visual modality as the dominant communicator, supported by the verbal. Text can expand on the visual in the form of elaboration by mentioning aspects of the visual, or by extension which provides new resources, or enhancement which provides further contextual information regarding temporal or spatial dynamics (Borodo, 2015). Opportunities for personalised narrative construction are facilitated by each communication mode, and the interplay between them. Text provides additional contextual tone, serving to layer the images and the emerging visual narrative, while providing additional resources for narrative co-construction. Chute and DeKoven (2006) claim the verbal and visual narratives in comics do not simply blend neatly to create a unified whole, but rather remain distinct. Images are not illustrative of the text but hold a separate narrative thread that moves forward in time in a different way than prose. Text is not exemplary in relation to illustrations, the words do not describe the visual, which is the case with children’s books, but synthesise with the visual to form a complex narrative.

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The comic book reader is much closer to a semiotic investigator or existential detective, as the kind of engagement inspired is neither pure reading nor viewing (Gillenwater, 2009). Narratives within comics are a combination of text and illustration swirled in heterogeneous signs, icons, and symbols. Every multimodal twist and turn generates new meaning, formed by carrying some meanings from previous interpretations and dissolving others. Comic books offer what Groensteen (2007) claims is a unique imaginative pleasure that cannot be reduced to the sum of the visual and textual. To aid understanding of the enchanting surplus generated by visual-textual conjunctions, the following is a simple visual representation: 1v + 1t = 3. Figure 4.1 emphasises many of the concepts discussed so far.

Figure 4.1: Visual narrative and binocularity.

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4.8 Gutters: imaginative closure and personal meaning-making While there is a constant flow of narrative directed at the audience in film, as the director intended, within comic books the breaks in the narrative, the gaps (gutters) between the panels disrupt the visual-textual narrative and establish space for reader reflection and participation. The gutters are productive spaces that foster critical time for analysis and interpretation. McCloud (1993) writes: “several times on each page the reader is released into the open air of imagination and then caught by the everpresent next panel”. The reader is required to make sense of the emergent narrative – to live between the seen and unseen. These distinctive gaps central to the form impose extraordinary demands on readers. Readers are required to develop critical literacy and take an active role in analysing particular viewpoints (Hall & Lucas, 1999). Comic books are highly creative representations; they covey meaning through interactive multimodality – meaning is neither confined to the written word nor the images. Readers co-construct the narrative in relation to their personal and cultural experiences and individual imagination (Whitlock, 2006; Norton, 2003; Silbermann, 1986). The mutual dependence of picture and text in comics and interpretations that transcend both, are characteristic of the form, however, these interpretations could not emerge without the resonating work of imaginative closure. The process of “imaginative closure” allows readers to connect each of the individual panels, separated by the gutters, and construct a continuously refashionable narrative (McCloud, 1993). No comic book narrative can be rigid; by design it is inherently fluid, open to constant reinterpretation and the redirection of meaning or focus. Comic book readers tend not to close off interpretations, nor look for a clear meaning, but instead draw from personal knowledge to reflect, engage, anticipate, and theorise (Peirce & Stein, 1995). Naghibi and O’Malley (2005) refer to the narrative gutters as the interpretative spaces where new/alternative meanings are generated/refined; where a personalised translation of the narrative occurs. These spaces allow readers to ponder the experiences of others and to empathically identify with the narrative (Whitlock, 2006). Readers are challenged to unlimited engagement, encouraged to develop lateral narratives with fluid meanings, and prompted to consider the implications beyond the story-world (Zanettin, 2015a; 20015b). The gaps in the narrative nurture the “as if” imagination, resulting in novel thinking and alternative perspectives. The multimodal and poly-semantic nature of comic book narratives and idiosyncratic co-constructed story-worlds inspire creative thinking.

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4.9 Braiding: levels of narrative Groensteen’s (2007) theory of braiding argues that comic readers place panels in relation with every other panel. The relationship between panels can be iconic and rhetoric in nature. A single panel develops meaning in sequence: it is always part of a sequence of varying length with the preceding and following panels. This is particularly evident in the disruption “memorable moments” incite: panels that are incongruent in form, style, or content, with their syntagmatic surroundings, or the panels that are repeated in different contexts that take on additional meanings (Royce, 2007). In contrast to film and animation, the intention with comics is that images stay with readers. Each panel is simultaneously read on three levels (Horstkotte, 2015): the story, which allows the reader glide over the image; the picture which strives to focus the viewer’s attention by isolating the image from the story; and the resources to the narrative in its entirety. The comic book promotes constant comparative thinking, thereby increasing the likelihood of a roaming, non-linear, and personalised comprehension. The reader observes the individual panels in a stand-alone context but also holistically in relation to other panels – readers interpret the “flashes” and “gaps” to form a continuous emergent narrative. In this vein, Ware (1998) claims that comics are an art of pure composition, a carefully structured visual architecture, a page-by-page visual pattern, brought to life and “performed” by the characters and reader like a colourful piece of sheet music. The potential to access multiple levels of narrative for ongoing reinterpretation adds to the fun and excitement associated with the form. Comics inspire numerous levels of narrative engagement among readers, which tends to go unnoticed (Marcoci, 2007). For instance, reflected in the range of characters and contexts explored in Chapter 3, are visual statements about the rapid developments of society. Micro, phenomenological, narrative engagement inspires identification with lead characters, and the immediate context in which they are embedded socially; it inspires analysis, interpretation, and comparison with other similar contexts, Gasoline Alley (1918), for example. Denis the Menace (1951) provided insight into family dynamics, pet relationships, and the experiences of childhood reflective of the time. Micro-social analysis is inspired through contexts such as, but not limited to, groups of friends, school, or sport teams. The relationships and social rituals structuring the micro-social context gives insight into group formation and identity projects. Archie (1942) for instance, inspired understandings and perspectives on group dynamics and community ethos useful to real life (Norton, 2003). Macro-narrative readings help identify the established power dynamics within society, wealth disparity, access to resources, racism, sexism, and how society deals with technological disruption or political conflict (Juneau & Sucharov, 2010).

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4.10 Devices, frames, and characters: epistemological and ontological shifts While the reader is generally inspired to explore and freely think, imagine, interpret, and feel the narrative, the unfolding of meaning is shaped by devices and resources intentionally employed by the comic writer/illustrator. These devices are utilised to illuminate particular elements and intensify the narrative for a more engaging reader experience. As such, the comic writer can be likened to an architect that exposes specific resources within the structure, intended to be impactful to those viewing. Switches in background colour, frame colour, or style, within the same page can indicate a sudden change of atmosphere, or a shift in the ontological order (action that is “real” within the narrative versus action that is imaginatively experienced by a certain character), or the epistemology of perception (objective gazing, bird’s-eye view, level of the action, and object close-up) (Marcoci, 2007). In many comics, discordant or missing frames are used to mark flashbacks, dreams, hallucinations, intoxication, and other forms of subjective experience (Horstkotte, 2015). Frames direct the reader’s empathetic engagement with the narrative and character experiences encoded. Frames (or deviations in frames) establish point of view, allusion, tone, mood, symbolism, and foreshadow danger. Likewise, Gerbner (1970) highlights the connection between popular characters and the collective consciousness, showing how characters can be used to represent unseen ills, violence, war, generation gaps, class struggles, and racism, and frame an overall moral directive or approach to life, such as: happy are the “good guys”.

4.11 Conclusion The purpose of this chapter was to understand how the underlying mechanics of the comic book form work to communicate information and create personalised narrative engagements. The value of exploring the medium with such depth is that in order to deconstruct it, and identify components and devices which can be isolated, adapted, and employed for alternative research applications, it must be understood. Dimensionalising the mechanics of comics contributes to a more sophisticated understanding of it, other media, the communication process, and audience engagement in general, which will allow for additional media to be adopted more creatively in research. As such, the next chapter will explore how elements of the comic form emphasised in this chapter can be adapted to help researchers develop a more creative and richer data set.

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References Baetens, J. (2008). North and South in Belgian comics. European Comic Art, 1(2), 111–126. Barbieri, D. (1991). I linguaggi del fumetto. Milano: Bompiani. Bitz, M. (2004). The comic book project: forging alternative pathways to literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(7), 574–586. Borodo, M. (2015). Multimodality, translation and comics. Perspectives, 23(1), 22–41. Chute, H. L., & DeKoven, M. (2006). Introduction: graphic narrative. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 52(4), 767–782. Cohn, N. (2013). The visual language of comics: Introduction to the structure and cognition of sequential images. A&C Black. Dyroff, H. D., & Silbermann, A. (Eds.). (1986). Comics and visual culture: Research studies from ten countries. KG Saur. Gerbner, G. (1970). Cultural indicators: the case of violence in television drama. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 388(1), 69–81. Gillenwater, C. (2009). Lost literacy: how graphic novels can recover visual literacy in the literacy classroom. Afterimage, 37(2), 33. Groensteen, T. (2007). The system of comics. Univ. Press of Mississippi. Groff, J.. (2013). Expanding our “frames” of mind for education and the arts. Harvard Educational Review, 83(1), 15–39. Hall, K. J., & Lucal, B. (1999). Tapping into parallel universes: using superhero comic books in sociology courses. Teaching Sociology, 27(1), 60–66. Hirsch, M. (2004). Editor’s column: collateral damage. Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 119, 1209–1215. Horstkotte, S. (2013). Zooming in and out: panels, frames, sequences, and the building of graphic storyworlds, 27–48. Juneau, T., & Sucharov, M. (2010). Narratives in pencil: using graphic novels to teach Israeli–Palestinian relations. International Studies Perspectives, 11(2), 172–183. Kress, G. (2009). Mode. In Multimodality (pp. 79–102). Routledge. Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Colour as a semiotic mode: notes for a grammar of colour. Visual Communication, 1(3), 343–368. MacDougall, D. (1997). The visual in anthropology. Rethinking Visual Anthropology, 276–295. Marcoci, R. (2007). Comic abstraction: Image breaking, image making. The Museum of Modern Art. McAllister, M. P., Sewell Jr, E. H., & Gordon, I. (2001). Introducing comics and ideology. Comics and Ideology, 2, 1–13. McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: the invisible art. Northampton, Mass, 7, 4. Meskin, A. (2009). Comics as Literature. The British Journal of Aesthetics, 49(3), 219–239. Naghibi, N., & O’Malley, A. (2005). Estranging the familiar:” East” and” West” in Satrapi’s Persepolis. ESC: English Studies in Canada, 31(2), 223–247. Norton, B. (2003). The motivating power of comic books: Insights from Archie comic readers. The Reading Teacher, 57(2), 140–147. Ozenfant, A. (1952). Foundations of modern art Transl. By John Rodker.[New American Ed., Augm.]. Dover. Peirce, B. N. & Stein, P. (1995). Why the“ monkeys passage” bombed: tests, genres, and teaching. Harvard Educational Review, 65(1), 50–66. Pink, S. (2003). Interdisciplinary agendas in visual research: Re–situating visual anthropology. Visual Studies, 18(2), 179–192. Pustz, M. (Ed.). (2012). Comic books and American cultural history: An anthology. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. Royce, T. D. (2007). Multimodal communicative competence in second. New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse, 361. Sabin, R. (2008). Comics, comix and graphic novels.

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Short, J. C., & Reeves, T. C. (2009). The graphic novel: a “Cool” format for communicating to generation Y. . Business Communication Quarterly, 72(4), 414–430. Snyder, E. E. (1997). Teaching the sociology of sport: using a comic strip in the classroom. Teaching Sociology, 25(3), 239–243. Thomas, P. L. (2011). Adventures in genre!: rethinking genre through comics/graphic novels. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 2(2), 187–201. Whitlock, G. (2006). Autographics: the seeing“ I” of the comics. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 52(4), 965–979. Zanettin, F (2015a). Comics in translation. Routledge. Zanettin, F. (2015b). 13 comics in translation: an annotated bibliography. Comics in Translation, 270.

Chapter 5 The comic book and creative data generation 5.1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter to introduce the ways in the which the comic book’s structure, language, and multimodal narrative can be employed to support traditional research design and data generation. The chapter opens with a discussion on the “making is connecting” philosophy underlying creative forms of data generation, it highlights the active embodiment practices central to data recording, processing, and making new connections. There are a number of hands-on drawing and narrative exercises provided throughout the chapter that can support more creative data generation and produce insights which otherwise would go unknown. The chapter offers comic-related exercises designed for both researcher and participants to aid personal understanding, elicitation, and facilitate authentic knowledge exchanges. The exercises are organised in a progressive sequence, designed to nurture both the illustration and narrative skills required to create a research comic book. So grab a pencil, pen, crayon, or stylus, and engage with artistic freedom.

5.2 Making is connecting: creative data generation Gauntlett (2007) in Creative Explorations investigates exciting new approaches to data collection. The underlying argument is that valuable knowledge can be generated by engaging in alternative forms of data collection. While data collection is generally the dominant term used in the social sciences, it’s tied to pseudo-objective traditions. Data such as observing, listening, and sensing, are more readily associated with collecting, which implies academic voyeurism. When a culture is observed, it exists indepdent of the researcher, hence, data can be viewed as being collected, whereas, data generation implies a more direct and participatory role. Data generation celebrates the subjective nature of the researcher-as-instrument and promotes sparks of creativity employed in research design. By approaching the process more playfully, by involving the mind and body, by cutting, drawing, dancing, singing, or whatever, the alternative mental states accessed allow for novel perceptions and perspectives to emerge (Tanaka, 2011). The argument is that by making something, by being more active/constructive/engaged within the research process, broader connections to the environment can be established. By breaking from the language-driven rigid approaches to qualitative research, researchers and participants can spend time applying their creative focus to the act of making something; it can become a shared resource which can be reflected upon, explored, and discussed in a manner directed by the comfort of partcipants (Gauntlett, 2013).

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Gauntlett (2007), illustrates the value of straying from “off-the-shelf” research design. The new creative approaches Gauntlett (2013) proposes are characterised by a “making is connecting ethos”. To create something of value, ideas, perspectives, media, and material must be connected in unique and imaginative combinations (De Bono, 1993). By making things and sharing ideas, social and physical engagement with the environment can be increased (Ingold, 2014). Collaborative approaches to data generation, used in conjunction with more traditional data collection approaches, can inspire vivid associations and novel linkages for researcher and audience. Many researchers, due to the rigidness of academic writing, have fallen out of touch with their creative abilities, and lack an appreciation of the types of knowledge generated by engaging in creative processes (Goodall, 2000). There is growing resistance to using a pencil and piece of paper to aid problem-solving – visually support thinking and exploring – whether doodling, sketching, or cartooning. Unfortunately, people believe they do not possess the creative talents or skills, which is simply not the case.

5.3 Creative shapes To refresh and affirm your creative abilities, I now introduce an accessible illustration exercise called “creative shapes”. In the grid situated in Figure 5.1, draw 20 different representations of the sun. Think laterally, be abstract, metaphoric, think of the shapes, symbols, and representations available in culture, flags, and art that could be drawn from, adapted, and shuffled around. The first one has been filled in to set a foundation and provide an initial pattern of thought. The point of the grid structure is to provide a framework for comparative repetition. As the grid is filled in, it becomes more difficult to generate a novel representation, thus, the brain (and hand) is pressured to generate increasingly novel solutions – the essence of all creativity (Sternberg, 2006). If the grid was not a challenge, then increase the number of cells to 24, 32, and so on. By increasing the number of comparative considerations, the number of solutions required will increased, thus enhancing creativity. The creative shapes grid can be considered a form of creativity training. To advance the creative challenge further, more complex concepts can be represented, such as, love, anger, joy or other emotions or concepts relevant to your field of study. Practice; be patient. These exercises can take time to readjust to because of the lack of being challenged in this way for some time. The goal of the exercise is to become more comfortable holding a pencil, pen, or stylus, to be comfortable doodling, drawing, or illustrating, and confident in your ability to think and explore in a visually creative manner. The process of creative engagement is more important than the

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Figure 5.1: Creative shapes.

aesthetic value of the representations. The process must be appreciated more than the outcome. Why should these sort of free-thinking illustration practices be kept to the domain of the child or artist and not all thinkers? The goal of the comic-inspired data generation exercises to follow is to highlight the forms of unconfined and embodied thinking that can be inspired, which can lead to all manner of unplanned research (and researcher) development. There is a progression observed in the exercises and

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tools to follow; creative activties can be employed on an individual basis or in combination to support data generation, or utilised as an ensemble to create a research comic book.

5.4 Simple detail and objects As the title suggests, this activity is a means of documenting the objects encountered during the research process. Absent from modern textual accounts of social science are key contextual visual details and patterns vital for generating a holistic understanding (Geismar, 2014). Often during fieldwork, instant photography is depended upon, but the overall mental and embodied investment required can be low. As well as, “taking” a photograph, try “making” a drawing, and capturing the unusual or mundane objects encountered during the research investigation by hand. Figure 5.2 provides examples of the simple detail and objects exercise being utilised to support data collection during a project exploring the “properties of boundaries” during tourist experiences. The images were drawn following the research visit and in conjunction with jotted fieldnotes and photographs (Emerson et al., 2001). The examples provided in Figure 5.2 took hours, not minutes. Such a mental investment, of controlled yet unbound reflection, allows for deeper engagement with the context to emerge. By drawing the objects, they become isolated and unnaturally separated from their surroundings, it emphasises their uniqueness, aesthetics, and functions; the details become magnified and intensified further with the generation of additional associations in memory (Soukup, 2014). By drawing objects in detail, and seeking to capture more and more detail, the type of creative focus being engaged in allows for the experiences “around the objects” to be considered and interpreted in a free unconscious manner. This form of creative research generation is particularly useful to aid the writing up of ethnographic jotted fieldnotes. Simple detail and object exercises foster unique mental associations and lateral connections (De Bono, 1993). It is also a useful exercise to initiate researcher reflection on the emotional experiences of the research prior to persuing the more rationalised procedures of analysis. Please fill the empty space in Figure 5.2 with your own research object drawings.

5.5 Abstract subjective experience It’s more difficult to draw inanimate objects and detail in a realistic or objective style than to draw in an abstract or expressive manner. The control required to draw accurate detail is the most difficult skill to acquire. Don Conroy’s (1997) Cartoon Fun can serve as a useful drawing aid, along with Cheng (2012) and Spicer (2014), although not required for these exercises. The freedoms inspired by abstract expressionism can be liberating in unexpected ways, leading to forms of cathartic understanding, novel per-

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Figure 5.2: Simple detail and objects.

spectives, and new lines of enquiry (Hartel et al., 2018). Abstract expressions can be a useful activity to distil emotion from the context, particularly useful to support explorations of trauma, pain, or other sensitive research contexts (Gardener, Gross, & Hayne, 2020). The exercise can be employed to generate novel phenomenological insights that compliment more generalised projects, or in sensitive contexts, or with participants

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Figure 5.3: Migraine in the membrane.

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that require more intimate attention. Illustrations can be useful to capture the subjective ontological experience of researcher or participants (Kelly, 2004), to “feel around” the context, explore the atmosphere of the image, and generate a more conversational style exchange. Figure 5.3 is an example of the exercise being employed to generate a representation of the subjective experience of migraine. How would you draw the subjective experience of a tooth ache? Or an experience related to your research context?

5.6 Long exposure This creative exercise is particularly useful to support data collection during traditional ethnographic, or observational field visits. Long exposure involves the drawing of a venue, location, place, or space, during a field visit (an hour or so), and drawing more detail onto the same image the next field visit, and so on, resulting in the development of enhanced meaning over time. The first step is to allow the observed physical environment and atmosphere guide the illustration. It can be useful to try this exercise in a café, public park, market, or any street corner, prior to employing it in a more valuable research context. Just like early photographs, not all the available information can be recorded, but the researcher instead, operating as the intuitive instrument, begins recording that which impresses most, that which is either most unchanging or most dynamic in the vista. Scale and realism are not important. The priority is in the process of visually recording and interacting with the environment. Long exposure exercises can adopt artistic and abstract styles of representation also depending on the creative mind of the researcher. One of the dangers of conducting an immersive ethnography, whereby the researcher has adopted a “complete member role”, is the lack of opportunity to manufacture distance (Stewart, 1998). Long exposure is an effective way to manufacture necessary distance from certain aspects of the context (people, activity) while creatively examining others. It allows for reflection, pause, and processing to occur in the field. As a project develops, I tend to notice things that are different in the context each visit rather things which remain stable. Hence, why it can be useful to generate a fixed representation of the context, a map for long exposure, and a stable model of the environment. Drawing something “fixed” in the dynamic ethnographic fieldnote taking environment aids recall greatly. The data drawings serve as visual reminders, not only of the fixed nature of the environment, but also as a reference to reimagine the movements that occurred in the context, the people, relationships, and activities. It’s advantageous to use long exposure during a longitudinal study; it’s a compelling way to identify change during field visits and it directs the researcher to the process of comparative analysis. Long exposure inspires additional connections and mental associations that would not have occurred without the creative engagement. It is useful to, on first instance, draw the big physical objects and shapes, the easier to draw lines and static unmoving scenery. During the next visit draw stationary people

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and small objects, and on another capture the movement of people, before finally, capturing the emotionally interesting aspects. The goal is to layer the scene with meaning over time while playing with style, expressionism, and alternative meanings. While the simple objects, abstract subjective experience, and long exposure exercises can be conducted separately, when conducted as ensemble and focused on the same research context, the necessary contextual detail to construct a research comic have been illustrated: The settings, scenes, objects, and patterns of relevance can be combined in an ethnographic chimera of sorts, that conveys intimate knowledge in a vivid representation.

5.7 Sequencing field interactions There are many challenges to fieldnote taking, not least of which the lack of control over the direction of data collection. The lack of researcher agency can result in scant opportunities for jotting fieldnotes, significant time investments for visits, increased consumption, physical activity or risk, and the inability to manage the evolution of relationships within the context. In many ways the researcher is “carried away” by the research, by the context, and behaviours of other people. However, the researcher must remain diligent in recording behaviour as it unfolds, mental ques must be noted and expanded upon later in a detailed write up. Researchers are required to manufacture occasional distance and develop novel solutions to notetaking, such as personal signs, symbols, and shorthand. When exploring lively or “busy” contexts it can be difficult to take notes without attracting attention. In order to preserve the richness of data, it is useful to pre-draw panels on several pages of a small pocket-sized notebook, similar to how a comic’s panel imagery is laid out (see Figure 5.4). It is also possible to purchase pocket-sized pre-drawn comic panel notebooks. When adequate privacy can be manufactured memorable interactions, quotes, phrases, people, perspectives, and so on, can be quickly drawn into the panels chronologically, which associates the different sources of data in more sequenced meanings. Realism in depiction is not the goal but the in situ connections and analytical associations generated. As practice, prior to adopting it in a research setting it can be useful to try this creative exercise when on a holiday or traveling, by drawing the people, interactions, relationships, or facial expressions that impressed most. The exercise is valuable to support research, it allows researchers to see and explore narratives in the data easily, which facilitates write-up, coding, and interpretation, often daunting procedures for novice researchers. Comic note-taking can be employed also to record a visual shorthand of the researcher’s experience while conducting the research. The researcher can develop a unique visual shorthand language, by drawing smiley faces, arrows, and other shapes to document/narrativise the context privately.

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Figure 5.4: Comic note-taking.

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5.8 Filling in and drawing out The prior illustration exercises were focused on generating data while nurturing an appetite for the visual, enhancing capabilities, and building creative self-confidence. The exercises to follow, rather than creative documentation, involve the co-collaboration and interplay with participants to generate data (Hartel et al., 2018). “Filling in” exercises involve an incomplete comic strip/book narrative which requires interaction between the research participant and resources to complete, expand, and “fill in” the narrative. Speed of narrative completion is not the goal but rather depth of narrative consideration and quality of interactions. Participants should take the necessary time to create a meaningful context-related narrative, in a manner akin to semi-structured interviews (McCracken, 1988), constructed within the boundaries of the resources provided. This exercise builds on the picture-story methods experienced in early education, in which narratives could be personally fictionalised around the sequence of pictures, and narrative resources that are both interactive and context specific. The overall goal is not for the participant to have crafted a brilliant narrative but for it to be useful to facilitate further knowledge exchange, or be useful as an elicitation device (Stavraki & Anninou, 2022). Attention can be directed to it, some aspects can be explored in more detail and themes absent can move conversation towards unexpected but fruitful lines of inquiry (Cary, 1999). It can be difficult for some participants to talk and engage in successful back-and-forth conversation. Therefore, having an activity that is slow-placed and involves embodiment can work as a catalyst for a more relaxed conversational style of knowledge exchange. This activity can be beneficial to any research project but especially so when exploring sensitive research contexts, or children’s consumption, or stigmatised phenomena (Bland, 2018). As an activity, participant drawing provides the participant with the power to establish boundaries in the research and orchestrate the direction of the conversation. There are a number ways by which social interactions, encounters, and exchanges can be reflected upon with artistic individuality. Slow elicitation allows participants more time for processing and understanding, leading to more authentic forms of knowledge exchange and avenues for exploration that otherwise could not have been explored (Soukup, 2014). Drawing exercises require some prior knowledge on behalf of the researcher, around the context, relevant themes, or accessible situations that could be explored in an interactive manner. The researcher must be prepared with a relevant comic structure created. Alternatively, scenes from old comics can be cut and adapted to create a narrative aligned to the research investigation.

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5.8.1 Facial expression and emotion One way the comic language structure can be adopted to generate knowledge is by eliciting the facial expressions central to processing emotion. This requires research participants to draw the characters’ faces in the images, according to how they feel the narrative is unfolding. It opens many avenues for reflection, consideration, and the exploration of feelings and emotions. The co-constructed comic panels can be explored to learn more about a participant’s experience, or perspectives; the participant can comfortably address the more obvious emotions in the narrative as opposed to being closed off and guarded with their own. Regardless of the research topic under investigation, it can be difficult for people to communicate clearly how they feel, because without adequate time to process and reflect in comfort, the exchange will lack authenticity and catharsis, and thus little benefit to participant and researcher (Gauntlett, 2007).

5.8.2 Deductive prose Because the way in which a comic’s narrative lives between the seen and unseen, it allows for multiple potential perspectives to be considered. Panels must be unpacked, not read literally, an investigation of the multimodal interconnections occurs, which allows for interpretations to emerge. The first element of the exercise is for the participant to insert the text (prose) in the speech/thought balloons available. It requires an interaction between the visual narrative, as interpreted by the participant, and the deductive narrative prose being filled in. When a narrative is complete, themes and mini plot lines can be explored by talking around the text and using the narrative as a guide for elicitation. For instance, in Figure 5.5, how could the narrative be interpreted? What prose and what emotions can be included to achieve a narrative? The second element involves further emotional-textual consideration and enhanced empathic identification. By returning to the completed panels and asking the participant to explore what may have been said elsewhere in the narrative, and what the characters may be thinking in the story-world, new unplanned avenues of exploration can emerge. The co-constructed reflected upon narrative can provide the foundation for the researcher to explore the emotional labour of the context from a more emotionally respectful stance. Regardless of research context, asking people questions, either informally or formally, can be boundary-inducing; participants can close off due to the lack of control perceived. Pressurising participants to inform should not occur; the person should not feel pressured to perform in any way. The comic cocreation elicitation exercises provided in this chapter should be conducted in an atmosphere of fun and enjoyment; they are useful because they are story-based, shared, and generally in control of the participant. By providing creative spaces for participant co-creation a more active and commanding role can be taken by them in the

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Figure 5.5: “We must go shopping for school shoes”.

knowledge exchange than in traditional elicitation techniques where participants can be defensive or gaurded.

5.8.3 Abstract meanings The “abstract meanings” technique is influenced by Marcoci’s (2007) exploration of comic art’s ability to encourage abstraction and inspire novel forms of lateral thinking among readers. Abstraction can be adopted to explore mood, behaviours, and atmo-

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sphere, or how the environment may be influencing the participant’s experience or understanding of the context. For instance, Neuenshwander (2004) uses abstraction to tackle the stereotypes found in the popular Disney comic book Zé Carioca (1941), in which the main character, Zé Carioca, is a green soccer-playing parrot with nationalistic overtones. It portrayed the negative stereotypes of Brazilian life, as being dominated by street-smart, lazy, soccer and samba-loving flirts. Neuenshwander (2004) confronts the racist and political undertones in the comic by painting over panels in solid monochrome colours and completely removing the text. Each page is transformed into an abstraction; Neuenshwander creatively offers readers an emergent space to imagine their own stories, leading to increased reflection on social injustice. Neuenshwander’s comic art provides an opportunity to be moved through the narrative in an intensely personal and imaginative way: Empathically and emotionally aroused by the requirement to make sense of what is occurring, and what could occur – what each colour represents, implies, or frames. Neuenshwander’s format can be altered and employed to explore participants’ experiences in more depth, as a kind of kaleidoscopic depresentation. The abstract structure provided, in which any theme, idea, or anybody could potentially emerge from the reader’s imagination, enhanced by emotional resources of the colourful abstraction, can generate novel insights and aid the identification of important themes. Utilising an abstract art-based comic like Figure 5.6, but adapted to your own specific creative designs, can generate a multitude of alternative responses and reflections in participants, and facilitate avenues of creative exploration, as well as gaining access to participants’ subjective responses. When the exercise is applied to a particular research context or problem, travelling, or the first day of school, for instance, it can generate novel conversation and inspire a phenomenological understanding. For instance, ask participants how the colour of the panel makes them feel or what it suggests in the narrative, and the communication involved, the speech, thought balloons, or narrator, and so on. The yellow panel may remind people of a time in the sun with friends, from which the phenomenology surrounding the consumption elsewhere can be explored and contextualised in relation to an entire holiday, for instance. The black panel may evoke associations with night, and so on. It is a useful technique to open-up the research process, allow participants to be more active, and contribute to a more co-creative research atmosphere. Following these types of exchange there is a “tangible” narrative that can be unpacked during an in-depth phenomenological interview (Thompson et al., 1989). By providing space for the extremes of life to be imposed on the abstract open comic, researchers can gain access to underexplored and undocumented emotions. Difficult concepts to explore and represent like tension and fear, or the relative existential ups and downs of life become easier to frame and discuss. It can be difficult to meander what might cause a participant to become defensive and close off avenues of discussion. By employing this style of co-creative narrative elicitation, the conversation becomes more open to the discussion of abstract emotions, unlike when employing

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Figure 5.6: Comic abstraction.

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rational directed questions with assumed corrected answers. During collaborative approaches, the participant possesses more control of the knowledge exploration, and thus, can choose which boundaries to maintain in the process.

5.9 Deconstruction, collage, and decoupage The exercises to follow deviate from those prior in that they utilise old waste comic books and material objects as their creative foundation. Contemporary culture is dominated by storytelling that conforms to a consumable start, middle, and end, typically communicated in a rational chronological order. Generally, popular culture stories that successfully stray from the traditional formula are celebrated, often because of how they forced audiences to imagine and interact with the narrative rather than the alternative way empathic devices were employed. A similar technique can be employed within data elicitation. By asking participants to dismantle stories, to deconstruct/reconstruct the formula, and reframe telling and showing, a new narrative is generated with personal meanings embedded, which can be a resource for conversational knowledge exchange. An accessible way to grasp the rationale is the next time when in the vicinity of a Mr. Men book encapsulate the entire story using only three images. Extreme visualemotional-narrative iteration is required to communicate such a short seen narrative. What is removed from the narrative can be as interesting as it inspires multiple unseen logical narratives. The introduction of a similar exercise was valuable to give participants an opportunity to get more hands-on, by collaging their meanings. Participants should be provided with a selection of old comic books or annuals, which can be found in abundance at most local charity shops (or thrift stores). Then asked to cut-out any image, panel, or scene that engages them in some way: interesting, funny, unusual, artistic, relevance to project, proximity to person, and so on, foregoing any major rules. Participants have unconsciously deconstructed the many narratives chosen from a broad range of scenes and characters. Following this, participants should arrange the cut-outs in a collage format by gluing them to a blank sheet of paper (large), while being mindful of making connections with the research context, as prompted by researcher. Connections should be understood in the broadest sense. The collage should not be literal to match the context but representative, abstract, and even artistic. The participant, due to the powers of interaction and making, can identify with the knowledge representation in a manner unattainable via traditional interview (Ingold, 2014). Besides commercially funded consumer research projects, in which participants are provided small honorariums (free samples from brand portfolio), social research participants are generally left empty-handed. I find people embalm creative works such as mood-boards, designs, and collages in ways unanticipated, beyond the pedagogical/research intent. The outputs become meaningful – representing something deeper – symbols of creative potential – something to cherish. The strong connection

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to this form of knowledge exchange is affirmed by participants wishing to retain ownership of their created material following the process. It speaks to the abstract experience of active narrative construction and novel modes of expression initiated. Who has ever asked for an interview transcript because they enjoyed the interview so much? Because it revealed so much about them, or became a marker of something private only the creator knows. Museums (the good ones) make use of this kind of artistic interactive engagement and provide opportunities to create, which leads to all manner of transformative experiences, connections to place, and personal mementos. The collage exercise can be expanded upon creatively and artistically by engaging in decoupage. The narrative collage is constructed while being glued/transferred to an object with another function that is part of everyday life or holds personal significance (desk, table, chair, storage box, etc.). Participants can bring something they wish to revive or something small can be provided as a token of the research. Charity shops are full of useful items for decoupaging meaning (picture frames, stools, small tables, etc.). The researcher should also engage in the process. The mutual practice of the narrative decoupage should be explored to establish a more symbiotic knowledge exchange and build better rapport. Participants should be comfortable and provided with adequate opportunities to think through the narrative at their desired pace. The more time and mental energy invested in the process, the more complex the narrative and greater the hedonic and cathartic elements experienced (Nurdin et al., 2019). The goal should be to ensure the research process becomes more conversational and natural. If there is a communal nature to the research investigation the decoupage narrative process can be practiced on a larger object, such as a group table; group decoupage narratives generally reflect the groups relationship to each other, and the shared narratives among members.

5.10 Unseeing the narrative This exercise draws from the multimodal nature of comics and their potential to generate unending variations in narratives (McCloud, 1993). The resources provided in the comic’s detail are unchanging; the co-created narrative is reflective of the individual reader’s psychology. Any shuffle to the same narrative resources can tell an alternative story (Borodo, 2015). The objective is to expose and explore the multiple personal narratives in relation to a phenomenon or context. A simple exercise to practice is to take five photographs (smartphone) the next time you make a journey, to the grocery store, for accessibility. Then using three of those photographs compile a narrative, then from the same original five photographs, compile another narrative but reflective of a prior shopping experience. The previously unseen knowledge between and within the photographs is exposed, generating new interpretations and meanings. This short exercise provides researchers with visual design practice, particularly constructing and communicating the meaning of narratives within the research process:

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some interesting data will not make the final project; researchers must learn to be comfortable with leaving some data on the cutting room floor. Participants can be offered 10 context-related photographs and asked to choose 5 that can tell a story based on their knowledge/experience of the context. This narrative then can be discussed and probed for further detail and avenues of relevance. Following this, the participant is asked to sequence a narrative from the 5 unselected photographs from the original 10, which is then relayed and probed. Much of the comfort in the dialogue and discussion should come from the researcher’s emic knowledge of the context. Next, another combination of five photographs, at least two from each of the two narratives, which is relayed and probed, and then finally, the remaining unselected five in another combination narrative, and also relayed and probed. The idea here is that because the participant is using the same resources repeatedly shuffled what changes is that the unseen meaning between the images is exposed. The sequencing of resources can be interpreted in multiple ways, which allows for a more authentic and holistic consideration of a participant’s understanding, interpretation, and perspectives. By sequencing and re-sequencing the selected photographs, meanings that had not previously existed can be exposed, leading to more authentic avenues for exploration and deeper insights. The narrative based exercises are designed to build a researcher’s narrative capabilities also, to become comfortable accessing all manner of creative narrative research engagement. The exercises presented progressed in logic and when utilised in combination provide the basics of comic book creation: objects, scenes, interactions, authentic understanding, and the ability to control the seen and unseen narratives. Essentially, the exercises above nurture the introductory and foundational skills necessary to create a comic book.

5.11 Personal narratives and group reflection The next logical step is to employ participant comic-creation as a means to generate deeper discussion on a particular research problem, phenomenon, or context. Morrison et al. (2002) found comic-creation particularly useful to explore perspectives while ensuring an atmosphere of reassurance. Each participant creates a comic, and discusses it, then following this the group creates another longer comic trying to accommodate as much of each person’s narrative as possible. The aim is to generate conversation among participants, it requires reflection on individual perspectives in relation to others, and allows for collaborative empathy and mutual consideration to be organically embedded in the narrative. Valuable insights and connections between experiences can be identified that otherwise may have been lost. The collaborative and active atmosphere of group comic book creation promotes more fun and exciting structures of knowledge exchange and provides the researcher with a more creative and holistic data set for analysis and interpretation, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

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5.12 Conclusion The prime objective of this chapter was to inspire playful access to readers’ creative abilities, and develop comfort. Hopefully by now, we can all draw blobs, smudges, and shapes, and understand how these exercises make the researcher a more creative research instrument. These exercise can support observation, interview elicitation, and generate deeper conversations and authentic knowledge exchanges. The exercises have progressed in complexity and engagement, moving from the researcher towards the participants. It is important to gain comfort and practice oneself before bringing techniques to explore with research participants. The greater the understanding the researcher has of the underlying creative process, the more positive the atmosphere, responsiveness, and relevance of unexpected information. These relatively simple exercises can be employed in isolation, in random combinations to promote lateral thinking and creative data collection or in a steady progression to create a research comic book. However, these exercises are only guides to be tweaked and tailored to suit individual researchers and welcome participants in. Ideally, these exercises will inspire evolution in the use of other creative techniques to support the research process. The next chapter will explore how the comic book stucture can be adapted to support the processes of analysis and interpretation.

References Bland, D. (2018). Using drawing in research with children: lessons from practice. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 41(3), 342–352. Borodo, M. (2015). Multimodality, translation and comics. Perspectives, 23(1), 22–41. Cary, L. J. (1999). Unexpected stories: life history and the limits of representation. Qualitative Inquiry, 5(3), 411–427. Cheng, K. (2012). See what i mean: How to use comics to communicate ideas. Rosenfeld Media. De Bono, E. (1993). Serious creativity. Executive Excellence, 10, 14–14. Ingold, T. (2013). Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge. Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (2001). Participant observation and fieldnotes. In handbook of ethnography (pp. 352–368). Gardner, E., Gross, J., & Hayne, H. (2020). The effect of drawing and socioeconomic status on children’s reports of a past experience. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 26(3), 397. Gauntlett, D. (2007). Creative explorations: New approaches to identities and audiences. Routledge. Gauntlett, D. (2013). Making is connecting. John Wiley & Sons. Geismar, H. (2014). Drawing it out. Visual Anthropology Review, 30(2), 97–113. Goodall, H. L., Jr. (2000). Writing the new ethnography (Vol. 7). AltaMira Press. Gross, J., & Hayne, H. (1998). Drawing facilitates children’s verbal reports of emotionally laden events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 4(2), 163. Hartel, J., Noone, R., & Oh, C. (2018). The isquare protocol: combining research, art, and pedagogy through the draw-and–write technique. Qualitative Research, 18(4), 433–450. Ingold, T. (2014). The creativity of undergoing. Pragmatics & Cognition, 22(1), 124–139. Kelly, D. D. (2004). Uncovering the history of children’s drawing and art. Greenwood Publishing Group.

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Marcoci, R. (2007). Comic abstraction: Image breaking, image making. The Museum of Modern Art. McCloud, S., & Martin, M. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art (Vol. 106). Northampton, MA: Kitchen sink press. McCloud, S., & Manning, A. D. (1998). Understanding comics: the invisible art. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications, 41(1), 66–69. McCracken, G. (1988). The long interview (Vol. 13). Sage. Morrison, T. G., Bryan, G., & Chilcoat, G. W. (2002a). Using student–generated comic books in the classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(8), 758–767. Nurdin, N., Sjattar, E. L., & Arafat, R. (2019). Decoupage art therapy as an alternative activity to reduce gadget dependence on primary school students in makassar [seni decoupage sebagai kegiatan alternatif mengurangi ketergantungan gadget pada siswa sekolah dasar di makassar]. Proceeding of Community Development, 2, 872–883. Soukup, M. (2014). Photography and drawing in anthropology. Slovenský národopis, 62(4), 534–546. Spicer, J. (2014). Draw people in 15 min. Ilex. Stavraki, G., & Anninou, I. (2022a). Arts-based methods in business education: a reflection on a photoelicitation project. Management Learning, 13505076221075046. Sternberg, R. J. (2006). Creating a vision of creativity: The first 25 years. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, (1), 2. Stewart, A. (1998). The ethnographer’s method (Vol. 46). Sage. Tanaka, S. (2011). The notion of embodied knowledge. Theoretical Psychology: Global Transformations and Challenges, 149–157. Thompson, C. J., Locander, W. B., & Pollio, H. R. (1989). Putting consumer experience back into consumer research: the philosophy and method of existential.

Chapter 6 The comic book: a creative structure for inference 6.1 Introduction This chapter adopts a more earnest application of creativity; its purpose is to illustrate how the comic structure can support the process of inference: meaning analysis and interpretation. The chapter opens by discussing veracity and utilising multiple research methods. Several foundational research terms and concepts are unpacked throughout the chapter. The processes of data management, manipulation, and the transformation of data into meaning are explored. Following this, data manipulation procedures, such as categorisation and abstraction, are discussed, and analytical procedures such as triangulation, comparison, and negative case analysis also discussed. How the comic book structure can facilaitate creative inference – the back-and-forth between data and interpretation – will then be explored. The comic book structure facilities the amalgamation of multiple kinds of data, inclusive of photography, observations, interviews, and sketches. Two examples of data-based analytical comics are provided: one comic follows a more inductive approach, and the other a deductive approach. The vivid comic book structure is shown to heighten understandings of a context by aiding the identification of themes for further exploration and inspiring leaps of interpretation. The chapter closes with a detailed discussion on the advantages of utilising the comic’s creative analytical structure.

6.2 Veracity and a holistic data set All good research, all scientific argument, is built upon good data. Then, what is good data? Some fields more explicitly refer to data incidents as evidence, law, for example, where cases are defended based on a range of evidence: witnesses, forensics, DNA, personal health, video footage, search history, and so on. Legal systems refer to the collection of incidents as the “bouquet of evidence”. It is a useful metaphor. The idea being that the arrangement of many different sources of evidence can provide an account closer to the truth than if only a single source were relied upon. Good research should operate in the same manner and inspire the search of a bouquet; it requires an idiosyncratic approach, consisting of data collection/generation from a variety of sources. Relying on a low number of sources reduces validity and weakens arguments, claims lack applicability, perspicacity, and value. Parking epistemological philosophies, researchers should be (or attempt to be) comfortable collecting multiple forms of data. Sherry (1991) argues the future of good research will be dependent on its ability to develop the researcher-as-instrument, for them to be attuned to the multitude of forms that may orchestrate within a context. Often researchers employ a method that is in https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-006

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vogue, or institutionally dogmatic; this has resulted in a much narrower path to knowledge, understanding, and development. The evaluation of science in the positive research tradition is concerned with validity – the extent to which the research has measured what it claims to have measured. Lincoln and Guba (1986) suggest positivist terms are inconsistent with interpretivist philosophies, and instead, researchers have coined phrases to capture the atmosphere of validity but in the realm of interpretive research. Phrases coined include “credibility” (Wallendorf & Belk, 1989), “verisimilitude” (Van Maanen, 2011), and “veracity” (Stewart, 1998). However, the term veracity best satisfies the concerns of interpretive researchers. For Stewart (1998), veracity is the devotion to the truth; the power of perceiving and conveying the truth. Veracity is limited without multiple modes of data. More eclectic approaches to data collection (and generation, as explored in the previous chapter) can lead to more holistic understandings – linguistic, visual, and sonic resources can be used to produce more vivid knowledge (Pink, 2014). That is not to say that using only one source of data is not of value, the argument is that a research design that incorporates more forms of data will provide more instances of connection, patterns, and opportunities to refute claims (Pink, 2003). Interpretivist approaches cannot make claims for generalisability in the way that positivist studies can, as data are temporal and situated, however, research conducted in a particular context can still be valuable to other contexts. Wallnedorf and Belk (1989) suggest the term “transferability”, which entails extending working hypothesis to other contexts for testing. Stewart (1998) suggests another related term “perspicacity”, which means being able to show where findings amalgamate or align with other studies. Two actions enhance perspicacity: intense consideration of the data and committed exploration. The choice of research site bears significant implications on knowledge production. The overall goal is to collect the richest possible data, and therefore, the site/context should provide opportunities for adequate exploration. Lofland and Lofland (1995) highlight the value of conducting research in a setting where the researcher may already hold a level of physical or psychological access. They highlight the clear distinction between “starting where you are and staying there”. “Staying there” represents a kind of autobiographical research, while having the potential to generate valuable insights, it also presents risks. The novice researcher is left open to the possibilities of self-indulgence, narcissism, excessive bias, and/or excessive self-reflexivity. Whereas starting where the researcher already understands the underlying logics and expands the data collection outward is more desirable in terms of the range and quality of the data that can be collected (Womack, 2015). However, there also exist the danger of becoming too familiar with the culture being studied: the researcher must cultivate a reflexive stance by engaging in periodic reflexivity, peer debriefings, and examine emerging themes against a broad theoretical backdrop. Each method of data collection has its strengths and weakness, the goal of the researcher should be to attempt to trade the strengths and weakness of multiple sources of data off each other (Goudling, 2005), thus strengthening the eventual research

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story. The data set is the full range of collected data, the entirety of data incidents in each data form. Researchers must interact with each individual data form in different ways to build an understanding of the context under investigation. This process can be elusive, and the volume of data can present challenges to researchers. Social science research is often compared to making a jigsaw puzzle without the picture box (Erzberg & Kelle, 2003), it should be noted that the jigsaw pieces are missing also, it is the researcher that must collect or generate them. Data pieces are dynamic; they must be manipulated, analysed, interpreted, and shaped into something of value (Spiggle, 1994). The argument being put forth is that additional creativity can be applied to the management of the data set than is generally the case. Creative supports can assist researchers in managing the analysis of interview, fieldnotes online observations, cultural references, video, photography, and so on, to produce a more holistic understanding of the context. It is important to develop analytic structures that allow multiple shapes of data to interact and interplay across the set; this can be achieved by applying the data set to the comic book structure, the data becomes the comic’s language and grammar.

6.3 Inference, analysis, and manipulation Inference in qualitative research is the interaction between analysis and interpretation. Inference is under-discussed in comparison to the levels of transparency reported in research design and data collection (because these can be easily quantified). Little attention, however, is directed towards how the analysis was conducted, or the leaps of interpretation that occurred. Generally, researchers employ analysis and interpretation in an iterative back-and-forth process, the energy dedicated to either process is dependent on the researcher and the context under investigation. Some of the confusion and interchangeability of analysis and interpretation is because both terms refer loosely to the process of developing an understanding and communicating a polished representation. Spiggle (1994) masterly deciphers the ambiguity surrounding the stages, processes, and procedures underlying qualitative research analysis and interpretation. Analysis refers to the task of breaking down or dividing the whole into more meaningful and manageable parts. During the analytical process, the goal is to reduce the complexity of the data, done by examining, sorting, and reshaping: giving data a reconstituted meaning – imposed upon by the researcher. Researchers manipulate data to expose the patterns and meanings embedded in the data set. While the social construction of “manipulate” generally has a negative connotation, it is a vital step to remove the overwhelming complexity of the context and develop a clearer understanding. Often researchers discuss being led by the data, immersing, or embedding themselves in the data, but refrain from illuminating the transformations or procedures which helped them develop an understanding. Onwuegbuzie and Teddlie (2003) suggest seven analytical procedures useful to aid the research process: data reduction,

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data display, data transformation, data correlation, data consolidation, data comparison, and data integration. Analysis is not a magic awakening that occurs to the researcher; it is a series of deliberate operations the researcher imposes on the data set, which will now be discussed.

6.4 Categorisation, coding, and abstraction Categorisation is the process of identifying and classifying incidents of data. The researcher assigns codes (or labels) to incidents that explain the meanings embedded. The goal is to highlight all the units of data (interview passage, fieldnote, photograph, and so on) that are representative or associated with another phenomenon or mode of behaviour (Pink, 2007). Categorisation involves labelling pieces of data in a manner that helps identify patterns in the data set (Spiggle, 1994). The piece of data categorised may be a short sentence or a few paragraphs; some data pieces can be assigned more than one code, as generally is the case with qualitative research. “Thick description” will have multiple potential meanings and be entangled with other interesting phenomena. Some pieces of data can be deemed (temporarily) irrelevant, receive no code for future consideration, and be denigrated in importance (until reanalysis occurs). Researchers should approach categorisation with an open mind, not an empty one. The initial operation of categorisation is coding the data based on its clear meanings as related to the study, and not a random application of grammar. Categorisation should occur as soon as possible to the initial data collection as can be facilitated. The experience of data collection will be fresher, and the atmosphere of the researcher-asinstrument can capture the emotions embedded in the context. The researcher continues the categorisation process during the entire data collection process. The initial coding/ labelling should not be rigid, fixed, nor definitive, it can be regarded as provisional/flexible, although some patterns will appear. Future data collection may lead to an enhanced understanding of a unit of previously uncategorised data. Identifying patterns of meaning in the data may proceed deductively, relating to constructs or themes observed previously in the literature, and therefore the coded data will serve more as an example of something. Or coding can occur inductively, whereby the researcher has not observed associative meaning in the literature prior, and is based on the relationship between the researcher and the data. Coding is a form of simplification and reduction of complexity; it exposes meanings, inspires connections, and focuses future research approaches (Pope et al., 2000). Picture a student living space, lacking order following days of partying, a complete mess. This is generally how uncategorised and uncoded data appear – chaotic. However, when tidying begins, without realising – rubbish, recycling, food waste, personal items, and clothing will be separated – categorised –establishing order and enhancing meaning.

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Visual data, traditional or non-traditional, too portrays details of cultural context, the analysis of which can supplement insights developed through textual data and visa versa (Schwartz, 1989). According to Pink (2004a; 2004b; 2007), the coding of visual content should pay attention to four key areas: the context in which the image was produced; the content of the image; the contexts in and subjectivities through which images are viewed; and the materiality and agency of images (Berger, 2008). Analysis therefore should focus not only on the content and meanings of the images but on how the images relate to the meanings generated in other research methods. While initial coding can proceed inductively, abstraction requires a solid grounding in literature. If a broad theoretical gaze is absent, the research will be limited in generating a compelling analysis or making novel leaps of interpretation; it will be pedestrian, not academic. Categorisation is concerned with first-order codes. Abstraction is concerned with identifying patterns in the first-order codes that possess theoretical commonality or conceptual associations, and distilling them to a lesser number of codes, referred to as second-order codes (abstracted codes). Abstraction is about assessing instances of organised data in light of the other instances of organised data, thus, concerned with building an understanding of the relationships between and across data. Multiple theoretically associated codes can be distilled into a single second-order code, which provides a richer and more concentrated understanding. For simplification, one might have miscellaneous vegetables in the refrigerator (all coded previously with names), however, after engaging with theory and concepts (a cookbook), one may realise they combine to make vegetable soup (abstracted code). During the abstraction stage of analysis the researcher makes numerous theory-directed decisions supported by deliberate comparison, dimensionalisation, and disconfirmation of data across the set.

6.5 Triangulation, comparisons, and dimensions Triangulation is a metaphor adopted from navigation, used within social science to mean an approach drawing from more than one source to reduce the threat of false conclusions (Hammersley, 2008). It can mean generating an understanding by applying more than one method, researcher, or theory, which is in generally the case in good research. Triangulation helps achieve veracity, as potential weaknesses in research design can be minimised by deliberately comparing data from specific methods with each other. It should be employed with consideration, in accordance with rigorous academic standards (Harison et al., 2021). One deliberate activity that promotes opportunities for triangulation is prolonged immersion – time (energy) – due to the greater opportunities for data collection and curiosity fostered (Stewart, 1998). While each data form will impose its own structure on the development of meaning, it is important to engage in comparisons within and across data forms (moving across interviews and photographs, for instance). Many researchers term this activity the constant comparison method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), fostered during the coding

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process, each incident of data is compared to that previously to build a cumulative understanding. The understanding is grounded in the data; each incident of data has informed the analysis of the next incident of data. This form of open and cumulative knowledge generation is often referred to as grounded theory (Goulding, 2005). As the analysis develops and categories expand, the researcher compares incidents in the data with appropriate emerging categories, not with other incidents of data. Categories are compared to each other also during this procedure, operating as a kind as of meta-analysis. It promotes holistic understanding by moving from comparison within (interviews, photographs, observations) to across, in an enhancing cycle of meaning moving towards more abstract constructs. Comparisons can guide subsequent data collection, referred to as “purposive sampling” (Stewart, 1998), by which the analysis directs the researcher as to what types of data to collect, from whom, and where (context). As emergent constructs develop, the strength of them must be tested; it can be useful to seek out those who can maximise access to the emergent theme. Purposive sampling allows researchers to control the complexity of the emergent research design or exploratory approach. Purposive sampling is not about eagerly seeking to satisfy an agenda but the deliberate attempt to generate the best data using a robust research design (Stewart, 1998). Analytical procedures are an attempt to tidy up the complexity of data and expose the irrefutable clarity (like sifting for gold). But are the current analytical structures employed in the social sciences effective in capturing and exposing meanings embedded in the data? What role could the comic book structure play in exposing meanings in the data and inspiring alternative interpretations? Comparison fosters dimensionalisation, the process of identifying the properties of categories and constructs. The properties represent the conceptual dimensions that vary empirically across units of data that depict a construct. It is about identifying why a piece of data represents one category and not another. For instance, a category “orange fruit” may have been identified, the fruits may look similar but once their properties are examined demarcations are exposed and different meanings identified. The dimensionalisation of “orange fruit” can expose demarcations such as satsumas, tangerines, and clementines, as being part of the larger construct, for instance. As Spiggle (1994) highlights, dimensionalisation aids theory development in two ways. Firstly, by systematically exploring empirical variations across instances representing a construct and identifying different parameters of meaning. Secondly, these dimensions can be explored to better understand the interrelated relationships across categories and constructs. In relation to the orange fruit example, the socio-cultural, historical, and botanical relationships between clementines, tangerines, and satsumas could be identified and understood holistically (Inglese & Sorintino, 2019). Few would disagree that the less time (energy) spent engaged with social data, the less the chance of achieving veracity. Extended immersion in the context is the single most influential tactic to achieve veracity. By spending a longer time in the research context, the researcher can develop a deeper contextual understanding of the relation-

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ships within the culture, the complexities, outliers, or emerging contradictions. More time investigating allows for a broader perspective of the culture to be established before focusing on particular themes dominant in the context (Wallendorf & Belk, 1989). Time provides researchers with more opportunities to overcome the challenges of the research, such as the size and localities, participant’s misrepresentations, breaking down old understandings, and generating novel insights. The philosophy of the Wiener Werkstätte group of artist and designers was “that it is better to produce one item over ten days than to produce ten items in one day” (Fahri-Becker, 2008); this is a relevant philosophy that should be respected in good research design: time allows for iteration, more consideration, and a better final product.

6.6 Iteration Researchers have demystified the notion social research is a seamless process of moving along clear established or predetermined steps; they highlight the inherently iterative nature of research, which can be at times messy, loose, and bordering chaotic (Goodall, 2000). Ridged how-to steps, however, are likely to negate the spontaneity, serendipity, and creative sparks that interpretive research requires. The very notion of an emergent design approach implies an explorative disposition, in which the data and researcher interplay in a co-evolution. The researcher moves back-and-forth, in a relative to-ing and fro-ing, between data collected and analysis. Analysis, emergent themes, constructs, and interpretations should be continuously revised; as understandings emerge, they must be tweaked and refashioned, and so on. Iteration can be employed within each data source and across the entire data set. For instance, each passage of an interview can be compared in a back-and-forth manner to the entire interview. And across the data set whereby each interview is compared to the universally emerging themes; each part is compared to the whole. Iteration is remarkably valuable; it allows researchers to maintain both an exploratory and sceptical disposition in tandem. The process is often referred to as hermeneutic circles/cycles – comparing and contrasting. Provisional categories, constructs, and conceptual links can be explored further, thus aiding induction (arising from data), which can be refined in light of theoretical associations, thus promoting deduction (arising with theory). The employ of numerous cycles through the data generates a more substantial analysis, resulting in intensified understandings.

6.7 Disconfirming observations/negative case analysis Prolonged immersion enhances the opportunity for field revisits. While revisits can be rare in some studies, in today’s hyper-social contexts they are extremely valuable to identify and explore change. The greatest value presented by revisits, or prolonged

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engagement, is the opportunity to seek out disconfirming observations. Time increases the variation in what kind of data can be collected, and the number of hermeneutic cycles employed. Here the researcher attempts to refute interpretations by examining them against additional data collected post initial formulation. Negative case analysis (Wallendorf & Belk, 1989) is the process through which researchers intentionally seek to revise and reform their assertions. It is the deliberate attempt to find instances of data that provide negative support for or contrast with original assertions; it should inspire reflection. Researcher rational is warranted: some cases will appear to be exceptions even though original assertions may still be valid (black swans or white ravens, for example). Seeking out contradictions can eradicate overzealous assertions by the researcher. This process differs from purposive sampling, purposive sampling is about generating more robust data and adding clarity to analysis, whereas negative case analysis is conducted when a researcher is approaching saturation of the data, in which few to no new themes are emerging from data.

6.8 Interpretation and the illumination of meaning While analysis is about manipulating and controlling the complexity of the data set (categorisation, abstraction, iteration, and refutation), interpretation is about making sense of the data. While analysis can be employed systematically following logical steps, interpretation is not attained via the employ of specific operations. The intuitive, subjective, and idiosyncratic nature of interpretation render it difficult to represent in a liner fashion (Spiggle, 1994). Interpretation occurs as a gestalt shift, the manifestation of a holistic understanding, an illuminating grasp of meaning, like deciphering a code or a eureka moment. Returning to the jigsaw puzzle and the picture box analogy, having now collected the pieces, and organised them, interpretation is the blurry realisation of what the missing picture box depicts. The goal of the researcher is to translate the unfamiliar, abstract, distant world (object, domain, and experience) into a world that is more familiar, comprehendible, and resonant. Interpretation can be supported by a number of tropes to expand and emphasise meanings. Tropes relevant in interpretive research include metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. While metaphor and simile can be used to bring the distant closer, they highlight certain qualities and characteristic while keeping others in the dark. One must be careful of the use of metaphor, as often cultural/linguistic/experiential barriers can obfuscate rather than illuminate meaning (Brown, 2012). Given the subjectivity of interpretation, no two researchers will have the same bank of experience, and thus, will map their meanings idiosyncratically. The researcher’s interpretations must aim to integrate, achieve a synthesis, move beyond patterns and themes, and provide a unifying idea, concept, or framework that compliments observations and inference. Researchers should aim to illuminate an extralogical insight that could not have been generated without having conducted the study.

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6.9 Tables, models, and diagrams Structures such as diagrams, models, and language are schematic, and by design simplify the world they represent; consequently, they omit and distort information. Structures that aid the analysis and interpretation processes tend to be flat, static, and for the most part lack the human element (Al-Jawad, 2015). Tables are incredibly useful to organise thoughts, to aid manipulation of the data, comparison, dimensionalisation, and refutation. They allow for what was previously a large amount of complexity to be distilled, become presentable and aid the communication of ideas. Utilising the arrangement of words, numbers, or signs, in columns and rows, they depict data or relationships and are useful to provide a summary of the data set, or the parameters, boundaries, or dimensions of a construct (Bavdekar, 2015). Several paragraphs would be required to explain what can be presented in a small table seamlessly. Graphs, similarly, help others see, understand, and remember better, used mostly for depicting outcomes, trends, and relationships, but also useful to communicate the development of emergent themes for peer debriefing. The most important attribute of a graph should be that it draws attention to the data and not to itself: supplementary not distracting. Diagrams and models are graphic representations consisting of specific elements and the spatial relationships among them. They utilise a number of conventions for conveying depth, including relative size, occlusion, height in the picture plane, and converging lines but lack binocular cues. Also, diagrams more often than models use verbal and symbolic information to convey spatial information. As such, 2D diagrams convey the 3D structure of an environment indirectly, whereas 3D models are capable of conveying the information immediately. However, as Bavdekar (2015) asserts, every format has its advantages and disadvantages and choosing the modality for arranging the data can be a matter of personal judgement. Textual format is most useful when data is not voluminous or complex. Tabular format is most attractive when one needs to show comparison between groups (especially when detail is important). Graphs, figures, and diagrams catch the reader’s eye and can put the data in perspective. The argument being put forth here is that the employ of alternative more creative structures can facilitate inference, analysis and interpretation, and the testing and reporting of themes. The comic book will now be explored for its potential to accelerate inference and be adopted as a creative structure for the intense consideration of data and theory.

6.10 The analytical comic book: creative visual inference People come to an understanding in different ways. Each individual processes and analyses information uniquely; some are more visually-orientated learners (Gardner, 2000). Hence, the widespread adoption of visualisation tools such as tables, diagrams,

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and models. However, nowhere in these structures can the full range of data forms and theory be accommodated to help build a holistic understanding. The analytical operations discussed previously in the chapter are a necessary starting point, and essential to organise the data set, but how can the manipulation and control processes be made more visual? Some of the most memorable scientific representations have been visual – Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, for instance. Despite the occularcentric nature of the social world the analytical structures being employed are unable to accommodate and manage the visual media central to contemporary life and data collection. The anxiety towards the visual stems from researchers’ apprehension as to whether the visual can appropriately serve the theory-bound objectives of social science. However, such a conservative perspective needs revitalisation (Gauntlett, 2013). There has been a lack of motivation to change due to the lack of an appropriate methodological tool kit and open discussion on how researchers build constructs, abstract, and compare relationships between constructs. The comic book structure, due its combination of visual, textual, and contextual information can be employed to create data-based narratives on emergent themes to test, report, seek feedback and critique, aid comparison, and inspire the hermeneutic cycles indicative of good research. The separate, although overlapping, operations and stages discussed prior now arrive at a visual analytical amalgam, facilitated by the dynamic structure of the comic book medium.

6.11 Analytical steps: drawing interpretations It will be assumed that a broad range of data has been collected (interviews, photography, observations, diaries, etc.). Given that much of our data management is done electronically, there are numerous software packages that can help. I have found Comic Life incredibly easy to use, Photoshop or PowerPoint are also useful; any software that can layer visual and textual elements effectively. Depending on the skill of the researcher or whether creative explorations were utilised in data generation, drawing manually may be appropriate. Also, cutting and gluing in a make-and-do fashion may be beneficial (Ingold, 2013). Regardless of composition, the goal is to illuminate connections between the forms of data, the context, and the broader theoretical world. The researcher occupies a creative mental mode resembling the playful narrator more so than “serious” researcher, which can be of benefit to idea generation (Kravets & Karababa, 2022). Rarely are researchers “hands-on” with data, or play with potential meanings like when learning during childhood (Gauntlett, 2007). Pursuing the following steps will foster a more creative disposition towards data and inspire alternative understandings to emerge.

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6.11.1 Step 1: visual data Starting with visual data is productive as it provides access to more immediate evidence. The researcher, derrived from previous categorisation, will have an emergent interpretation which requires testing. The researcher begins by “dragging and dropping” or “cutting and pasting” previously categorised photographs from the data set. The visual data units combine to develop the theme’s “story” visually. The photographs/images can be arranged chronologically, phenomenologically, or in an abstract manner, provided the data included is based on the strength of categorisation, or link with other data. The photographs/images operate as the research comic’s panel imagery and moves the narrative along, while providing visual feedback on the strength of the theme being tested.

6.11.2 Step 2: textual data layering Once the researcher is satisfied with the number of panels and pages, the next step is to triangulate the visual narrative with previously categorised textual data incidents. Interview or observational data that contribute to the emergent theme is then layered onto photographs. For example, interview quotes can serve as the content for speech or thought balloons, fieldnotes might serve as captions, or as narrative contextualisation, and encapsulate the emotions of the researcher. The textual data and visual data work in tandem to build an understanding. By combining numerous textual and visual categorised data from across the set, the researcher has triangulated the data and built a methodologically layered and sophisticated understanding of the theme/construct.

6.11.3 Step 3: theoretical framing The first two steps are primarily data-driven, and can be performed from an emic perspective and without strict theoretical framing. However, developing an etic level of understanding requires moving between data and theory. The relationship between the layered data and theory can be tested using interplay and comparison. The inclusion of theory boxes at allocated points in the comic can help frame the data in a certain theoretical perspective and expose the dimensions of the theme/construct. The inclusion of theory adds stability and reduces the temptation to present an overly chronological perspective or indulgent narrative tangents.

6.11.4 Step 4: feedback, debriefing, and member checks The analytical comic can provide immediate feedback and a clear indication of the strength of an emergent theme/construct in an accessible and lively manner. Having

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moved through the analytical operations essential for good research, the researcher will have made new connections sparked by the relationship between the emerging comic narrative and emerging theme/construct. It can be valuable when debriefing with peers for critique if the researcher communicates the leaps of interpretation, and how the combination of narrativised data and theory combine to generate novel scientific insights. Here the researcher should be as imaginative as possible, the playful disposition applied to the data should foster new ways of interpreting the context – creative inference of this manner provide the basis for a catalyst of new connections throughout the data set and across the literature. Of course, aesthetical flow should be considered, and a title page created to provide some contextual information and display the context in an artistic way. But these considerations are secondary to the value of creating the research comic. We understand topics better when we can arrange them in a narrative. In this case the narrative is firmly grounded in scientific data and rigid analytical procedures. At this stage the researcher can decide to elevate the aesthetics by cartoonising with software or their artistic capabilities. Analytic comics can also serve as a vivid form of member check. Getting participants to read conference papers, or analysis, can be difficult, whereas comics I’ve distributed received more responses and comments. There is also the possibility to compile the analytical comic pages together in a poster format, which I’ve found beneficial for soliciting feedback from peers at colloquiums and conferences, an under emphasised component of research progress, which can inspire alternative theoretical linkages and more sophisticated interpretations.

6.11.5 Step 5: expanding themes Repeat steps 1–4 directing attention to another theme/construct that requires testing. This step fosters the dimensionalisation process, as what belongs in one comic, may not have a place in another, thus separating data and enhancing understanding. Often researchers have difficulty showing the increments in their understanding. The analytical comic structure, applicable to numerous emergent themes, provides examples of incremental understanding via the operations discussed by Spiggle (1994), while incorporating the liveliness of visual data (Pink, 2006). After a number of thematic comics have been created, their dimensions can be compared and contrasted, interrelationships theorised, and holistic understandings exposed. Two examples of analytical research comics will now be introduced and their value to inference discussed.

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6.12 Inductive analytical comic Initially, my PhD research set out to examine the relationship between the members of a brand community and the brand (Richardson, 2013). I began an ethnographic study of a local Mini Cooper brand community in Ireland. However, after several weeks, making entrée was proving difficult and access to quality data was not possible. My research attention turned to the World Series of Beer Pong (WSOBP), a professional beer pong tournament, with prize money of over $50,000, organised by the BPONG brand, held in Las Vegas, and attended by over 1000 predominately male participants. Data collection consisted of participant and non-participant observation, photographs and video, informal conversations with a range of members and brand owners, interviews, and netnography. Having categorised the data, and identified emergent themes, it was useful to test and communicate the initial findings in a manner that captured the lively atmosphere of the context. Figure 6.1 captures the importance of the range of play available to the community at the WSOBP. This understanding later developed into numerous key findings relevant for the progression of the study and provided a theoretical framing for data to be collected. An understanding of members’ motivations to be in the community, to embark on the pilgrimage to the event, and to consume so wildly began to emerge. Also apparent was the respectful relationship between the community and the brand owners due to the way they organised such a spectacular event, remained transparent to the community, sought feedback, and pondered future visions in community forums. These emergent themes were vitally important to understanding the ethos of the community, and attraction to the WSOBP event, which were worthy of further theoretical investigation.

6.13 Deductive analytical comic As my PhD study advanced, while the relationships between the community and brand remained an aspect of the study, the play element in the community was far more interesting than anticipated. Hence, through a grounded theory approach, play was exposed to be more relevant in the data and to the study. The community enjoyed playing in numerous ways, drinking, singing, dancing, gambling, chanting, and costumes, to support the atmosphere in which the game (beer pong) was being played. Thus, it was important to conceptualise the behaviours and develop deeper understandings about the range of play. While of course beer pong is a party game, but in this instance it is also serious, a party-professional hybrid because of the $50,000 grand prize. Players practice all year around and compete with full seriousness, but while also consuming copious amounts of alcohol during and around the event. The beer pong experience does not conform to the typical cultural understandings of sport, if it isn’t a normal sport (Guttmann, 2000; Jarvie & Dunning, 2000), then what is it?

6.13 Deductive analytical comic

Figure 6.1: Play and transparency (inductive analytical research comic).

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Figure 6.2 explores the theoretical dimensions of the hybrid sport of beer pong, how the underlying hyper-sport constructions, the relevant stats, jerseys, clubs, supporters, tension/tonus, and edgework practices of drinking to be in the “right zone” (Lyng, 1990), synthesise with the frivolity central to the event and Las Vegas: a playground within a playground. These dynamic elements interact constantly during the WSOBP, the chaotic swirls of fun central to the experience is difficult to represent using words alone. While Figure 6.1 represents a more inductive approach, as it was data-driven and compiled after one field visit. Figure 6.2 represents a more deductive approach because it was compiled 2 years into the study and elements of play and sport theory are imbedded to offer a more sophisticated academic interpretation. Figure 6.2 marks a more developed understanding of community behaviour informed by inference. Being able to organise categorised data into a compelling visual structure enhanced the management of the complex data set and achieved a level of analytical sophistication unavailable in other media structures.

6.14 The value of the analytical comic book approach Comic books are associated with frivolity and joviality yet as displayed, of significant value to the “serious” scientific researcher. There are numerous distinct advantages of supplementing the research process, both analytical and interpretive procedures, with the comic structure approach. Firstly, the analytical comic structure promotes triangulation of the data set. If a researcher follows the steps outlined above to “draw” interpretations, or more accurately manipulate the data into the comic book form, the researcher has a logical sequence of triangulation to guide them. In essence, rather than in an ad hoc or loose fashion, the analytical comic structure provides an accessible visual template for triangulation, comparison, iteration, and interpretation. Using visual data as the foundation and triangulating with the range of textual data (netnography, observational, interview, informal conversation) ensures that theme/construct development will consider each form of data within the set. It can promote hermeneutic circles and opportunities for interpretation that otherwise could not have occurred (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2010). The hyper-consideration of the data combinations involved in the analytical comic resembles more closely a crystal than triangle. Crystals reflect and alter; creating different colours, patterns, arrays, and cast focus in different directions (Richardson, 2000). Adopting the analytical comic in this atmosphere promotes playing with data, playing with ideas, and lateral creative thinking. Secondly, the process of creating an analytical comic visually layers the sophistication of emergent themes/constructs. While the connection between categories is frequently discussed, the layering meaning metaphor, that occurs as the research comic is being constructed is useful to indicate the strength of emergent understandings. It provides a visually impactful indicator to the researcher (research team). Thus, it also

6.14 The value of the analytical comic book approach

Figure 6.2: Abnormal sport (deductive analytical research comic).

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provides tangible opportunities to critiques one’s work visually via the grounding logic of narrative: The more difficult it is to create a compelling comic narrative from the data set, the weaker the prominence of the emergent theme in the data set. Thirdly, the comic book approach encourages the researcher to practice inference – fostering the to-ing and fro-ing between ideas. Incorporating theory boxes at particular junctures promotes interpretation of data in light of theoretical framing. By incorporating a broad theoretical gaze in the study, the understandings of the relationship between theory and the data, and implications thereof will be enhanced. Novel understandings can be incorporated into future research sampling, thus creating a more robust research design. Theoretical consideration ensures a balance between the emic and etic understanding of the culture (phenomenon) is attained, and minimises over-zealous assertions on behalf of the researcher. Fourthly, the analytical comic can be compiled into poster format to communicate a “lively” representation of knowledge in an accessible manner for wider feedback (as has been done in the Figure 6.1 and 6.2; also see Afterword). When presenting, the more intense and context-specific the detail, the greater the clarity and opportunities for learning (Tufte, 2006). The analytical comic’s combination of both visual and textual intensity ensures greater speed of access, and more direct feedback from peers (workshops, conferences, etc.) and community members in the form of member checks. These avenues of feedback are essential to validate the strength of a theme/construct but also for the researcher’s personal development. The process of “drawing” an analytical comic gives a researcher an accessible structure for managing visual data, constructing visual narratives, engaging in visual design, and conducting aesthetical critique of one’s creative work.

6.15 Conclusion This chapter emphasises how the comic can aid the process of inference; by providing a structure for the analysis of multiple modes of data and generation of theoretical interpretations. The chapter introduced several foundational research concepts and terms, an understanding of which is essential to conduct good research. In this chapter an inward focus on the research comic book was taken; it focused on the process of coming to know rather than externally representing knowledge that arose from analysis and interpretation. As such, the next chapter explores how the comic book can be adopted as a representational tool and external reporting device capable of attracting and exciting new audiences.

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Chapter 7 The comic book as representation: scientific story-worlds 7.1 Introduction This chapter expands on prior internal applications of the comic book medium by illustrating its potential as an impactful external reporting tool and vivid representation of knowledge. The chapter begins by exploring the importance and responsibility attached to research representation, emphasising that culture only becomes meaningful once it is represented. From there the debates surrounding what is an acceptable form of social science representation are explored. The chapter highlights the importance of communicating research findings with diverse audiences and imagining the audience during the construction of representations. The illustrated comic Toxic Play is provided as a vivid and lively example; it displays an evolution of style and aesthetics from the inward-looking analytical research comics discussed in the previous chapter. Following this, a discussion on its composition and reflection on its application is shared. Finally, replicable steps are offered as a framework to assist researchers in animating their knowledge adventures.

7.2 Responsibility of representation Culture is not something meaningfully existing; it only exists meaningfully when it is represented (Goodall, 2000; Hall, 1997). Research representations operate as a form of “meaning-making”, and thus researchers have a significant responsibility. Positivist critiques claim interpretivist researchers are novelists manqué – radical empiricists – bound to the invention of culture more so than the objective representation of it. As a result, the scientific authority of interpretive methodologies is evaluated by how the researcher – the writer – the storyteller – makes audiences feel (Goodall, 2000). In other words, how the story resonates (Banks, 2012). But what exactly is resonance in the context of social science research? Susan Spiggle (1994) offers a useful starting point, suggesting “resonance” is a judgemental criterion, and defining it as the “extent to which the work is enlightening, evocative, and sensitizing to audiences”. To explain the concept of resonance, the social anthropologist Wikan (1992, p. 463) quoted a “professor-poet” in the Balinese village she studied: “It is what fosters empathy or compassion. Without resonance there can be no understanding, no appreciation. But resonance requires you [and here he looked entreatingly at me] to apply feeling as well as thought. Indeed, feeling is the more essential, for without feeling we’ll remain entangled in illusions” (square brackets in original). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-007

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What is being sought is not simply knowledge or facts, acts, or rituals, but the generation of a unique understanding that is phenomenological and familiarising. Resonance more closely resembles emotional attitudes, which Wikan (1992) labels sympathy, empathy, (using Weber) verstehen, or emotional attitudes. The goal is to not only provide significant intellectual decipherment, but an emotional one also, a type of access at a distance to the experiential context of a people’s cultural existence – an intersubjective peek in. Geertz’s (2000) then genre-breaking Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight, narratively charming and metaphorically powerful, provided a template for researchers, inspiring forms of meaning-making and narrative engagement that transcend traditional scientific argumentation (Goodall, 2000). Research representations should help the reader “feel their way inside” the experiences of other people, what Hudson and Ozanne (1988) term “empathic identification”. In addition to being scientifically grounded, research representations should be highly expressive, emotion-filled, and even where possible artfully crafted (Becker, 2008). Audiences should be placed as active learners who contribute to meaningmaking within representations (Lincoln & Denzin, 2000, p. 1047). Such mutual participation transforms scientific communications from finished informative products to open and organic learning experiences (Dewsbury, 2014, p. 149). Scientific research can increase resonance value and reposition audiences by providing gaps within representations for them to actively co-construct personalised knowledge (Badley, 2015). Such approaches privilege punctum (Barthes, 2013), communication becomes more art-like, by illustrating “aspects of culture never successfully recorded by the scientist, although often caught by the artist” (Bateson & Mead, 1942, p. xi).

7.3 Crisis of representation Anthropology’s crisis of representation, a phase marked by the profound rupture accompanying the arrival of several influential texts that subverted the foundations of ethnographic representation and the legitimacy of how ethnography was practiced (Geertz, 2000; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Joy, 1994). The crisis of representation examined ethnographic and interpretive scientific research where it was most suspicious, in the hegemonic form of knowledge representations. The crisis inspired questions such as: How is the “Other” represented in ethnography? How can the “Other” be studied and (mis)represented without simultaneously studying and (mis)representing ourselves? How can the lived experience of the “Other” be illuminated in an authentic way? The “linguistic”, “interpretive”, or “rhetorical” “turn” in social science questioned the objective form of written scientific representation. Anthropology’s “objective” portraits of other cultures are largely the product of the ethnographic realism literary style, or social realism (Marcus, 1994), broadly represented by Van Maanen’s (2011) description of “realist tales”. Critiques in this post-structural enthusiasm were collected in the influential volume Writing Culture (Clifford & Marcus, 1986). The crisis

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prompted by this discourse led to the search for new models of representation and methods. In the crisis of representation phase, the established communication norms and conventions had been eroded. In their wake, ethnographers adopted a storytelling style, which offered many solutions to the crisis. These included dialogic (two voices), polyphonic (many voices), collage, montage, self-reflexivity, and other “experimental” writing styles. These works reflect a tension between liberating techniques and the desire to communicate an exciting representation of cultural experience while maintaining strict scientific standards for veracity (Goodall, 2000). The experimentation has resulted in what Marcus (1994) calls “messy texts”, representations that display strong reflexive engagement, in which qualitative social science is revised in the absence of authoritative models or paradigms. While realist texts are characterised by their projection of a “distinctive illusion of holism – that notion of creating a sense of a whole world” (Marcus and Cushman, 1982: 30), messy texts are holistic, yet do not evoke totality. Clifford (1986, p. 13–16) suggests the different rules and possibilities sparked by the crisis of representation opened up new meanings and understandings in an ongoing cultural poesis of rediscovering Otherness. Marcus (1994) labelled the ethnographic output arising from the crisis critique “post-structural”, or “experimental ethnography”. Experimental ethnographies are investigations of culture which present knowledge in an open-ended and contestable manner to emphasise the tentative and ambiguous nature of social meanings (Marcus, 1994). In doing so, current-day research representations avoid the totalising and exoticising tendencies of early cultural considerations: “accounts are clearly no longer the story, but a story among other stories” (Clifford, 1986, p. 109). The demise of strict empiricism creates new space for human interpretation (Smith & Deemer, 2000), and in turn, new criteria for judging and honouring human knowledge, in all its shapes and forms.

7.4 Imagining the audience Despite a significant amount of attention being placed on research representation, discussions exploring audience consideration are rare, the established field of audience studies is underutilised (Schroder, 1987). Audiences are the raison d’être for mass media organisations and primarily a concern for the marketer, politician, and TV network executive. According to Buckingham and Harvey (2001), the social sciences have been too slow to initiate the process of imagining the audience and provide the creative engagements necessary. In re-evaluating the audience, Webster (1998) illustrates how it can mean many contradictory things, and claims that notions of the audience are less stable than ever, and being disrupted further by the rapid technological shifts reshaping the media environment. The audience-as-mass was the most common way to conceive of the audience. In this model, the audience is viewed as a large and dispersed collection of people who

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act independently and have little knowledge of other audience members. For many, the audience-as-mass connotates passivity, susceptibility to influence, and fickleness. The audience-as-outcome views people as being acted upon by the media, and concerned with the detrimental social-cultural implications for individuals and society. This perspective views people as unwitting accomplices in the production of meanings as orchestrated by the media, the so-called subject effect, which results in widespread ideological consequence (Zizek et al., 2013). Other less critical views conceive audiences as free agents in choosing what media they consume and credits audiences with a considerable capacity for power. While this view does not propose that individual viewers are free of external influencers, it does minimise the role of commercial mediators. The dynamic shift in audience interplay caused by social media highlights the performative roles audiences play in society. Social media audiences enact the audienceas-message role; they target, evoke, frame, and share audiences’ behaviour in a consumption-production cycle. As a result, these media become sticky to audiences (Jenkins, 2006), and essentially a trap (Baumann, 2007). Webster (1998) suggests approaching audiences in terms of agency and structure, freedom and security. Social scientists should provide audiences with opportunities to explore meanings within representations, but in order to do this supportive structures to guide audiences must be provided. Buckingham and Harvey (2000) call for a decentring to the academic approach: imagining the audience prompts researchers to question how other people will perceive the knowledge, and thus, more earnestly consider the relationship between intentions and results. Despite access to a range of sophisticated tools to capture and represent human realities (Scembri & Boyle, 2013), more evocative and provocative approaches to knowledge dissemination remain underutilised in scientific research. Heightened resonance among audiences has largely been achieved through poetry (Downey, 2022), photography (Harper, 1988), painting (Seregina, 2022), zine collage (Kravets & Karababa, 2022), and videography (O’Sullivan, 2022). However, the vast majority of resonant research is presented primarily (and painfully) through text first, and the creative value is secondary, although not through fault of the authors. Contemporary social science, whose credibility is being challenged in the post-truth age (Mickawitz, 2016), will benefit from generating more playful, creative, and welcoming communications; it will be more persuasive, powerful, and impactful (Gauntlett, 2007). Why not treat reporting research findings as a communication design challenge (Munari, 2008)? Doing so will require researchers to bring the process of imagining the audience into focus much earlier in the research process. Creative approaches to knowledge dissemination can offer powerful insights that inspire people to feel differently about their life, or the lives of others (WeaverHightower, 2017). These approaches have an emotional intimacy and universality lacking from traditional communications of science (Short & Reeves, 2009). Creative visual and narrative-based scientific representations can reach diverse audiences. So

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it is important when communicating research findings externally to be mindful of how the audience will feel their way through the research and encounter data and theory in an engaging co-created narrative. This marks a novel sense of respect for the audience lacking in the general compilation of science (Badley, 2015). Creative visual representations can illuminate the richness of research findings and inspire resonance among diverse audiences (Belk & Kozinets, 2007). The potential of the comic book form as a valuable representation tool in science has been underexplored. What can the comic add to qualitative research representation that has thus far been unavailable, overlooked, underexposed or unrepresentable? The boundaries of the comic book form continue to expand due to the opportunities for creative styling and the innovation the form allows (Sousain, 2015). The ethnographic comic Toxic Play will now be introduced; it not only addresses the creative research agenda’s lack of appropriate methodological tools but is a response to the calls for more scientific rigour to be employed when constructing and illustrating comic books (Freedman, 2011).

7.5 The ethnographic comic book As discussed in Chapter 6, my PhD research explored the professional beer pong community and main ritual the World Series of Beer Pong (WSOBP) held in Las Vegas (January 1–5 during the research). I attended the event for three consecutive years, supplemented by visits to the United States and Canada during the summer to play in WSOBP qualifying tournaments and other competitions relevant to the community. The community evaded traditional conceptualisations of marketplace cultures (Canniford, 2011). The community locus was neither the brand, activity, nor the linking value, but the variety of play forms facilitated by the extreme WSOBP experience. The community was conceptualised as a play community, in which competitive, carnivalesque, and toxic play dominated (Figure 6.1). The drinking game was conceptualised as an abnormal sport (Figure 6.2), a steppingstone towards the postmodern sports era, beer pong combines seriousness and frivolity during the WSOBP branded carnival (O’Sullivan, 2016). However, the intensity, vibrancy, and toxic nature of the community are difficult to represent without visible behaviour – seeing the play in motion. While film can communicate a visual understanding (O’Sullivan, 2013), the comic story-world invites audiences to co-participate in the construction of meaning and positions them as narrative co-creators in scientific journeys. The analytically focused comics discussed in Chapter 6 are precursors and catalysts for the thinking that led to the development of the ethnographic comic representation. While analytical comics are intended to be created during the research process, Toxic Play was crafted reflectively following departure from the research site, utilising the enhanced emotional distance. The replicable and adapt-

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able steps central to creating Toxic Play will be discussed following engagement with representation: see Appendix 1 prior to advancing with the chapter. The methodological underpinnings of the ethnographic comic book form will now be illuminated, inclusive of projects and story-worlds, data utilisation, analysis and reinterpretation, hyper-intense translations, illustration, and dissemination.

7.5.1 Scientific story-worlds The illustrated example Toxic Play is based on the experiences of extreme and dangerous consumption, highlighting the suitability of the form to represent extreme and dangerous contexts. However, the ethnographic comic is not confined to representing sensitive or the extreme contexts. The comic as a representation tool is adaptable to the full range of social science research projects, and capable of representing the emotional themes central to the experiences of people and researcher. The ethnographic comic approach can illuminate and intensify how people are behaving, what people are doing, as opposed to what people should be doing. All manner of cultural context is suitable to the form given that tension and tonus, drama and movement, are central to the cycles of consumer experience and vibrant social ritual. For instance, the natural story arc of attending a sporting event, holiday, or festival, and many other contexts are adaptable for representation via the form. Another clear strength of the form is that researchers’ emotional experiences can be distilled in the representation (Fernandez, 1994), as either a form of auto-ethnography, or confessional tale (Van Maanen, 2011). The aim of the ethnographic comic book is to expose the emotionally interesting themes and knowledge arising from the research, crafted in a story-world drawn from rigorous methodological practice.

7.5.2 Data utilisation in narrative Due to the versatility of the form and the endless possibilities of artistic composition, any type of data can be utilised and positioned within the narrative. Data operate as the resources guiding the illustration of the research-centred story-world. Research design should adhere to veracity requirements and utilise multiple modes of data (Stewart, 1998; Wallendorf & Belk, 1989). Toxic Play was drawn from participant and non-participant observation (Emerson et al., 2001), fieldnotes (Goulding, 2005), interviews (McCracken, 1988; Thompson et al., 1989), informal conversations (Schouten & McAlexander, 1995), netnography (Kozinets, 2015), cultural artefacts (Leight et al., 2006), participant diaries (Patterson, 2005), photography and videography produced by participants and researcher (Pink, 2006), documentaries (Belk, 2011), and sketches (Gauntlett, 2007).

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One of the distinct advantages of the ethnographic comic book form is that any information which can be adapted for legitimate scientific analysis can be transported into the ethnographic comic form. Unlike comic books and graphic novels, which are either grounded in culturally reflective fiction or non-fiction (Barker, 1989), the mark of the ethnographic comic is that it adheres to strict scientific requirements for veracity (Stewart, 1998). The combination of multiple modes of data, and sources, establishes an ethnographic chimera of sorts – a unique multi-vocal narrative vivid and rich in feeling but grounded thoroughly in scientific data procedures.

7.5.3 Reanalysis and story-world codes Following initial coding of data (observations, interview, netnographic, photographic, and video) and abstraction, certain themes will resonate through the data set (Spiggle, 1994; see Chapter 6). In this stage of production, the categorisation codes (initial and abstracted) are reanalysed and viewed through the additional lens of the emotional story-world context. Story-world codes synthesise with and maintain the integrity of the original data collection and approach. Following the elevation to story-world codes, comparisons can be made within and across each data type and sources. What occurs in this instance is a reinterpretation, not triangulation. The reinterpretation inspires the identification of “memorable data moments” to contribute to the development of a story-world not necessarily more/less accurate or truthful of reality, but certainly more dramatic and intense in terms of resonance. The ethnographic comic provides an opportunity to create reinterpretations of interpretations and to construct a story-world narrative that not only preserves the original interpretations, but places them in a narrative of boundless possibilities for further reinterpretation (and further reinterpretation by the readers). For example, previous academic constructs of beer pong, such as carnival communion, non-mimetic consumption, edgework, gender negotiation, and sexism, have been reinterpreted, abstracted, and embedded alternatively in the Toxic Play narrative. The reinterpretation operates at a higher level of abstraction, taking into consideration the micro and macro contexts of human experience, and their intertwined nature. The ethnographic comic inspires hyper-intense translations of social science research.

7.5.4 Hyper-intense translations McCormick et al. (2003) show how data can be translated into alternative forms to produce richer social understandings and more vivid knowledge. They discuss translation as a highly iterative process, similar to the story-world code process outlined above. The ricochet is a useful metaphor to understand the moving between data

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forms during analysis in the ethnographic comic – the negotiation between alternative and new interpretations can produce contrasting perspectives on data over time. The ethnographic comic representation method can retrofit an increased theoretical complexity onto prior studies and expose areas for further investigation. The ethnographic comic satisfies the theory-bound objectives of social science researchers; it vividly communicates/illuminates human experiences while translating etic and emic levels of understanding. “Toxic play” as a conceptualisation serves as a more humanly interesting ontology to emphasise dangerous play trends, derived from the hyperintensification of research data. Toxic play as a lens can be employed to understand multiple forms of wild, erratic, but playful behaviours that result in significant negative personal or societal consequences. Such behaviours are observed wide across society, football ultras, for example (Alton & O’Sullivan, 2016). Within the ethnographic comic narrative, data and theory are woven in a dramatic arc serving to hyperintensify moral seriousness for audiences. Being able to control a dramatic narrative around the scientific data, and translating data into the ethnographic comic form added to confidence in prior interpretations rather than undermining them. What makes the ethnographic comic a hyper-intense translation rather than a mere translation is the dramatic story-world composed of memorable scientific data moments (story-world codes) plus the additional “magic” that occurs when representing data using visual-textual conjunctions (McCloud, 1993) (1v + 1t = 3). The ethnographic comic requires consideration of what data are to be visualised and what data textualised; the structure begins to “frame” potential combinations of data in moments of an overall theoretically-informed narrative, intensified further due to the underlying binocularity. Dependent on the individual reader, the data combinations are open to ongoing intensification: The translation is also hyper-intense in terms of the “unseen” moments in the story – many key memorable data moments central to narrative construction are “unseen” to ensure narrative gutters, the interpretive spaces for co-construction, can enhance audience engagement. Thus, it is the “unseen data” and the “imaginative closure” on part of the audience that combine to unhinge and hyper-intensify further an already intensified scientific narrative.

7.5.5 Illustration of the scientific story-world The goal of creative research explorations is to inspire new connections – new relationships – inspire new possibilities – to disrupt boundaries and establish a science conscious of its impact on audiences. While I possess some of the skills necessary to illustrate a research comic, in crafting Toxic Play, the excellent hand of professional illustrator William Helps was sought for collaboration to ensure the form received a vivid and lively introduction, true to its potential. It was vital that the illustrations of the beer pong culture adequately capture the raucous atmosphere and emotional roller coaster dominating the context. The production and illustration of the ethno-

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graphic comic will now be discussed, emphasising three replicable phases that will aid researcher-illustrator collaboration when drawing a scientific story-world. 7.5.5.1 Phase 1: grounding statement and storyboard At this point, the bulk of, if not all, the scientific analysis and academic groundwork should be completed by the researcher (traditional coding potentially supported by analytical comics). The illustrator should be provided with an accessible description of the underlying theoretical contribution to establish a solid academic grounding and shared understanding of the stylistic lens for illustrations. On beginning the project, William was provided the following theoretical grounding statement: Toxic play is the variety of play enacted to support and/or maintain a collective emotional bond, in which players participate in a variety of playful experiences that are either physically, emotionally, or psychologically harmful to self or others. The toxic play observed in beer pong is predominantly excessive alcohol consumption, verbal and physical confrontations, poly-drug use, upsetting the public, and endemic displays of hegemonic masculinity, sexism, and objectification.

The goal of the grounding statement is to ensure that illustration synergises well with the overall theoretical tone of the contribution/narrative. Artists and illustrators should be provided with a firm grounding in the aims and objectives of the representation – the kind of knowledge it seeks to produce (unless the researcher can illustrate effectively and confidently, of course). An initial storyboard story-world should be comprised from the reinterpreted and translated memorable data moments. For Toxic Play, it was decided to use a relatively low number of 40 initial storyboard panels; the low number of panels became a device to represent the “time warp” central to the beer pong experience (O’Sullivan, 2016). There is of course the potential for flexibility in length of ethnographic comics; pagination and styling are dependent on context. The 40 panels provided a blueprint for the illustration of the dramatic story arc. Panel blueprint ideas were predominantly comprised of photographic data, combinations of photographic data with brief narrative contextualisation, or a textual description based on textual data for professional illustration. Following this, a decision must be made by the researcher on the number of characters required to carry the narrative. For Toxic Play, a small number of characters were necessary to represent the experience. Despite competitive beer pong being highly communal and friendly (over 1000 people in attendance), it is also inherently sub-tribal. And it is the sub-tribe that more immediately influences the kinds of playful behaviour in the context, hence the relatively small number of toxic players featured. Character and narrative decisions should be made on a project-by-project, story-world-by-story-world basis.

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7.5.5.2 Phase 2: visual contextualisation Once the initial storyboard has been illustrated in a rough composition for researcher iteration and visual narrative approval, the process will benefit from the researcher providing: – enhanced detail on the emotional extremes central to the experience; – increased contextual accuracies; – specific detail on a panel-by-panel basis; – totems, symbols, gestures, and body language central to the context; – visual data in the form of documentary/film/YouTube clips; – exposing some of the unseen meaning in the narrative; and – sharing the researcher’s emotional experiences during the research. During phase 2, researcher and artist iteration through these steps will aid a smooth co-illustration of the scientific story-world and increase the visual veracity of the representation. Once the panels and visual narrative have been illustrated as comic pages, the next step is to layer them with additional meaning, drawn from other data sources to influence and interact with the visual narrative. 7.5.5.3 Phase 3: ethnographic prose Drawn from data, and interaction with the illustrated overall narrative, the script for each panel is then composed. Story-world codes abstracted from textual data (interview, informal conversation, fieldnotes, netnography, etc.) are utilised for the ethnographic prose. The textual dimensions of ethnographic prose include speech balloons, thought balloons, and captions – the devices that layer the visual narrative with emic expressions, feelings, tone, ethos, rituals, and other contextual knowledge (Whitlock, 2006) (see Chapter 4). Harper (1988) suggests that the phenomenological mode of narrative should not only illustrate the experiences of participants but be supplemented with the researcher’s emotional experiences (Banks, 2012). Adhering to the phenomenological narrative mode (Harper, 1988), textual ethnographic prose can impart the researcher’s emotional experience of the culture (Fernandez, 1994), while captions can provide the reader with a narrator to identify with (Goodall, 2000). By weaving the researcher’s emotional experiences into the narrative, empathic identification and resonance can be established in ways unattainable with other representations. The visual in the ethnographic prose requires the researcher and illustrator to consider how panel styles influence meanings and perspectives – how the more complex layer of graphic vocabulary influences epistemological and ontological perspectives (Horstkotte, 2013). For instance, how the lack of frames can communicate the changes in ontological perspective of the characters (time warp due to alcohol), or how zooming in, or changing perspective can alter epistemological perspectives on the narrative (coparticipant vs observer perspective). Attention should be paid to how colouring and

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style operate in combination to influence the mood of narrative: the dark and lonely ending to Toxic Play, for instance. The ethnographic prose inspires narrative co-construction on the rational, experiential, and emotional levels, thus the ethnographic comic narrative is an enhanced structure for audience agency.

7.5.6 Dissemination: increasing web of reach Speaking further to the versatility of the ethnographic comic representation is its adaptability for both physical and digital dissemination. Toxic Play could be considered “medium” in length and narrative complexity, and thus suitable for digital composition. It is important to consider the ontological difference in reading web series versus printed works; print allows more time for natural “pause and affect” in terms of interpretation and reader engagement, and possess an overall increased aesthetic value, whereas the clear advantage of web comics is their speed and global reach. Creative visual research, and particularly the comic book form, could stimulate symbiotic dialogue between academia and new audiences, precisely because they are positioned in the realm of vibrant entertainment culture and not science (Jenkins, 2020; Dallacqua, 2012; Chute, 2008). The increasing appreciation of the comic form, structure, language, and genre would suggest it’s an under-utilised tool to establish an iterative communication culture in social science research. In attempting to satisfy the creative visual research agenda, the comic book representation structure can be employed for its powers in privileging personalised forms of knowledge production.

7.6 Conclusion This chapter built on the inward uses of the comic book structure to support research by displaying how the comic book can be used as a creative representation tool. It explored the underlying scientific operations and procedures relevant to its theoretical development while also detailing the step-by-step process through which Toxic Play was co-illustrated. The guide is offered as a foundation and should be adapted and evolve according to its idiosyncratic uses within research design. The chapter showed how the comic book structure can be useful to represent knowledge arising from a larger project, in which other more traditional forms of data were also employed. Toxic Play was provided as an example of the potential of the form to illuminate playful yet dangerous consumer experience; it was constructed in reflection, having concluded the study. The next chapter explores how the comic book can be employed as a responsive methodological tool.

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Chapter 8 The comic as research method: preserving Covid-19 8.1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to provide a socially relevant example of the research comic book employed as a method; it does so by introducing 10 Business Days, a research comic preserving the experience of Covid-19. The chapter begins with a discussion of the rationale, aims and objectives, and boundaries of the research. Then the illustrated comic 10 Business Days is introduced and its creative research design discussed. It explores the underlying methodological choices which led to its creation and the value of the method to preserve human experiences and generate new perspectives on behaviour. The comic method can interrelate with other methods effectively, for instance, walking was employed to generate photographs, fieldnotes film, poetry, and informal interactions. A global netnography was employed in conjunction across media facilitating Covid-19-related conversations. Following this, the analytical steps and phases of illustration are discussed. The chapter provides an account of the underlying themes shaping the 10 Business Days research narrative, and finally, conclusions are drawn and future applications considered.

8.2 Preserving Covid-19 visually By now, most of the global disruption and fear surrounding Covid-19 has dissipated. However, it is important to preserve the initial experience and widespread disruption caused by its arrival – being caught outside science – outside of knowing. One aspect that people found most disturbing was the suddenness of Covid-19. The immediacy and invisible nature of the virus was terrifying. It was spreading at an uncontrollable rate. People were dying. The sense of terror and vulnerability was magnified greatly by widespread cultural ignorance. Generally, people had no understanding of how to behave in the circumstances. The lack of cultural memory from the 1918 flu pandemic was equally disturbing. It was only 100 years prior, and current-day society knew practically nothing about it other than calling it the “Spanish flu”. How was this possible? How was it a cultural blank spot given the impact? Of all the documentaries, movies, poems, and plays circulating society, phenomenological representations of plagues and pandemics are rare. Why is this the case? The bubonic plague was represented as the Black Death, a graphic description of how the infected decaying bodies looked. Other representations of illness and plague include the decrepit old woman walking the fields, rats, skeletons, and the doctor in black crow suit (Seiler, 1990). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-008

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While these representations may have had relevance to the period, these artworks now seem metaphorically distant in the context of contemporary life. Despite their clear macabre associations, they lack documentary detail, preventative instructions, or guidance on how to negotiate a deadly virus. In this vein, I intended to document the behaviours and experiences relevant to the novel context of Covid-19. All other research projects were abandoned to preserve a phenomenology of the initial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic (prior to vaccines). The aim was to preserve Covid-19 visually, to document and record the narratives surrounding the initial experiences of Covid-19, to illustrate failings and risks, and provide an “as if” course of action for future behaviour. I wanted to explore what could be learnt about the sudden revert to an alternative mode of being. Would society be able to cope with doing “nothing” during lockdown? How would people experience lockdown? Will people be able to negotiate the Covid-19 environment without their normal social consumption resources? Society faced a novel existential threat, which induced novel feelings of malaise and emptiness. Covid-19 was a brush with the void manifest, people were confronted by the reality of nothingness – the reality of not knowing (O’Sullivan, 2022). Our threatened mortality was inescapable. People were dying and millions more would die. I was extremely worried for family and friends. I felt emptied – completely disconnected from past and future. I had experienced what Bergson (1998) would term a “consciousness-of-nothingness”, an “intuition of the void” – an encounter of nothingness (Richmond, 2007). I was intensely aware of the presence of something sinister, I was “experiencing the experience” of the Covid-19 pandemic, aware of the implications and immense existential power. I attempted to preserve the experience by utilising a research comic book method. Please see Appendix 2 for the illustrated research comic book 10 Business Days before advancing with the rest of the chapter, which will discuss the research design employed.

8.3 Research design and Covid-19 Covid-19 required and inspired drastic shifts in society. Approaches to education, health, business, systems of communication, and research experienced significant rapid reform. Like everyone else, 2 weeks prior, I could not have imagined research projects would be abandoned due to a global pandemic, or lecturing and attending meetings would occur remotely. In an attempt to preserve a sense of cultural memory (Assmann, 2011), I created 10 Business Days, a Covid-19 research comic book. It was an effective method to capture the emotional narratives underlying the mass phenomenological experience as it unfolded. Every research design should be mindful of being responsive to the contextual conditions, such as maintaining privacy and upholding respect to any participants globally and locally. Covid-19 research presented additional ethical and health-orientated concerns. I had to ensure above all, my behaviour, the research, did not contribute to

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any additional infections and deaths. Government restrictions and guidelines were respected. Often my own guidelines deduced from pre-print academic journal papers were stricter. Restrictions of lockdown limited when and what types of data could be collected. These elements directed my experience of lockdown and orchestrated the overall atmosphere of Covid-19. One of the problems with the arrival of Covid-19 was that it was unknowable, undefinable, and beyond science. Because of the pandemonium, it was important to establish a structure to the project and set some boundaries around data collection. The research utilised a blended ethnographic approach (Kozinets, 2015), comprised of the combination of walking, netnography, and an ethnographic comic to record and represent the micro-social and macro-global dimensions of the Covid-19 experience. On the micro-social level, Covid-19 was extremely isolating and confining: dearth touch or intimacy, lack of movement, bodies were refrained from action, confined to a 2 km radius, or on house arrest. However, despite being isolating, Covid-19 linked humanity on a macro-global level because of the shared nature of the virus and digital communication capacities. Data collection began on March 12, 2020, and 10 Business Days was illustrated by July 2020. There was an abundance of time for the research – it was allconsuming – unpredictable both as a cathartic release and anxiety intensifier. The research was preoccupying and distracting, an escape from Covid-19 by getting closer to the experience of it.

8.3.1 Walking and wandering Walking is a fundamental human activity and walking as a “research method” is as old as humanity (Pink, 2007). Walking inspires a sense of adventure, a means to interact with the environment, an interplay with the unknown; it’s commonplace to poets, artists, playwrights, and philosophers, but vastly underutilised by researchers (Middleton, 2011). Any researcher or educator, numb from the system, may find walking to be a means to realign their natural curiosities, intellectual inquisitiveness, and regain a sense of agency. Walking is an emancipatory practice, but particularly so in this instance due to the heightened sense of freedom it evoked. The lightness and freshness of walking were in juxtaposition to the confined stuffy conditions of lockdown isolation. Once lockdown began to settle, and panic shopping eased, the city streets were relatively deserted and an alternative lens slipped over the city (Van den Bossche, 2022). The experience of the city streets during Covid-19 lockdown was more like an urban theatre than a concrete jungle (Barthes, 1986), which allowed for dramatic readings of the Covid-19 landscape to occur. Walking was an alternative way to gather data and was fundamental to generating a holistic understanding. It provided many moments of unexpected and unpredictable interplay between data collection, analysis, and interpretation (Pink, 2007). As Jung (2014) states, “walking enables one to comprehend lived experiences, it is critical to capture the emerging feelings and spontaneous moments”. Walking is a way of searching,

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thinking, and (re)searching. Mindful walking, as Jung (2014) terms it, is an interactive way of knowing, because it provides opportunities for the entire body and all its senses to experience the surroundings. Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and all the mental connections triggered by Covid-19 were recorded. Walking was a valuable means of engaging with the environment and to collect multiple forms of data, despite lockdown restrictions. It was a more existentially rewarding experience than passively observing the environment from a bicycle or car. Walking as a research method allowed for a psycho-geographical reading to emerge: the ambience, atmosphere, and softer social structures were felt in conjunction with the adapting Covid-19 society. The wandering and wondering I engaged in allowed me to enter a state of “depresentation” (Fink, 1995), the state of blankness, or mental openness, in which potentially anything or anybody could emerge. The state of depresentation was heightened by lockdown conditions and the eerie and uncanny deserted city streets. Data collection during lockdown had a lucid dream or computer game atmosphere to it. Wandering and wondering was foundational to how I processed the Covid-19 experience. I thoroughly enjoyed walking as a research method. The routine of walking established a sense of balance and faux-control during the upheaval of Covid-19. It had a positive impact on my physical and mental health and contributed to an overall sense of well-being. I desire a return to a similar routine of walking marked by a sense of balance and inquisitive calmness. I rarely experienced darkness or night-time during lockdown; I was operating on a much more natural rhythm and cycle of behaviours than facilitated by contemporary life. I woke each day just before sunrise to embark on a walking exploration. I walked for about an hour and half. It was generally unplanned but limited by the city street design. Although, as the research progressed, I was more drawn to particular routes, pathways, and locations that provided opportunities to experience different emotions, interactions with nature, experience the reality of emptiness, or observe its impact more vividly. Walking allowed for a multitude of data collection methods (Pink, 2007). In this instance, data collection was dominated by photography, video, jotted notes, poetry, and sketches. I documented anything I found strange, peculiar, interesting, entertaining, or amusing; anything and everything Covid-19 related was considered. The visual data operate as a visual diary; the memories and feelings generated by walking captured visually were later supported by jotted autoethnographic notes with an emphasised on exposing the novel malaises experienced. As a result of the unknowable dimensions of Covid-19, nothing could be marked as irrelevant. As such, data was difficult to avoid during the pandemic. All informal conversations, stories, memes, and TV shows popular during Covid-19 possessed relevancy as phenomenological data.

8.3.2 Global netnography Although the vast majority of the first cycle of lockdown was spent in physical isolation, it simultaneously evoked a sense of universal connectedness through social and

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news media, instant and video messaging, streaming platforms, and dedicated forum groups. There was an extreme digital element to the experience of Covid-19; it facilitated a range of online consumption, communication, and interactions, from the dissemination of public health advice to popular entertainment. As a result of lockdown requirements to stay indoors as much as possible, besides my sunrise walk to gather data, and grocery shopping, most of my time was spent interacting with various news and social media platforms across the globe to gain a holistic perspective on the experiences of and approaches to Covid-19. This form of visual netnography allowed for a broad range of phenomenological data to be collected, diverse perspectives to be considered, from immunology to economics, and as such, allowed for multiple voices to be heard within the comic book narrative. For instance, the phenomenological accounts of frontline hospital staff trying to cope with the initial vicious onslaught of the virus, the heart-breaking stories of loved one’s digital last goodbyes, and horror stories concerning symptoms reported in mainstream media contributed to what could be addressed in the comic book. Social media groups discussing symptoms, responses, and new systems aided understanding from a community, collective action, and well-being perspective (Kozinets, 2017). Things like social media memes, media usages, and TV shows became cultural artefacts of sorts and allowed for an understanding of how people escaped through play and mockery from the Covid-19 experience to emerge. Anything that could be legitimately considered social scientific data was given intense analytical consideration, adapted, altered, categorised, and translated into the comic book form.

8.4 Preserving Covid-19: content and form In contrast to the previous research comics presented in this book (Figures 6.1, 6.2, and Appendix 1), in which the research was designed prior to ambitions of utilising the comic book as a support, the research design for 10 Business Days (Appendix 2) intended on utilising a comic book approach from the outset. The news media were pushing a timeframe of how long lockdown was going to be, which was the same length of time from when someone contracted the virus to the peak of illness or sadly death: 2 weeks, 14 days, or 10 business days. The title is a cynical commentary on how business performance rather than public health decisions directed much of the immediate government, institutional, and organisational responses to Covid-19. The phases central to the production and illustration of 10 Business Days will now be discussed.

8.4.1 Phase 1: art-based grounded theory The foundation of all good research is adequate data collection, effective data organisation, and thorough analysis. Scientific standards for veracity for interpretive studies

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demand a holistic and extensive approach to data collection. All data utilised during this study were coded based on the constant comparison method (see Chapter 6). The visual grounded theory project developed with an emphasis on illustrating the hyperintense elements, so audiences could empathically identify with the narrative and “experience the experience of” Covid-19. Given the context, death avoidance and management, the immune system, health, and hygiene, emerged as themes frequently during the study. The stark reality of the terror of the initial Covid-19 experience, before vaccines, was that people were dying and it was difficult to stop. The initial coding of data informed the theoretical exploration across the literature, and iteration directed the process until saturation was reached, and a solid understanding grounded in data could be claimed (Konecki, 2011). Data collection, as it intentionally sought heightened forms of isolation and sadness, was emotionally difficult and disruptive, and the trauma of the experience was cathartically explored deeper in analysis through poetry (Canniford, 2012). The Scruffy Blue Arise my fellow magpies, Cold, and mourning too. Mischief first, and laughter loose, Across the scruffy blue. Hooked, light, and chiselled, Old, and mourning too, Still by merchants’ memories, Along the scruffy blue. Marching dogs of town, Of my hat but mourning too. Circles, squares, and lines, Mark the scruffy blue. Promised walls in painting, Young, and mourning too, Tumbling swift but freely, Above the scruffy blue. Dragging clocks and rope, Poor, and mourning too. Sticks and stones and bones, Beneath the scruffy blue. Mister morning had a glance, Blind, and mourning too, Anywhere else but always, His bed of scruffy blue.

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For instance, the poem was utilised as a lens employed to view the initial and abstracted codes (first and second order) across the data set before moving towards establishing story-world codes (see Chapter 7). In this regard, the research was committed to going beyond usual analytical insights and understandings by utilising a novel combination of scientific and artistic tools; it aimed to actively experiment with new ways of being, researching, and processing, during the obscure and uncanny “new normal”; it ensured a range of eclectic codes could be compared, interpreted, and placed within the vivid scientific narrative.

8.4.2 Phase 2: sensational story-world codes Representing meaning requires a consideration of audience engagement and their consumption of the narrative. Employing the comic book method requires imaging the audience much earlier in the research process than with traditional media (Buckingham & Harvey, 2001). The process of imagining the audience and the emotional lens (such as the poem above) should shape the reanalysis of initial and abstracted codes in relation to their impactful nature within a narrative. Coded and abstracted data receives a story-world code based on what it could emphasise within a contextual narrative. Essentially, the researcher begins teasing out what evocations are persistent in the data. Data can be recoded in terms of how they move the emotional story along or generate narrative suspense. Story-codes such as shock, depression, vulnerability, care and kindness, selfishness, worry, and greed came to the fore. It is not the case that the scientifically coded data have lost their academic value or meaning but have been layered with an additional layer of punctum and placed within the engaging comic book narrative structure.

8.4.3 Phase 3: hyper-intense narrative arc Following the identification of dramatic story-world codes, the creation of a story arc reflective of the sudden nature of the Covid-19 experience dominating, social media, news stories, and medical reports was created. The goal of the hyper-intense narrative is not to expose the many individual micro-context upsetting narratives, but to communicate one fictional narrative reflective of the Covid-19 experience constructed from scientific data. The hyper-intensity of the narrative is intended to impact future action during other pandemics or disruptions, to warn of the dangers, to expose ignorant behaviours, and to guide a better societal response. As such, it was important to weave in main and ancillary characters reflective of the context, that could share the narrative and wealth of data to be communicated. Some characters are intended to be disliked, serving as moral barometers for the boundaries respected/ignored during Covid-19. Other characters encapsulate the kindness and careful disposition that

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emerged in society. Data was considered with regard to where it could appear in a story arc, and then a storyboard created. Greater consideration was given to visualtextual conjunctions within panels and pages as the comic unfolded rather than generating an entire visual narrative first, as was the case with Toxic Play. Rough compositions, screenshots, photographs, abstract artworks, and thick description filled the storyboard panels, and a script provided where possible.

8.4.4 Phase 4: illustration and illumination Because of our positive working relationship, and confidence in the process developed for Toxic Play, I was eager to collaborate with William Helps again. Due to our established creative relationship, 10 Business Days was created in a far more responsive manner to the context. Unlike Toxic Play in which the context was not lived by William, there was a unique opportunity to draw from his experiences to intensify the narrative further. Because Covid-19 was a shared experience, many of our personal experiences fill micro-details, as a form of confessional tale and to resolve the emotional intensity and trauma of the experience. William’s knowledge served to triangulate with the data and narrative, providing further illumination on the societal experience of Covid-19, as well as confirming observations, and strengthening the rigour of my isolated interpretations. We engaged in a few short iterative cycles on minor details once the overall narrative and prose were finalised, such as contextual accuracies, abstractions, aesthetics, framing and styling, and adding light-hearted puns to remain true to the comic book form and to add some minor existential uplifts where possible.

8.5 Interpreting the Covid-19 story-world: hyper-structural dimensions The regular pattern of society and typical experience of pre-Covid-19 life was typified by structured, standardised, and routinised consumption experiences. During normal daily life, referred to as structure, we enact an identity directed by normative social pressures, family, work, community, and group roles (Turner, 1979). During structured time, certain behaviours are deemed appropriate and become expected. However, behvaiours suppressed during structured time are set aside for anti-structure events, parties, and games. Poker, for instance, is a game that enthuses a particular form of lying, bluffing. The game Twister encourages collective body-to-body contact and interaction, Go for Broke to spend like a yuppie. Anti-structure experiences, such as carnivals and festivals, induce states marked by flow, communitas, fluidness with environment, and immense feelings of joy; they provide freedom to explore an alternative mode of identity, free from the pressures of structural society (Turner, 1979; O’Sullivan, 2016).

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Covid-19 similarly established an alternative realm, a new mode of existence, but rather than evoking identity, freedom, and fun, it brought atypical confinements and a seriousness. It was a hyper-structure experience marked by significant existential weight. Covid-19 presented a novel existential threat that intensified underlying health issues and challenges; it was an unknowable, emotionally turbulent, and disorientating period. The practice of individual, civic, and communal consumption was reconfigured drastically. Far from a light and freeing anti-structure experience, Covid-19 was heavy, hard, and enduring. Several themes relevant to the research and 10 Business Days will now be discussed. Ideally, reader interpretations of the 10 Business Days narrative will have conflicting, overlapping, and tangential elements, as is the aim with creative visual research. 10 Business Days has been effective for generating discussion in lectures on the impacts, implications, and lessons learned for future action, which have since enhanced further the understandings of the Covid-19 hyper-structure (see O’Sullivan, 2022).

8.5.1 Timelessness The initial lockdown was positioned to be in place for only 2 weeks, despite the ominous awareness it would be a much longer term problem. Initially, there were no vaccines, no cures, and little knowledge. As such, there was a potential for anything to happen during the unpredictable time yet to unfold. The future became a fuzzy concept. It was an existentially threatening and psychologically challenging time. People were separated from their typical timelines: the working weeks and leisure weekends, supported by a range of hobbies, games, and all sorts of social action and consumption. Time, as experienced during Covid-19, disrupted hard-earned stability and disorientated people widespread. The societal upheaval resulting from lockdown conditions required an alternative course of action and new approaches to consumption and identity. The opening panel in 10 Business Days is intended to capture the shock of realisation – the felt panic associated with the epiphany moment – the moment of threat acceptance, the existential crisis, and awareness of the void (Rahimi, 2013). The lack of typical consumption brought on a heavy timelessness; time was experienced as the weight of seriousness. The risk of death rendered typical cycles of social consumption obsolete. What time or what day was irrelevant for the most part, often unknowable, each day was a blend, each week indistinguishable from the last. Time was experienced in an uncanny manner, with the “new normal” reflecting elements of the familiar and unfamiliar. Time as it unfolded during Covid19 resembled the structure and language of a comic book: peoples’ memories of Covid-19 are compiled of lucid flashes of distinct memorable moments and feelings rather than a chronological sequence of events.

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8.5.2 Disembodiment The fluid boundaries of culture, our polycultural existence, our biological interconnectedness, and the shared nature of life were glaringly obvious during Covid-19. The virus spread to every corner of the world, numerous times over, various waves even spawned the evolution of multiple new variants. Generally, we cannot claim that our approach to supressing the virus was successful. There were gross unnecessary deaths in many developed and underdeveloped countries, which were immersed in the comic’s narrative. Covid-19 highlighted the extent to how out of touch people are with their biological makeup, overall health, and immune system. Ignorant of our immune systems, people were more concerned with toilet paper than fruit and vegetables. There is an overall lack of awareness of how unhealthy our lifestyles are within contemporary society (Frost, 2012). Our defences are limited, food choices lacking nutrition, little exercise, poor sunlight, overworked, and overstressed. Combatting the spread of the virus required a reconfiguration of hygiene practices and routines. However, the frequent and routinised hand washing and sanitising served to mechanise the body – a practice that promoted the process of self-detachment (Dingley & Mollica, 2007). The hands were now something too powerful to possess because of their potential to cause substantial harm to vulnerable people in society: Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and avoid everyone. People began to see the body as a weapon to spread harm, the mouth and nose required covering, bodies to be avoided, and not even the same air could be shared. It isolated people from society and detached people from themselves, which contributed to the feelings of loneliness, other-less-ness, and disembodiment experienced widespread in society. The disembodiment caused by the societal restrictions fostered novel combinations of undeniable malaise. Anxiety, depression, and misplaced anger rose significantly across the globe, hence the constant reminders for people to be kind, and engage in more careful forms of consumption. The sudden physical detachment from loved ones inspired a wave of nostalgic and retro consumption in society, food, music, books, and TV shows (Brown et al., 2003). People had to play other non-contact physical or digital games. Relatives couldn’t hold newborn babies but instead sent virtual hugs and digital love.

8.5.3 Infomania Covid-19 required people of all demographics to understand a range of new concepts, metaphors, and shapes of information to combat the spread of the virus effectively. Information was announced to society via official government addresses, a rare media practice, emphasising further the importance of what was being said. The first major new visual representation for society to grasp was “flattening the curve”, which illustrated the case number scenarios over time and the subsequent

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burden on healthcare systems. People were encouraged to follow public health advice and reduce the number of immediate infections by spreading the emergent cases over a longer period. One of the earliest readjustments required was to personal hygiene; information was shared aggressively on how to wash or sanitise hands correctly. Posters and online videos demonstrated the correct steps to follow and reminded people how frequently it should be done (as often as possible) and for how long (at least 30 seconds). The next unit of quantification required to be understood was 2 metres; everyone was advised strongly to maintain a minimum distance of 2 metres in an attempt to reduce the transmission of the virus. Visual markers and representations of 2 metres were commonplace to aid understanding: the distance painted on the ground, spots to stand, circles to stay inside, lines to mark distance, arrows to direct walkers, new pathways, plastic partitions, and so on. These served to magnify further that it was not normal structured time. How well society was containing the spread of the virus was measured using the r-number, the rate of infection, meaning how many additional people will an infected person go on to infect. Strict social measures and the frequent communication of information were required to supress the highly transmissible virus. The scientific and clinical information being reported in the media were supplemented with phenomenological accounts from people that suffered the virus, or had a loved ones suffer or die from the virus. This form of information heightened the emotional connection and existential reality of Covid-19. There were also many harrowing social media news accounts from hospital workers about the ferocity of the virus, and lack of institutional readiness and resources to deal with it; a difficult realisation to accept. Society was introduced to the workings of the immune systems, made familiar with vitamin D conversion, daily required doses in units of mg, and the need for much healthier lifestyles. As vaccines were produced, memory T-cells, antibodies, and spike proteins were daily used terms in news media. Society was bombarded with different types and forms of new information, which people had to link together to direct effective action. It required the translation of vast amounts of different types of knowledge into behaviour. People were reminded how to manage immune systems effectively through exercise, sunshine, fresh air, and a balanced diet. However, as a result of poor lifestyles and lack of sunlight during winter or in built-up cities, people require vitamin D supplements. New case numbers and deaths resulting from Covid-19 were released in a daily ritual; a morbid gong, communicating the overall performance on supressing the virus. It was difficult for people to comprehend the time lag, that current r-numbers represented behaviour from roughly 2 weeks prior due to incubation period and viral peak, and so on. The amounts of new information that had to be amalgamated added to the sense of societal disorientation and novel feelings of malaise.

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8.5.4 Infodemic: lies and untruths Normally within society the map proceeds the terrain, the plan directs behaviour, but Covid-19 suspended all previous models and systems of society: there was no map. A clear marker of the unreadiness of society was observed in panic shopping purchases. Worryingly, many people held in esteem in society were in no uncertain terms harbingers of death: spreading misinformation or blatant lies and engaging in grave hypocritical behaviours. Politicians feature top of this list, news stories from across the globe feature government officials addressing the public with lies about transmissibility, severity, and case numbers. While one could argue that it was not to panic society, the lies appeared to be motivated by the stock market and GDP rather than easing the widespread psycho-social trauma. Suggestions the virus would disappear like magic in April, to employ a herd immunity strategy, and other veiled strategies exposed the political disinterest in human life. One of the most worrying developments was when highly invested immunologists working on coronaviruses claimed, from the outset, that the virus had to be of natural origin, that it couldn’t have had a lab origin, which conflicts with the scientific approach of academic investigation (Law, 2020). The arguments for zoonotic transfer as being the origin of the virus in Wuhan ignore the many realties surrounding the processes and practices of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (internet search histories and other behaviours). The investigation as to the origins of the virus will be complex, lined with smoky mirrors and vested interest. Any accurate Covid-19 origin story will be unknowable for a long time, if not impossible, which is a travesty to human society (Bolsen et al., 2020) The wider one’s communication network the more susceptible one is to false information, and magnified further on digital platforms. The problem is the inability to distinguish between false and factual information, truth and lies, news and fake news, and reality and simulation. Celebrities, actors, presenters, comedians, athletes, faith healers, religious leaders, and political leaders via Podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and so on, were not shy in attaching “their brand” to Covid-19related issues. From mask wearing, to distancing, closing the economy, symptoms, vaccines, origin stories, non-traditional cures, and conspiracy theories, nothing seemed off limit for unqualified narcissists. Many rumours spread globally, from drinking bleach, Ivermectin – a horse dewormer, and even toxic methanol, which killed hundreds of people in Iran. People have died from misinformation. In the United States, Bursztyn et al. (2020) show that Fox News channel viewers were 30% more likely to catch Covid19 due to being exposed to misinformation and blasé attitudes towards the virus. Those with a large digital audience had potential to do significant global damage, prolong the virus, increase deaths, and spur more transmissible variants. It grew increasingly difficult to decipher the public and private motivations of those sharing information vigorously. Government information and official advice were often disappointingly weeks behind knowledge published in scientific studies, which although was not spreading

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false information, was not disseminating up-to-date information effectively enough: the health benefits of vitamin D, for instance.

8.5.5 Regrouping Covid-19 required alternative structures of social safety; it inspired social regrouping based on health, vulnerability, risk, and leisure/entertainment to emerge. Most of the interacting during the first weeks of Covid-19 occurred digitally via calls, messaging, video calls, and social media platforms. Much of the initial reaction and response to lockdown was orchestrated via digital interaction. Some of this interaction of course had an immediate health-orientated purpose, but other interactions were much more playful and intended to be uplifting. Entertainment interjected to suspend the irreality of Covid-19 and the existential threat being experienced. The ability to binge TV shows and videos from streaming platforms such as Netflix and YouTube, the creation and dissemination of memes, online quizzes, and other games contributed to the shared culture of disbelief. The more familiar people were with digital culture, the more opportunities were present to deal with the weight of Covid-19 hyper-structure. As a result of the limited social resonance, many safe social gatherings bubbled up as a means to link society together in emotion and show solidarity. From Opera singers on balconies to outdoor community games of bingo, applause at hospitals, lighting candles, and the collective drawing in windows, many communal consumption practices and rituals emerged to reorganise society into temporary communities of necessity. Choosing to go to the park for a walk established a sense of imagined community with everyone else there, as a result of the considered purposive action. It served to heighten the positive nature of shared experience. One’s bubble was one’s closest social grouping, generally made up of close family and friends. The metaphor is visually soft but vulnerable. The bubble could provide or needed the most support, in a kratophanous manner, Covid-19 presented an ironic twist: The people that one may have wanted to touch the most may have been the people that had to be avoided the most. Many vulnerable people had to cocoon, and underwent far greater degrees of social hibernation. There was an immense emotional strain on many individuals throughout society, experienced differently by different generations and economic contexts, but everyone missed someone during Covid-19.

8.5.6 Covid couture It didn’t take long before an entrepreneurial response to the crisis emerged. The market was ill prepared; the sudden nature of Covid-19 disrupted supply chains globally, even causing some corporate and small businesses to switch production focus to address the sudden shift in societal priorities – much like what occurs during war-time

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economy. Many local small businesses sought charitable donations to switch to the production of Covid-19 safety-orientated items (visors, clips, bands, valves, etc.) to aid frontline workers, patients, or the vulnerable in society. It was important to document the trajectory of these artefacts. At the beginning of Covid-19, there was no clear advice on mask wearing. The limited masks available were required by frontline workers to keep society functioning. People were encouraged to create homemade masks from cloth, t-shirts, socks, or fabric. Eventually, generic blue surgery masks became available to purchase. Mask wearing however only became more popularised when an opportunity for expression arose in mask design; they allowed people to construct identity during a time dearth of resources for identity construction: non-surgical, homemade, and fashion masks, adorned slogans, sports teams, movie references, superheroes, TV characters, butterflies, crows, and even university logos. The public consumption of masks inspired personalisation in ways that mimicked a commercial non-Covid product. Some people proudly displayed their Covid couture: trendy and shapely sanitiser bottles clipped to backpacks, and bags designed with hidden pouches for sanitiser, wipes, masks etc. A problem for the immediate future will be dealing with the additional waste that has been created by Covid-19 production, consumption, and lack of regard or planning surrounding disposal. When will it be possible to regain societal focus on sustainability and biodiversity concerns? Will the brief Covid-19 anthropause result in more indulgent behaviours and excessive forms of consumption in society? Or will society experience an awakening of some sort, a reframing of humanity and life?

8.5.7 Civic consumption Attempts to “flatten the curve” inspired new forms of civic consumption, meaning the positive consumption behaviours motivated by individual and community health. In order to enthuse virus supressing behaviours and adherence to government guidelines for the longer term, there was a softening of restrictions that facilitated forms of lowrisk group/public consumption. While of course there were individuals that flouted rules and guidelines, the majority of people in society adapted and altered consumption expectations. Businesses adapted services, products, and logistics to negotiate the Covid19 marketplace and evolving terrain. Despite what was considered essential consumption varying drastically in most countries (from espresso in Italy, cannabis in the Netherlands, or alcohol in Ireland), the responses to facilitating consumption displayed many similarities. Emphasis was placed on establishing order, upholding guidelines, maintaining an awareness of the virus, and circumventing the vulnerability of others. However, beyond these more medically informed messages saw the emergence of additional messages, to be kind to others, delivered through street art, t-shirts, mask, and so on. People adjusted to alternative forms of entertaining as a form of altruism; hanging flags, online quizzes, cyber-parties, outdoor family gatherings, and other outdoor con-

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sumption activities in line with guidelines that the civic community spirit: these were beyond a reminder of others’ good intentions but celebrations of life themselves.

8.5.8 Callous consumption Public and social gatherings and group activities that possessed risks of transmission were illegal and advised against by experts in a variety of medical fields. The high risks of transmission were made apparent, as the potential for a knock-on effect whereby dozens or hundreds of others could be infected as a result of human carelessness or callous consumption. At various occasions during the pandemic, people had little option other than to engage in calculated personal risk-taking. Examples include supermarket shopping, travelling on shared or public transport, or meeting with one’s social bubble; even if strictly adhering to the guidelines each activity possessed risks. These and other similar types of activities were not to be conducted unless necessary; consumption for the most part was stripped of its joviality and frivolous atmosphere. However, a discerning aspect of lockdown was people being aware of the dangers of their consumption, but blatantly ignoring them, and damaging entire society – a blatant rejection of civic and responsible behaviour. Forms of callous consumption that emerged included raves, weddings, orgies, temporary pubs, hair salons, private family gatherings, government parties, and many others. Even some children and young adults began spitting and coughing on those worried in a game like manner, another form of toxic play. An NBA player in the United States similarly touched all the interview mikes as a joke to flaunt the reality of the virus, which subsequently infected people. What kind of society generates such silly behaviours as a response? What sort of cultivation has undergone to say that people felt such strong desires to defy and harm? There is no doubt many people made mistakes during the pandemic, from handshakes to hugs, selfies, and other momentarily slips. During slips, people have not undergone deliberate decision-making and rigid planning, like that involved in callous consumption. Callous consumption provides many opportunities for people to remove themselves from the activity and stop. The above discussion expanded upon the experiences on the Covid-19 crisis illustrated in 10 Business Days. It can also be found summarised in Table 8.1. Table 8.1 is useful to ground audiences, however, it presents a static view of the highly dynamic and fluid crisis. The usefulness of creative visual methodologies such as 10 Business Days is their multi-modal nature; they inspire a collage of alternative readings and personalised interpretations of experience than achievable in Table 8.1. The thematic rather than strict disciplinary or subject-bound nature of the comic book method, as designed during Covid-19, allows for a phenomenology of experience and forms of knowledge generation valuable across the social sciences. What additional themes can be extracted from 10 Business Days for discussion: relationships, diet, boundaries, new hobbies, and many other themes interesting to vi-

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Table 8.1: Dimensions and characteristics of Covid-19 hyper-structure. Dimensions

Characteristics

Timelessness

Lack of futurism, irrelevant cycles, lack of routine, uncanny

Disembodiment

Routine washing, hygiene, isolation, detachment

Infomania

Diverse forms, multiple modes, all channels, varied sources, new rules

Infodemic

Lies, manipulation, rumours, conspiracy theories

Regrouping

Reactive, networks, bubbles, cocoons

Civic Consumption

Enhancing, careful, health-minded, low risk

Callus Consumption

Illegal, self-serving, risky, destructive

sual culture or social science researchers can be explored. What panels of the narrative could be employed to generate discussion in the micro-context of a classroom, tutorial, or workshop for instance? Which panels could be explored to generate a communal knowledge exchange? Feel free to use and adapt them.

8.6 Conclusion The objective of the chapter was to illustrate the potential of the comic book format, provide methodological transparency, initiate discussion on adaptability, and inspire evolution to the form. The flexibility and adaptability of the research comic method to relate with other methods, and contexts, such as walking and netnography have been made apparent in 10 Business Days: Art and emotionality have the potential to inspire novel interpretations and alternative forms of knowledge. For instance, The Scruffy Blue poem was utilised to support the visual grounded theory coding and abstraction. The goal was to preserve the experience of Covid-19, inspire reflection, and initiate thought in society. However, to excite new public audiences, alternative perspectives on scientific expression must be explored. The next chapter explores how multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary representations, such as the comic book form, can be understood as bridging translations, capable of establishing an enhanced culture of collaboration and positioning future audiences better.

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References Assmann, J. (2011). Communicative and cultural memory (pp. 15–27). Springer Netherlands. Barthes, R. (1986). 3. Semiology and the Urban. In The city and the sign (pp. 87–98). Columbia University Press. Bergson, H. (1998). Creative evolution. 1911. Trans. A. Mitchell. New York: Dover. Bolsen, T., Palm, R., & Kingsland, J. T. (2020). Framing the origins of COVID-19. Science communication, 42(5), 562–585. Brown, S., Kozinets, R. V., & Sherry Jr, J. F.. (2003). Teaching old brands new tricks: retro branding and the revival of brand meaning. Journal of Marketing, 67(3), 19–33. Buckingham, D., & Harvey, I. (2001). Imagining the audience: language, creativity and communication in youth media production. Journal of Educational Media, 26(3), 173–184. Bursztyn, L., Rao, A., & Roth, C. P. (2020). Misinformation during a Pandemic (No. W27417). National Bureau of Economic Research. Canniford, R. (2012). Poetic witness: marketplace research through poetic transcription and poetic translation. Marketing Theory, 12(4), 391–409. Dingley, J., & Mollica, M. (2007). The human body as a terrorist weapon: hunger strikes and suicide bombers. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 30(6), 459–492. Epstein, M. (1995). Thoughts without a thinker: Buddhism and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Review, 82(3), 391. Fink, B. (1995). The lacanian subject: Between language and jouissance. Princeton university press. Frost, J. L. (2012). The changing culture of play. International Journal of Play, 1(2), 117–130. Jung, Y. (2014). Mindful walking: the serendipitous journey of community-based ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(5), 621–627. Konecki, K. T. (2011). Visual grounded theory: a methodological outline and examples from empirical work. Revija za sociologiju, 41(2), 131–160. Kozinets, R. (2015). Management netnography: Axiological and methodological developments in online cultural business research. In The Sage handbook of qualitative business and management research methods. London: Sage. Law, P. K. (2020). COVID–19 pandemic: Its origin, implications and treatments. Open Journal of Regenerative Medicine, 9(02), 43. Middleton, J. (2011). Walking in the city: the geographies of everyday pedestrian practices. Geography Compass, 5(2), 90–105. O’Sullivan, S. R. (2016). The branded carnival: the dark magic of consumer excitement. Journal of Marketing Management, 32(9–10), 1033–1058. O’Sullivan, S. R. (2022). Encounters of nothingness: dilemmas of the uncanny self. In Art–based research in the context of a global pandemic (pp. 116–132). Routledge. Pink, S. (2007). Walking with video. Visual Studies, 22(3), 240–252. Rahimi, S. (2013). The ego, the ocular, and the uncanny: why are metaphors of vision central in accounts of the uncanny? The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 94(3), 453–476. Richmond, S. (2007). Sartre and Bergson: a disagreement about nothingness. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 15(1), 77–95. Seiler, R. (1990). Plague and creative art. on the influential effect on art of the 14th century by black death. Gesnerus, 47, 263–284. Turner, V. (1979). Frame, flow and reflection: ritual and drama as public liminality. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 465–499. Van den Bossche, A. (2022). 7 Hollowed Out. Art-based research in the context of a global pandemic.

Chapter 9 Research comics as translation: knowledge transfer and new audiences 9.1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to explore the comic book’s potential for aiding knowledge transfer, initiating dialogue between interdisciplinary researchers, and attracting new audiences to academic work. The chapter opens by emphasising the value of interdisciplinary work, and how it can generate insights that otherwise could not have been synthesised. Next, the translation turn in the social sciences is explored, whereby knowledge exchange is understood as translations between different semiotic codes and conductors. The comic book is shown to be an effective translation device, a dynamic structure that can hold various forms of data, multiple semiotic sources, enhance multimodality, and generate unlimited idiosyncratic interpretations among readers. How the comic book structure could support “translating in” and “translating out” in social science research is then explored. The degree to which theory should be controlled or hidden in place of humour or other devices that can reach new audiences is also explored. The chapter concludes by discussing the highly competitive public attention market and suggests researchers embrace a media intellectual role, which can facilitate intensified scientific translations and result in greater social impact.

9.2 Inter and multidisciplinary bridging The prime objective of interdisciplinary research is to generate more holistic understandings. Interdisciplinarity combines perspectives and modes of thinking from two or more disciplines to achieve kinds of knowledge production that could not have been shaped through an isolated approach (Mansilla, 2010). Interdisciplinary research possesses a certain magnetism, in that it brings together, forges links across, enriches knowledge, and strengthens the potential for novel learning connections (Pountney & McPhail, 2017). Intended as an approach to inspire lateral connections and conceptual leaps, interdisciplinarity should creatively meander theoretical and practical research design (Huzair et al., 2013). Rundle (2014) suggests interdisciplinarity be approached as the translation across different scientific languages; the goal of which is to develop mutual languages comprised of interactive dialects that effectively expand meaning and knowledge bases. Youngblood (2007) claims that no discipline is an island; despite each discipline being comprised of many sub-disciplines that purposely establish boundaries, manuhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-009

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facture separate identities, and definitions, disciplines overlap, borrow, and encroach upon one another. Interdisciplinarity, often referred to as integrative studies, requires the development of new methods and theory that transcend disciplinary boundaries and solve wider contextual problems (Newell et al., 2001; Repko et al., 2007). As academic disciplines evolve, definitions and perspectives change, some orbit closer together, colliding or amalgamating. Some disciplines naturally possess high levels of interdisciplinarity or what Youngblood (2007) terms “bridging character”. Bridging disciplines involve broad domains that encompass the physical and social sciences, and humanities, such as geography and anthropology (Youngblood, 2007). Multidisciplinarity can be understood as the approach of combining two or more disciplines, which utilises the tools and knowledge of the disciplines in cooperative and creative ways to address multifaceted problems with broad implications. Hence, there are many opportunties for antagonism or affinity in the social sciences, depending on one’s outlook. This book adopts an optimistic outlook and aims to associate new perceives with new people. Acknowledging the aim of interdisciplinarity is the translation of knowledge across disciplines and audiences via bridging points, Frodeman (2014) questions what form, shape, or style might these translations assume? Despite knowledge transfer and translation being the focus of study in the medical fields since 1950s, knowledge transfer across the social sciences remains vastly underexplored (Huzair et al., 2013). Interdisciplinarity, particularly in the social sciences, is in need of creative translation devices, capable of traversing audience boundaries (Pountney & McPhail, 2017). Translation devices with flexible and adaptable structures that can facilitate the interaction of theory and data relevant to multiple fields, inspire novel insights, enable learners to expand beyond a sole discipline context, and explore implications from multidisciplinary perspectives are required. Translation devices can provide deep contextual and conceptual synthesis capable of generating new theoretical insights: as was the intention with both Toxic Play and 10 Business Days translation devices. The research comic, given its hyperactive and peronsalised narrative structure, is a valuable structure to facilitate interdisciplinary interaction, meaning-making, and knowledge translation. Exchange, transfer, and translation tend to be used interchangeably to describe how knowledge moves from communication to practice, but the translation metaphor captures best the relationship between the comic book and the reader. The external language of the research comic acts as a translation device between the scientific data and theorisation. Interdisciplinary-focused data can speak back to theory, intensifying the inference process, resulting in a dynamic evolution consisting of a ricochet of connections between the external language of the scientific comic and the reader’s idiosyncratic internal language. Thus, the translations offered by the research comic book adheres to Webster’s (1988) proposal to facilitate audience agency structures.

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9.3 The translation theory turn Knowledge translation is a subject of interest across diverse academic fields; it has received an explosion of interdisciplinary insight from philosophy, psychology, anthropology, business information systems, communication and media studies, education, cultural studies, and creative fields of practice also. Just as translation studies embraced an interdisciplinary turn, scholars could benefit by directing attention to the diversity of ideas found in translation studies research and embrace a translational turn in their own work (Gentzler, 2003). When exposed to the word translation, initial assumptions are generated based on what’s known as translation proper: inclusive of interlingual translation, which is the direct translation, and intralingual translation, meaning the slight rewording of aspects of an original text. However, there are numerous conscious and subconscious shifts and ideological influences directing the translation process. Even when translating from one language to another, decisions are orchestrated not just by the logics of semantics or mechanics of syntax but countless extra-literary and metaphysical reasons also. Derrida (1979) argues that all writing is inherently multilingual, noting the interplay of languages deriving from long complex etymologies and cultural blueprints (the influence of Latin on European languages, for instance). Barthes (1977) further claims that all what might be considered original communication can be viewed as a translation of a translation, and so on. Translations are organically embedded in many texts and forms of communication that are not normally considered translations such as journalism, marketing, film, and social media (Zizek et al., 2013). Ingram et al. (2014) argue that translation be viewed in a wider context, through a much broader lens because of the kinds of meaning-making that occur across languages of learning and mediums of expression. The media intense environment of contemporary culture requires people to learn a complex web of languages from considerably young ages (Marsh, 2016). People are fluent in the vast array of visual and textual languages, and competent in the variety of devices required to navigate the collage of meanings central to digital applications, platforms, and communities. Thus, rather than looking at literacy or translation in a mono or separated manner, it is valuable to employ a multiliteracies approach (Gentzler, 2003): one that acknowledges the diverse multimodal communication and translation skills enacted by people in their daily lives. The inclusion of visual, audio, spatial, and gestural modes of meaning-making can strengthen the communication of social science (Belk & Kozinets, 2005). The goal of research representations should be to incorporate many relevant semiotic languages that inspire translations, exciting connections across modes, and evoke sensory stimulation patterns reflective of society media. The process of translating meaning from one sign system to another sign system requires connections that utilise both understanding and interpretation – feeling and thought. Suhor (1984) uses the term “transmediation” to describe the process of translating meaning from one sign system to another; for instance, saying “I’m joking” ver-

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sus winking, the film adaption of a novel, the song from the poem, and so on. Translations from one sign system to another should not be concerned with being literal or rational; they should possess a metaphoric quality in that they capture, interpret, and communicate a combination of original and novel meanings. The act of translating into an alternative representational language system can generate more sophisticated understandings of the original context. Intersemiotic translation or “transmutation” is defined as the interpretation of a sign system by means of an alternative sign system or combination of sign systems (Jackson, 1960). Examples of visual transmutation include architecture, photography, and painting; auditive transmutation include music and song; kinetic transmutation includes ballet and mime; and finally multimedia transmutations include opera, cinema, computer games, and comic books (Zanettin, 2015). In the case of media transmutation, the term “translation” is adopted as a metaphor to better illuminate the expansive nature and personalised interpretations that underlie the processes of semiotic investigation (multimodal exploration). The audience of multimodal media performs the role of semiotic investigator and translator of meaning, which is more engaging and enlightening than the consumption of passive media. For example, intersemiotic translation is central to Maus (1987); Spiegelman, using images and words, translates his father’s interview transcript into a graphic narrative – which not only succeeds in illuminating the traumatic experience of the Holocaust and vertigo of moral order, it also captures the impossibility of making sense of it, achieved through the use of zoomorphism. The surrealist representations in Maus operates as a metaphor for the horror dream-like state, much like the uncanny paintings of Bosch, or obscurity of Kafka’s cockroach (Kafka, 2014). Exploring translation as a means to describe large cultural forces at work broaches the realm of anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies. In terms of methodology, ethnography is entirely dependent on perspectives of translation, representation, and communication (Goodall, 2000). The Other/culture/phenomenon being represented is directly influenced by the signing systems, modes of conception, and semiotic language capabilities of the researcher. The crisis of representation could be better framed as a crisis of translation; between the data, theory, researcher, media, and audience. Researchers can be viewed as scientific translators, that play with languages, make highly creative and lateral associations, disrupt syntax and logics, and engage in abstraction as knowledge moves from one language/sign system to another – how emic moves to etic meanings. Far from a narrowing tool, translation should be viewed as a space to enlarge and expose meanings; meanings are enhanced by the unseen connections and workings of cross-cultural understanding (Gentzler, 2003). Advances in the ability to translate the rich experience of cultural life to more audiences will require the development of methodological structures that allow for theory, research data, and audience narrative to form a translation. The research comic book as discussed and illustrated in previous chapters, facilitates multimodal connections; the research comic book can be viewed as an adventure in translation, as meaning-making develops due to many forms of translating in and out.

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9.4 Translating in and translating out The research comic supports a multitude of translations necessary throughout the research process, from literature search, to the various procedures and stages of data collection, analysis, interpretation, and representation. As highlighted, comics are comprised through the interaction of different semiotic systems that synthesise to produce enhanced understandings of a particular context/phenomenon/experience, because of the intense translations and connections between languages required. The research comic elevates the translations central to all comics by adding multiple layers of sophisticated academic translation also. The research process itself is a combination of translations, as highlighted in ethnography, the goal being to translate the experience of an Other to an audience who find the explanation credible. It requires the translation of subjective experience to fieldnotes, interviews to transcripts, then to codes, and further translation to second-order abstracted codes. Then the codes are translated into an interpretation, and then translated into a representation, which is further translated by the audience’s personalised forms of meaning-making. The research comic book not only facilitates but expedites the translation process, allowing for a more intense ricochet of perspectives to occur. The exercises and tools introduced in Chapter 5 to support data generation and collection can be understood as catalysts of translation – from visual to verbal, abstract to logical perspectives, to dialogue and themes for further consideration. The novel creative exercises and data generation tools proposed allow researchers and participants to engage in personalised and collaborative translations that lead to a richer data set and more comfortable knowledge exchanges. The research comics discussed in Chapter 6 (Figures 6.1 and 6.2) highlights how the comic form can facilitate the translation of multiple sources of data into a flexible analytical structure to generate meaning. The translations central to the representation of data are apparent in the contrast between Toxic Play and the textual representations of beer pong (see O’Sullivan, 2016). The graphic nature of the beer pong culture could not be captured in a flat structure but required visual, spatial, kinetic, sensory, and emotional translations to be central to the representation. 10 Business Days is also a translation; global-local experiences of Covid-19 transformed into an interdisciplinary representation, with multiple translations, readings, and rereadings possible. Each reader can make individualised translations which are open to further reflective temporal translations. The tools and exercises central to Chapters 5, 6, and 7 can be easily reframed as various kinds of methodological translation devices (translating in), and the goal of this chapter is to explore the application of translation devices across disciplines and to new audiences (translating out).

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9.5 Literature translation and bridging devices A challenge when conducting a literature review, especially as a novice researcher or PhD student, is ensuring the adoption of a broad gaze that will return vast perspectives, fields of study, contexts, theories, implications, and relevancies. Adding complexity to projects can make them difficult to manage without a structure that facilitates translating and condensing numerous dimensions of a published work into a consumable visual representation. When researchers are analysing literature, whether inside or outside their discipline/subject, it is useful to pay attention to the following: Title of the work, the author(s), year, publisher: What were the research questions? What was the rationale? What methods were utilised? What was the context? What were the main contributions? What does it argue for/against? How does it relate to your investigation? Any other comments or critiques? While the above can be summarised over several paragraphs, or a number of pages, complexity increases quickly due to the volume of an extensive literature review. It can be difficult to distinguish the relevancies among works quickly, as such, mental links, memory, and recall can be limited. However, there is value in adopting the comic book splash page structure as a notetaking tool for analysing literature and translating the list of questions presented above visually. The literature influences the tone, style, and mood of the splash translation which can intensify personalisation and increase memory. Translating academic literature into a highly visual comic splash page (or movie style poster) with relevant details featured creates a museum of literature to compliment the more logical rational textual review (for poster inspiration, see Barnicoat (1972)). The visual-textual representations can be stored in a condensed manner and revisited conveniently to aid mental storage, the interpretation of the relevancies, and position them in relation to each other. A benefit of the hands-on embodiment required to produce the translation is the more vivified process of literature engagement and management. Utilising the comic splash page as a form of supplementary literature analytical tool is a new form of bridging translation. The comic book can also be adopted more creatively in terms of translating out. There are numerous exciting traditional textual works which translating them into comic book form could expose additional meanings, expand audiences, and bring knowledge to new domains of interest. What would Geertz’s (2002) Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight look like in comic book form? What could be expanded upon? What is your favourite academic work in your field of

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interest? How could it be expressed in comic book form? What additional abstractions could be exposed? What would the 20 most influential papers from your field compiled together in a lengthy comic book look like? What new audiences could it reach across and beyond academia? What if journals had space dedicated to translation devices of this manner? What would an annual series of consumer culture comics look like? The research comic book can perform the role of translating effectively, and act as a bridging device to expand interdisciplinary understanding through reinterpretations, meaning-making, and novel dialogue.

9.6 Inter-semiotic analysis: emotionality in translation One of the benefits of the comic book form is its ability to communicate multiple modes of information – limited only by the imagination and hand of the artist. Chapter 6 displays how the comic structure can be adopted to triangulate and build themes from actual data. Chapters 7 and 8 highlight how multiple processes of analysis and interpretive leaps can be translated into another semiotic language while maintaining scientific relevancy and being emotionally expansive. Chapter 5 highlights how the use of more abstract comic-like drawings and sketches can lead to the generation of an atmosphere supportive of emotion-based knowledge exchanges. The translation of experience, from researcher intention to audience impact, is facilitated by a range of emotional inputs. Following the collection of traditional modes of data, the employment of emotion-based translations can expose the emotionality embedded in data collection, akin to a cathartic confessional tale that can lead to advanced understandings (Canniford, 2012). Thus, these expressive transmutations can be transformative for the researcher also; research can be emotionally demanding, draining, isolating, dangerous, or overwhelming, and the acknowledgement, recording, and expression of which is generally excluded from traditional scientific communication, despite ongoing calls for more transparency around emotion in research (O’Sullivan, 2022). The research process impresses on the researcher in many ways and should be threaded through scientific representations: 10 Business Days and Toxic Play employed such a strategy in translation. For instance, the discussion on the research design for 10 Business Days highlights the benefits of inter-semiotic translation. It introduces The Scruffy Blue, the poem capturing the eerie atmosphere and dreariness underlying data collection. The Scruffy Blue served as an interpretive lens central to the construction of 10 Business Days and is observed as a thin melancholic varnish coating the entire narrative. The phenomenological abstraction illustration exercise, discussed in Chapter 5 (Figure 5.5), representing the subjective feeling of migraine, is a translation from one semiotic language to another, and in doing so, exposes more of the subjective feelings and emotions essential for gaining an empathic understanding. Much like De Bono’s (2017) six hats approach to problem-solving, in which emotions can be separated and the problem observed from many distinct perspectives, with inter-semiotic translation,

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each mode of expression can expose different kinds of emotionality that combine, intensify, and contrast to generate more advanced understandings. By attempting to distill emotionality deeper into academic work and translating the range of human experience in more resonant ways, academic work could enjoy a wider reception from new audiences (Seregina, 2022). The process of inter-semiotic translation and exposing the human emotion attached to the research process is more important than the end shape the translation may assume (poem, comic, painting, limerick, or film etc.).

9.7 Multi-representational translations Comic books are culturally mobile and flexible in appeal; they’ve crossed linguistic and cultural borders effectively and are considered part of the global visual cultural heritage not confined to a specific language. Zanettin (2015), when discussing translating comics from one language to another highlights that such a task may be impossible, as what is occurring is the translation from one visual culture to another visual culture with only some overlapping dialects and dimensions. Because the comic book reader is a semiotic investigator, meaning-maker, and co-creator of the narrative, each reading of a comic produces novel translations: each reader’s process of arriving at meaning will be drastically different. Thus, the research comic book has no fixed meaning, only a fixed structure with resources for meaning-making. The research comic is a catalyst for narrative engagement and adaptive translations; thus a self-perpetuating representation of sort. The research comic is a “multi-representational translation” (Ingram et al., 2014), each reader can generate multiple versions of their translation from a single comic, because of the narrative binocularity and personalised meaning-making required. Each new translation that emerges can serve to deepen and expand the understanding of the context or phenomenon. Because of audiences’ capacity to co-create meaning, the research comic will find relevancy across disciplines; it has the potential to generate novel shared dialogue, and can allow for expansive appreciation across diverse research streams. The multi-representational translations facilitated by research comics span demographics, fields of interest, culture, education, race, and ethnicity, making it a valuable tool for translating to new audiences (Short & Reeves, 2009), where opportunities for shared dialogue, bridging, or critique can be identified and a more collaborative culture of social science communication be inspired (Snyder, 1997).

9.8 Media intellectuals: translating for new audiences Peoples whose chief concern is thinking and writing about ideas have existed as long as recorded history, and typically referred to as intellectuals (Chametzky, 2004). An intellectual is not only concerned with thinking but active in communicating ideas, not only to fellow intellects but to society as a whole (Emerson, 1987; Lightman, 2000). It’s not to

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be confused with intelligence: many occupations require vast intelligence but do not deal with translating abstract ideas to multiple audiences. Said (2012) proposes that an intellectual’s mission should be to advance knowledge by communicating thoughts and concerns to as wide an audience as feasible. The goal of scientific research, regardless of the field of study, is to improve the quality of life for as many people as possible (agency); this requires tools (structures) to communicate findings with a range of diverse audiences. Because of the time and energy required to become proficient in the language of any given academic discipline/specialisation, the languages and media of the general public are rarely utilised in academic work (Burawoy, 2005). Typically, researchers communicate findings, or announce a government-funded project, via traditional press releases or short digital media think pieces. Increasingly, public funding projects require findings to be relayed using avenues of public communication. However, these flat communication channels are becoming less impactful and less relevant to audiences. In adopting the translation metaphor, the role of multirepresentational media to evoke translations in diverse audiences can be explored. This perspective nudges the researcher closer to the role of the media intellectual (Misztal, 2012), a semiotic juggler, that can reshape findings and representations effectively to match specific audiences (media receptors). In an intensifying multi-media environment, the ability to translate scientific work into appreciated narratives, in relevant formats, will be essential for establishing communication relationships with audiences. Researchers and academics must work harder to capture the attention of the diverse range of audiences; become media intellectuals, capable of commanding multi-representational media, and new languages of communication that evolve in line with technological advances (Misztal, 2012). This refreshed approach could establish new bridges for connecting with audiences and generate dialogue between science and more of the public sphere. In attempting to understand the role of the media intellectual, capable of speaking with multiple audiences, Lightman (2000) claims the successful public translation of research exists on three distinct levels. The first level involves communicating exclusively about one’s discipline and specialisations. Generally, translations on level 1 comprise of clear and simplified explanations of relevant definitions and foundational concepts. However, the digital world provides instant access to a wealth of basic information, so translations of this manner on level 1 are no longer impactful for audiences proficient in search engine, or AI use. The second level of public translation involves communicating about how aspects of one’s discipline or specialisation relates to the social, cultural, and political world as occurring. Translation in level 2 requires an additional layer of sophistication and control in developing relevant translations in line with contemporary culture or societal phenomenon. 10 Business Days is an attempt to contribute to level 2 via translation of research into an accessible publicly relevant representation. There are many barriers to the third level of public translation; contributions on this level are much more exclusive, which Lightman (2000) believes is an invitation-only category. At level 3, the media intellectual

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has become elevated to a symbol, a person who stands for something far larger than the discipline from which she or he originated: Jane Goodall, for example, a symbol of hope in nature, or Einstein of human rationality, whose image is consistently abused in advertising due to such associations. As media intellectuals and translators move through the levels of communication, or may gain increased notoriety, there is a distinction observed between the national and cosmopolitan public intellectual. National translators are active in the public sphere in their own domicile while cosmopolitan translators are more successful functioning in transient “global” contexts (Dahlgren, 2012). Attempting to influence national or global debate on national or global issues requires alternative knowledge capabilities and communication strategies. The researcher/translator must be considerate with regard to language, tone, and style, and requirements of the audience, because they are translating into different dialects of understanding and meaning. Often macro-level knowledge or scientific knowledge can conflict with the diversity of myth, legend, and folklore of micro-level knowledge production. Multi-representational translations act as a mediator between the two and contribute to an organic form of glocalised meaning. The comic book translation tool provides space for audiences to negotiate macro-scientific knowledge that is commonly translated top-down, and micro-knowledge that struggles to be transmitted bottom-up. Multi-representational translations reflect both the micro and macro complexities of knowledge because of the open spaces in the narrative for co-creation and meaning-making. The comic book translation tool will be useful to academics who address a range of issues where pre-existing knowledge among the audience is less important: the opportunity for them to reason, analyse, and speculate within the representation is most important. The comic book approach can provide the generalist communicator a means of audience flexibility. “Organic intellectuals”, as Gramsci called them, who work in local education projects or loose social movement contexts (Borg & Mayo, 2007), or those attempting to stimulate change at grassroots level, could avail of the research comic. The comic book approach to the translation of knowledge could allow greater input from diverse socio-economic, cultural, religious, and demographic audiences. Generally, the notion of the public in academia is limited to only a specific bunch of publics – communication primarily focuses on middle and upper-class policymakers, administrators, and professionals, omitting important disadvantaged publics and minority groups that tend to be considered less. Publishing news pieces and posting on social media may get intellectuals a second or two in a receptive media spotlight, maybe some likes or shares, but how will it help stimulate dialogue or change? Cushman (1999) highlights the need for increased theorisation on the ways in which academics communicate with the public, acknowledging that within the “public” different groups require different forms and styles of communication. In moving towards a more publicly orientated social science, translators must develop communication tools for different levels of publics, more relevant and accessible multi-representational structures that engage and evoke audiences.

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Generally, public translators are concerned with impacting society via public opinion and typically do not seek to hold any power. This boundary tends to be blurred with revenue generated from podcasts, channel views, and blogs etc. Academic translators may find the monitoring and tracking feedback harsher on their self-esteem than time-honoured media of imagined communication (books in libraries) (Freese, 2009). Digital media can throw a harsh light upon the actual size of an audience (Jacoby, 2008). Many academics have stuck a toe into public communication culture but retreated, not because they do not want to talk with new audiences but the realisation of how hard it can be to get an actual audience. There exists a demotivation spiral; from enthusiasm to lack of audience reaction to lowered translator enthusiasm to less frequent communications to loss of audience and finally abandonment. Playing the ranking and rating style of media games is not conducive to the stability required for good academic work. Will public translations of this nature be replaced by AI tools? Will it be a case of rapidly produced and rapidly forgotten? However, multi-representational tools can be utilised as a powerful alternative or complement to traditional representation, to build a supersystem of scientific narratives comprised of narratives across multiple media. To achieve this, internal “jargon” and theory must be translated into more readily accessible languages and in culturally relevant formats. To influence public knowledge, an accessible public language must be utilised (Jacoby, 2009).

9.9 Hiding theory, exposing humour and satire Developing engaging multi-representations for new audiences requires excellent control of the appropriate theoretical, methodological, and substantive literature, and the ability to articulate clearly the core of scientific contributions (Sabloff, 2011). Because academics have focused on communicating with other academics (Turner, 2006), many have lost the ability or confidence to communicate in languages relevant to a more general audience (Drezner, 2009). To close the communication gap between academia and public audiences, and contribute to the direction of society, research findings must be represented in accessible ways, free from abstruse or technical jargon. Complex phenomena must be translated into everyday accessible languages (Haney, 2008); such was the aim with Appendix 2. Audiences are receptive of new ideas, but only when expressed in languages they can receive and process effectively. Multi-representational science can communicate complex phenomenon, specialist perspectives, and abstract concepts in ways that resonate with audiences. Contemporary media, social media in particular, ruthlessly demands the simplification, abbreviation, and condensation of communication; they require complex comprehension and translation skills as a basic. Thus, the practice of hiding theory, not eliminating it, can be practiced to engage new or distant audiences. For instance, there is much play theory hidden in Bruegel’s Children’s Games painting (Snow, 1997). Similarly, there is much psychoanalytic theory embedded in film, particularly the horror genre (Zizek et al.,). The notion

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of hidden theory was central to construction of Toxic Play and 10 Business Days. It’s not the case that theory hasn’t been represented or disappeared from focus, it’s just less obvious than traditional academic communications because theory isn’t detached from the narrative, it’s being lived. The theory is not absent; it has been translated. Without a solid understanding of theory, data, and their relationship, the translator will be limited in producing insightful, creative, or relevant communications. It can be difficult for academics to let go of the safety net of theory, and instead utilise other communication devices to promote legitimacy and command audience attention. A key aspect of multi-representational translations should be to layer theory beneath more emotive or entertaining connections: punctum over studium (Barthes, 1999). Public audiences require adaptable narratives that can be used to establish a personal knowledge foundation to guide ideological thought (Sabloff, 2011). Stand-up comedians and celebrities, because of their cultural accessibility, and enormous digital audiences, increasingly occupy public roles that academics historically performed (Wood & Herbst, 2007). Stand-up comedians are not traditionally classed as public translators, yet in signalling a worldview, they are primary modes of social commentary that impact public values and contribute to political debate. Comedy opens a safe space for social critique and reflection on ideological issues – the comedian translates complex social practices and phenomena into simplified dialogue, embedded in humorous context, which aids reflection. Accordingly, satirical adult animation centred on political and social critique, South Park, Bojack Horseman, Bobs Burger’s, and so on, can be considered contemporary forms of public intellectual translations – “perfectly capturing the era of our outrage” (Poniewozik, 2015). Geertz’s maxim “to understand a joke is to understand a culture” (Geertz, 1973; Gordon, 1989), can be reframed as to tell a joke is to understand a culture. Jokes in particular highlight the impact that delivery style and language can have on knowledge appreciation (Goodall, 2000; Fine & Martin, 1995). By removing the dominance of theory, the multi-representational nature of humour (or other devices) can be adopted in scientific translations to establish effective connections with audiences. For instance, there are subtle attempts at humour embedded in both Toxic Play and 10 Business Days. Despite the seriousness of both research narratives, humour is employed to ensure numerous obtuse, lateral, or emotional connections can be made by audiences. Humour can break the drama of the narrative and the pace of time unfolding. Satire can be adopted in translations also in the form of exaggeration, sarcasm, irony, and parody. For instance, the faux brand names utilised in both research comics are a deliberate satirical commentary on consumer culture. Multi-representational translations must be about more than just the communication of science, attempts at what can be considered amusement/entertainment must also be made. For instance, Toxic Play is graphic in prose, explicit and uneasy, and by doing so opens a window into the communal experience unavailable in translated textual representations. Due to the multi-representational nature of the form, upon each rereading of Toxic Play, I’m still confronted with alternative theoretical links, interpretations, and meanings, as well

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as how the representation could be improved or restyled, or a sequel produced. The point here is that the comic book changes as the researcher or reader changes, matures, and develops in a co-evolution (multi-representational). In 10 Business Days, there are characters I dislike to great intensity because they are a translation and satire of something much bigger than themselves – the archetype of their kind. Badley (2015) suggests that the languages of education should express a stance, invite counter-stance, and in the process leave space for reflection and metacognition (Bruner, 1986). The increased consideration given to audience involvement in the co-construction of knowledge within scientific translations transforms representations from informative products to experiences of learning (Dewsbury, 2014). In resistance to the emotionless creations of AI software, the multi-representational nature of the comic translation requires human emotion in construction and consumption – translating in and out.

9.10 The attention market: supply and demand People’s capacity to provide attention is sharply limited. Because of the sensory ratios and demands of digital multimedia, human receptors only receive certain types of stimulation. Thus, in such a sensory evoking environment, less stimulating academic translations will go completely unnoticed. The academic translator is only one of many suppliers in the competitive attention market, where scientific research, social issues, and environmental concern compete with numerous powerful commercial entities vying for attention (Freese, 2009; Dahlgren, 2012). The media industry, acting under loosened regulatory control and driven by an increasing commercial logic, has shaped modern messages considerably: content is more immediate, ephemeral, sensationalist, and digitalised. Academic translators must constantly reinvent and update themselves in line with technological and cultural advances to understand what tools can be adapted and utilised to command attention. The proposal here is not that every researcher becomes a media studies scholar, but rather develops a deepened awareness between the intention of representations and audience impact. Traditionally, translators attempted to communicate with public audiences through books, essays, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, or television debates (Samuel, 1996), which seem outdated to the cyber natives of today. Academic translators have little power in sparking attention on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and so on; these are hyper-competitive algorithmic media mazes, deceptive in their limitations. Digital conversations forge communities around ideological homogeneity, which raises social barriers to reflection, critique, and debate (Freese, 2009). The Internet provides instant communication, vast reach, and access to a multitude of resources, but has it improved the quality or content of intellectual discussions? The Internet provides anyone an electronic pulpit: blogs, podcasts, reels, and so on, are likened to extended private journals (Jacoby, 2008) – translations tend to follow a light communication strategy, not deep, as long arguments impose on the opportunity cost of continued views,

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likes, shares, and other performance-driven metrics. However, high-performance metrics cannot say much about social impact. Metrics such as views, listens, and shares owe much of their popularity to the rise of a workforce characterised by anomic isolation starring at a computer. Digital media feed the enormous craving for distraction rather than provoking knowledge generation or arousing new perspectives (Freese, 2009). Thus, academic translations, as currently offered, are more contained by demand than supply – there are too many similar voices vying for attention and cancelling each other out (Jacoby, 2008). In the past 20 years, the practice of reading, the status of the book, and not least the author-reader relationship have seen drastic cycles of change (Pasquali, 2011). With the rise of digital media, reading transitioned to an electronic activity integrated into broader array of media consumption and spread over a variety of platforms. The reader now simultaneously adopts status as a technology user, a consumer, a member of the media audience – and often a contributor also (Dahlgren, 2012). People consume information in more technically creative, multimedia ways, with audio-visual productions of various kinds, and they even remix materials from other mainstream or alternative sources (Dahlgren, 2012). Then what new kinds of scientific representation must be considered? What shapes might these knowledge translations assume? The next chapter places the research comic among a broader conversation on alternative shapes of knowledge and their value to social science research.

9.11 Conclusion This chapter embraced the translation turn, and by doing so, highlighted the research comic to be a useful bridging device that can be employed on an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary basis across the social sciences. It illustrated how the various comic book-related tools and exercises introduced in the previous chapters can facilitate various forms of translating. Translations were shown to be expansive and have the potential to attract new audiences to academic work. As such, it is important to nurture the ability to translate academic work into different forms suitable for different audiences – to be comfortable downplaying or hiding theory and communicating using different structures – to generate alternative shapes of knowledge – which will be explored in the next chapter.

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Misztal, B. A. (2012). Public intellectuals and think tanks: a free market in ideas? International Journal of Politics, Culture, and society, 25, 127–141. Newell, W. H., Wentworth, J., & Sebberson, D. (2001). A theory of interdisciplinary studies. Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies. O’Sullivan, S. R. (2016). The branded carnival: the dark magic of consumer excitement. Journal of Marketing Management, 32(9–10), 1033–1058. O’Sullivan, S. R. (2022). Encounters of nothingness: dilemmas of the uncanny self. In Art-based research in the context of a global pandemic (pp. 116–132). Routledge. Pasquali, F. (2011). The participatory turn in the publishing industry: Rhetorics and practices. CM Komunikacija i mediji, 6(21), 203–219. Poniewozik, J. (2015). How ‘south park’ perfectly captures our era of outrage. The New York Times, 8. Pountney, R., & McPhail, G. (2017). Researching the interdisciplinary curriculum: the need for ‘translation devices’. British Educational Research Journal, 43(6), 1068–1082. Pruitt, L., Ingram, D., & Weiss, C. (2014). Found in translation: interdisciplinary arts integration in project AIM. Journal for Learning through the Arts, 10(1), n1. Repko, A., Nacakas, F., & Fiscella, J. (2007). Integrating interdisciplinarity: how the theories of common ground and cognitive interdisciplinarity are informing the debate on interdisciplinary integration. Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies. Rundle, C. (2014). Theories and methodologies of translation history: the value of an interdisciplinary approach. The Translator, 20(1), 2–8. Sabloff, J. A. (2011). Where have you gone, Margaret Mead? Anthropology and public intellectuals. American Anthropologist, 113(3), 408–416. Said, E. W. (2012). Representations of the intellectual. Vintage. Sealts, M. M. (1970). Emerson on the scholar, 1833–1837. Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 85(2), 185–195. Seregina, U., & Van den Bossche, A. (Eds.). (2022). Art–based research in the context of a global pandemic. Taylor & Francis. Short, J. C., & Reeves, T. C. (2009). The graphic novel: a “cool” format for communicating to generation Y. Business Communication Quarterly, 72(4), 414–430. Snow, E. (1997). Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Children’s Games. Macmillan. Snyder, E. E. (1997). Teaching the sociology of sport: using a comic strip in the classroom. Teaching Sociology, 25(3), 239–243. Suhor, C. (1984). Towards a semiotics‐based curriculum. Journal Curriculum Studies, 16(3), 247–257. Turner, B. (2006). Public intellectuals, globalization and the sociological calling: a reply to critics. British Journal of Sociology, 57(3), 345–351. Webster, J. G. (1998). The audience. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 42(2), 190–207. Wood, N. T., & Herbst, K. C. (2007). Political star power and political parties: does celebrity endorsement win first-time votes? Journal of Political Marketing, 6(2–3), 141–158. Youngblood, D. (2007). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and bridging disciplines: A matter of process. Journal of Research Practice, 3(2), M18-M18. Zanettin, F. (2015). Comics in translation. Routledge. Žižek, S., Fiennes, S., & Fiennes, M. (2013). The pervert’s guide to ideology. Channel 4 DVD.

Chapter 10 Alternative shapes of knowledge 10.1 Introduction This chapter offers a conclusion to the book; it positions the comic book tool in a broader argument for revitalisation within academia. It opens by exploring knowledge, its notions, forms, and meanings, and the diverse approaches to seeking it taken in different academic contexts. The liberation of knowledge proposes academia aims to contribute not only to scientific domains but to cultural ones also. The argument is that social science researchers should translate knowledge using alternative shapes. By using more accessible media, academia, and education in general, can better align with contemporary audiences. Because of their novel communication structures, alternative shapes of knowledge reposition audiences in the knowledge production process and facilitate more personalised imaginative engagements. Finally, the chapter concludes by offering a reflection on the book.

10.2 The liberation of knowledge Despite knowledge being a highly valued state in which an individual (or society) attains enhanced cognitive associations with reality, as a term, it is rarely questioned, revisited, or reconsidered in light of the rapidly advancing cultural sphere. Any attempt to assign a definition to knowledge is problematic, as it has been treated differently in different philosophical epochs. Aristotle distinguished between types of knowledge. Theoretical knowledge relates to efforts to know things that were of necessity, and processes that could not be another way, nature’s cycles, the arrow of time, and so on. Practical knowledge is knowledge of contingencies, the local environment, and its relevancies. Productive knowledge is how to make something. Zagrezbski (2017) distinguishes between direct and indirect knowledge, whereby knowledge of things is direct knowledge, typically secured through direct acquaintance, and knowledge about things is propositional knowledge. Propositional knowledge is easily communicated and attempted through books, journals, and so on, whereas knowledge by acquaintance cannot be communicated in a straightforward way, it requires feelings of heightened engagement on behalf of the audience. The research comic book aims to provide a synthesis by representing a scientific structure (proposition) in which free engagement and personalised meaning-making are established (acquaintance). Zagrezbski (2017) goes on to highlight that propositions are either true or false, but only true propositions link the knower with reality, however, the nature of truth, propositions, and reality are metaphysical issues. Hence, discussions of knowledge tend to focus on the properties that make it knowing. Knowing is within the realm of https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-010

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believing, in which knowledge gets intertwined with issues of the moral or ego and can result in the refutation of new knowledge: not stepping outside safe ideology or cultural belief systems for intellectual growth. Paradoxically: knowing prevents knowing. The unwillingness or inability to reimagine – to be momentarily decentred from safe ideology – to think anew – is at the heart of the crisis of creativity – the culture of knowing and the onslaught of digitally maintained dogmas. It is for these reasons why Lytras and Sicilia (2005) argue that revitalisation to the notions of knowledge is essential for the evolution of learning in society. According to some paradigms, the conditions of knowledge are narrow and strict, whereas in other paradigms the dominant theories and approaches are broad and loose. It is wise to expect only as much precision/truth as the subject matter or medium can illuminate. Thus, what knowledge means depends on how the inquiry is undertaken and kind of problem being addressed. The narrow view of knowledge in academia is linked to the rationalising project of modernity (Kinross, 2019). From the blinkered view, knowledge is information or science that is of declarative, procedural, casual, explicit, tacit, general, or specific value (Zack, 1999): mostly viewed as a thing to be stored or a process of applying units of expertise. From this arises notions of knowledge as something to be transferred; the unilateral movement of meaning implies a systematic approach. Whereas the view of knowledge as translation, adopted in the previous chapter, implies a collaborative element, a more democratic approach to knowledge production in society. Interpretive social science has moved beyond the pseudo claims for truth, objectivity, and reality once claimed by anthropology. Knowledge within the interpretive space can be thought of as a narrative that does not offer a singular truth but meanings reflective of many potential truths (Goodall, 2000). Deviating from rigorist approaches to knowledge, the broad view accepts that perception and memory are key components of knowledge production. Because of the inherent influence of the audience, perhaps knowledge is not an ontological state for which a generalised definition is attainable. Academia (education and research) should adopt the broader view on knowledge, as consisting of more than science, but cultural knowledge also. It would require a radical reengagement to view knowledge as a socially constructed structure with a creative as well as a scientific dimension that cannot be reduced to either (Delanty, 2001). The alternative view on knowledge acknowledges the interconnectivity and interplay of meaningmaking with the public audiences. Academia should view itself as a creative translation zone for the expression of knowledge as science and knowledge as culture. Knowledge creation from this view is liberating and considered an expansive social affair, in which academia is but one among a range of cultural contributors competing for influence. To become culturally relevant, academia must provide spaces and structures that enable people to develop their personal knowledge generation skills, enhance their capacity for thought, and prepare for the uncertainty of the future. Knowledge translation in this model can be viewed as an act of intellectual virtue or as scientific-cultural narratives imbued with motivation to engage audiences in

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more compelling ways than previously attempted (Huzair et al., 2013). The research comics provided in this book were an attempt to shake and decentre audiences from passivity. By no means has the treatment of the comic book in academia fully matured, its mutative and flexible powers await the hands and minds of others for further evolution. The argument for creative rejuvenation should be applied to other underutilised media/tools to establish new communication possibilities and vibrant cultural knowledge exchanges (Eisner, 2008). The liberation and revitalisation of perspectives on knowledge within academia can inspire multiple forms of creative knowledge production and exchanges.

10.3 Creative knowledge translation The knowledge transfer/translation process is influenced by the type of knowledge being translated, how it is represented, and the processing demands of the transfer task (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988). Nokes (2009) highlights the need to develop new translation formats that grow organically, begin life with the excitement of intention, such as addressing the issues of the crisis of creativity (see Chapter 2). The potential for new media to serve a different kind of learning cannot be realised by an academic community that clings to the media it can command (Laurillard, 2013). Creative forms of knowledge translation can grant audiences access to competencies and personal growth, which enthuse mutative and co-creative meanings (Seregina & Van den Bossche, 2022). Eisner’s (2008) encomium for the application of alternative forms of representation draws from the fact that cultural knowledge production is supported by a variety of visual, auditory, gustatory, kinaesthetic, and mixed modes. However, the idea that artistic methods could be a form of knowledge, or be scientifically useful, did not have a welcomed reception in contemporary philosophical thought until recently (Becker, 2008). The arts were thought to be valuable only as a leisure pursuit, a natural high, a dopamine flood, secured using exciting sensory ratios. Art provides access to dimesnions of expression that could not be possible otherwise – knowledge inexpressible in ordinary modes. Eisner (2008) proposes that knowledge about life arises from feeling, which is most effectively accessed through the arts. Knowledge of the human condition, that leads to personalised understandings, is most powerfully exposed when shaped artistically. As Dewy (1897) emphasises, science states meaning, art expresses it. Thus, artistic and creative media enable researchers, participants, and audiences to come to know via feeling – punctum – the kind of knowledge that cannot be revealed in literal scientific statement (Geertz, 2002). By adopting fluid forms of knowledge generation, which are about emotion, empathic identification, and becoming aware of our capacity to feel as a way of discovering, academia can offer more dynamic learning experiences and establish a culture of translation supported by the use of alternative shapes of knowledge.

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10.4 Alternative shapes of knowledge Alternative shapes of knowledge are the approaches to knowledge translation that reposition the learner and audience in relation to knowledge. They transform the audiences’ role in the authentication, evaluation, and selection of information, and thus, generate more personalised and empathic forms of knowledge (Jewitt, 2008, p. 35). The purpose is to inspire audiences to participate in the ideological work of meaningmaking, for them to personalise information in ways that significantly reshape knowledge, and in doing so, makes academic work more vivid and consumable. Alternative shapes of knowledge have the potential to reposition non-academic audiences, attract them to scientific findings, and foster dialogue (Gauntlett, 2013). It is overdue that academia adopts more democratic and circular knowledge exchanges, and learns from culture during the production of science. This is typified by the recent tensions in the UK surrounding autism research, in which power struggles between researchers, advocates, and parents threaten progress in the field (Huggett, 2023). Much of the power issues arise due to the lack of shared meaning, in terms of language, aims, objectives, and feelings about the research. Twitter is unfortunately the narrow space where much of the academic-public translation struggles play out, serving to intensify misunderstandings and mistrust due to the divisive nature of digital platforms. Whereas the application of alternative shapes of knowledge during the research process in interaction and iteration with publics can allow for the democratisation of knowledge because of the multimodal narrative structures. Knowledge collaboration in this manner is co-produced, participated in, emotive, felt, and lived, rather than merely consumed or passed on. Academia must become more comfortable with relinquishing control of the final narrative, to realign focus on the relationship between intent and outcomes and not the dimensions of domains. The scientific narrative should only serve as one narrative among many. This perspective acknowledges that academia must learn from how knowledge is constructed within media culture, rather than only in academic echo chambers, journals, for instance. Contemporary audiences require engaging narratives that can be used to establish a knowledge foundation to guide future action (Sabloff, 2011). How knowledge is produced, in which style, and through which media structure, is crucial to knowledge appreciation. The ways in which phenomenon or concepts are represented shapes what is to be learnt as well as how it is to be learnt. Translation structures must be selected consciously and carefully, “like trying to find a pair of glasses appropriate to the task at hand” (Davis et al., 1993). Attempting to establish dialogue and contribute better to societal learning will require more creative approaches to knowledge production and the utilisation of shapes with more sensory and emotive narrative appeal than that currently being employed. Drawing on the work of Turner (1979; 1982; 1998), Lincoln and Denzin (2000, p. 1048) claim that the liminal space is the next frontier for qualitative research. At the core of what Lincoln and Denzin (2000) are suggesting is that audiences should be invited to

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separate from their everyday established norms, identities, and roles, during learning experiences. Learning should take place in a more imaginary and abstract mental environment, in a communication space that allows for alternative understandings to emerge, unbound by the ordinary modalities of life, in which audiences are welcomed to a curious elsewhere (Gergen, 1997). The notions of separation from the ordinary and imaginary spaces relate to the liminoid, a conception of in-between experience marked by culturally reflective performance, drama, or entertainment (Turner, 1979; 1982). Liminoid representations are adaptable as alternative shapes of knowledge in social science research. Popular liminoid genres “are often part of social critiques or even revolutionary manifestos – books, plays, paintings, films, etc., exposing the injustices, inefficiencies, and immoralities of the mainstream economic and political structures and organizations” (Turner, 1982, p. 54–55). While liminoid belongs to the realm of entertainment, it is only part of the desired separation from the norm to establish cultural knowledge. Alternative shapes of knowledge should accommodate for the existential ups and downs, the life energy of tension and tonus (positive excitements) (Elias & Dunning, 1986). Hence why adopting a dramatic narrative when communicating science is so effective, because it allows for the peaks and depths of self to be explored. Alternative shapes of knowledge should also aim to inspire knowledge production via depresentation – characterised by a state of intense knowledge exploration, a space in which anything or any concept can emerge (Fink, 1995). The aspiration for academia should be to craft spaces within scientific structures, collaborative spaces, in which audiences learn to produce their own knowledge within a realm of manufactured uncertainty (narrative). By combing both liminoid and depresentation states, due to the reflective and projective experiences of imagination, the audience gains an extraordinary personalised perspective. These forms of representation offer explorations and safe proximity as to what it feels like to be human, and inspire learning beyond the linear. There is no clear takehome, no set of research questions to be answered, yet each alternative shape of knowledge offers a lesson grounded in empathic identification (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988). By downplaying linear approaches to knowledge production, imaginative spaces can be crafted and enhanced further by the mind of the learner (Lincoln & Denzin, 2000). The researcher or educator in this model becomes the connector, assimilator, and translator, joining the field of science, context, and audience in collaborative knowledge production (Banks, 1995). Alternative shapes of knowledge can take many forms, the knowledge gained through process is more important than the shape. Although the production of visually alluring comic book narratives could aid the accessibility of research, as proposed in this book, other alternative shapes of knowledge useful to researchers include improvisational or stand-up comedy, dramatic soliloquies, films, music, dance, plays, poetry, skits, mime, games, and other popular culture knowledge exchanges. The escape room phenomenon is immensely popular in culture; however, it is that unlikely that any university would lock students in a room until they escaped with an assurance of

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learning. In many ways, the goal of alternative shapes of knowledge is similar, to engage people with many types of knowledge they must synthesise. Because of the audiences’ separation from typical perspectives of self, alternative shapes of knowledge operate as personalised knowledge refineries rather than static knowledge depositories. Such communication framing places audiences as active learners who contribute to the meaning of knowledge and promotes a culture of exciting knowledge production to which social science can offer valuable translation structures. “Alternative” modes of representation are often met with conventionalist arguments about declining controls for veracity, accuracy, transparency, and accountability (Dahlgren, 2012). However, as sought to be demonstrated in this book, Toxic Play, and 10 Business Days, increasing opportunities for emotional resonance does not diminish the scientific merit of representations – it merely alters the shape.

10.5 Future knowledge audiences Communicators, academics, and public intellectuals, in order to contribute to social thought, must negotiate the digital and cultural communication environment; develop alternative modes of communication that engage and captivate audiences. Dahlgem (2012) views knowledge translation as a techno-creative challenge, however, maintaining cultural relevance more closely relates to a resonant-creative challenge – translations must resonate with public audiences, regardless of whether digital or traditional print composition. Alternative shapes of knowledge proposes that translators continuously develop both scientific and cultural languages, in line with innovation. The goal is to weave between the two currently separated worlds of academic and public knowledge. It will require academics having to tend to typical academic requirements such as traditional publications and so on, but also tending to the creative side of knowledge production. This is not intended to cause a split in researchers but to create synergies that lead to more authentic scientific work. Just as university departments are frequently maintained by IT specialists, an artist-in-residence collaborating on public output could regain public attention and trust in academic work. Academia appears to be transitioning into a zone for the safe expression of knowledge in society. Rather than latching to teaching models based on job training or practical teaching, more energy should be directed to teaching people how to explore knowledge and think for themselves. In doing so, it can minimise the compliances and passivity of the digital world (Demos, 2017). Social science is confronted with the need to modernise, refresh, and revitalise approaches to knowledge production (such as Chapter 5); it must innovate and experiment with expressive media to capture new interests. The development of approaches to knowledge production should adopt playful and creative processes to better animate the adventures central to contemporary culture.

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10.6 Conclusion By now, hopefully, a case for the potential of the comic book to support creative visual research has been made. Its adaptability to readers’ specific research requirements should be clear. It is also hoped readers have benefitted from the illustration and narrative exercises, designed to nurture creative talents and artistic enthusiasm. Hopefully readers are enthused to create their own research comics, adapt the form, enhance, evolve, and employed it to new research roles. Ideally, readers acknowledge not only the value of the comic book but the illustrious potential of the visual and have an enhanced appreciation of what the visual can offer social science research. The need for radical change should be understood. By widening the approach to knowledge, and welcoming audiences via the use of alternative shapes of knowledge, more relevant cultural knowledge can be created, resulting in better futures. The argument is no longer what can be gained by adopting creative visual research but what will be lost if we do not, as emphasised in Chapter 1. It is the responsibility of every researcher to innovate approaches to sharing ideas and realign focus on the relationship between intentions and outcomes. It appears that the next turn in qualitative research will be imagining the audience and welcoming them to the process of knowledge production earlier and to a greater extent, resulting in more scientific forms of cultural knowledge and a more performative world of science.

References Banks, M. (1995). Visual research methods. Guildford: Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. Becker, H. S. (2008). Art worlds: Updated and expanded. University of California Press. Dahlgren, P. (2012). Public intellectuals, online media, and public spheres: current realignments. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 25, 95–110. Davis, R., Shrobe, H., & Szolovits, P. (1993). What is a knowledge representation? AI Magazine, 14(1), 17–17. Delanty, G. (2001). The university in the knowledge society. Organization, 8(2), 149–153. Demos, T. J. (2017). Against the anthropocene. Visual Culture and Environment Today, 132–. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). Introduction: the discipline and practice of qualitative research. Dewey, J. (1897). My pedagogic creed (No. 25). EL Kellogg & Company. Eisner, E. (2008). Art and knowledge. Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples, and Issues, 3–12. Elias, N., & Dunning, E. (1986). Quest for excitement. Sport and leisure in the civilizing process. Basil Blackwell. Fink, B. (1995). The Lacanian subject: Between language and jouissance. Princeton university press. Fink, E., Saine, U., & Saine, T. (1968). The oasis of happiness: toward an ontology of play. Yale French Studies, (41), 19–30. Gauntlett, D. (2013). Making is connecting. John Wiley & Sons. Geertz, C. (2002). Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight. The Interpretation of Cultures Selected Essays, 80–98. Geertz, C. (2005). Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight. Daedalus, 134(4), 56–86. Gergen, K. (1997). Who speaks and who replies in human science scholarship? History of the Human Sciences, 10(3), 151–173.

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Goodall Jr, H. L. (2000). Writing the new ethnography (Vol. 7). AltaMira Press. Hudson, L. A., & Ozanne, J. L. (1988). Alternative ways of seeking knowledge in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(4), 508–521. Huggett, B. (2023). Autism research at the crossroads. https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive /autism-research-at-the-crossroads/ (last accessed May 17th 2023) Huzair, F., Borda–Rodriguez, A., & Upton, M. (2013). An interdisciplinary and development lens on knowledge translation. Science and Public Policy, 40(1), 43–50. Jewitt, C. (2008). The visual in learning and creativity: A review of the literature. London: Arts Council. Kinross, R. (2019) Modern Typogrpahy: An Essay in Critical History. Éditions B42 ISBN 9782490077175. Laurillard, D. (2013). Rethinking university teaching: A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies. Routledge. Lincoln, Y. S., & Denzin, N. K. (Eds.). (2000). The handbook of qualitative research. Sage. Lytras, M. D., & Sicilia, M. A. (2005). The knowledge society: a manifesto for knowledge and learning. International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 1(1–2), 1–11. Nokes, T. J. (2009). Mechanisms of knowledge transfer. Thinking & Reasoning, 15(1), 1–36. Sabloff, J. A. (2011). Where have you gone, Margaret Mead? anthropology and public intellectuals. American Anthropologist, 113(3), 408–416. Seregina, U., & Van den Bossche, A. (Eds.). (2022). Art-based research in the context of a global pandemic. Taylor & Francis. Turner, V. (1979). Frame, flow and reflection: ritual and drama as public liminality. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 465–499. Turner, V. (1982). Images of anti-temporality: An essay in the anthropology of experience. Harvard Theological Review, 75(2), 243–265. Turner, V. (1998). From ritual to theatre: the human seriousness of play (Vol. 1). Performing arts journal publ. Zack, M. H. (1999). Managing codified knowledge. Sloan Management Review, 40(4), 45–58. Zagzebski, L. (2017). What is knowledge? The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, 92–116.

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Afterword: Origin story By way of reflection, and confessional tale, this afterword shares the how, when, and where the inspiration to pursue comics in research arose. It was June 2010, and in five days’ time I was scheduled to present a poster at a university-wide PhD showcase competition at University College Cork. I had submitted a proposal at the request of my PhD research supervisor Dr Brendan Richardson (RIP) months prior, but I didn’t take it too seriously. I had completely forgotten about it in all honesty. I had some data collected but didn’t really have much figured out about the community under investigation. My research context had also changed since my original proposal submission, so I was even more detached from the showcase. I was feeling a bit wobbly. I told Brendan I wasn’t going ahead with it. He was not a happy camper; he informed me there was a prior elimination round based on the abstracts. Correctly, and fortunately so, he exerted enough pressure for me to go ahead with it, although reluctantly. I felt immense pressure due to the interdisciplinary cross-campus nature of the event, heightened by a confusion on what elements of the beer pong context to emphasis, and the significant lack of time to prepare. I had to come up with a good idea for an impactful research poster. I was growing more enthusiastic of visual research and wanted to show people the context and exciting natural setting rather than using a series of badly organised textboxes, research questions, methodology, and implications. I had hundreds of analysed photographs I wanted to represent elsewhere other than conferences and lectures. I first tried to make a collage that could explain my research investigation, specifically, the relationship between the beer pong subculture and the main facilitating brand BPONG. I spent a stressful day making collages on Photoshop, reflecting, and thinking, and trying again but getting nowhere. Nothing was working well on any level. While I can always find fault with my work, with the collages I couldn’t find much right. There was neither stability nor focus to the communication, it lacked aesthetic promise also. I vividly remember grimacing as I faced the possibility of having to revert to the dry PowerPoint textbox style of academic posters. I’m a big fan of PowerPoint and its misunderstood creative potentials but not for a complex poster design. I had to produce something I’d be willing to stand next to for a few hours, that was the ultimate goal. Only three days to go including printing. The temptation to pack it in was mounting. During a complete desperation search in the nooks and crannies of my MacBook, I stumbled upon “Comic Life”, a free comic book drawing software application (now $35.99). My childhood interest in comics came flooding back. I understood in an instant how I could effectively communicate the strange world of beer pong I was exploring. In less than an hour I had a solid visual narrative comprised of “cartoonised” photographs, selected from categorised data. I then had a lightbulb moment and realised I had exact data quotes (interviews, fieldnotes, informal conversation) to satisfy the emerging narrative. Rapid connections were being made across my data set. I https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-013

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added more contextual knowledge and the “so what” contribution by adding text boxes to guide a more scientific narrative. There was a complete turnaround from nothing to something I thought was decent. However, I got my maths wrong and made a poster compiled of 12 comic book pages, where to maintain better visual design, it should have been 9 pages. It wasn’t terrible but certainly not quite right, as you may have seen in Figure 6.1. It’s a bit linear and square, but an effective problem solve: my irritation was supressed. Only two days left. To my utter bemusement many printers could not fulfil the request in such a short time. The printers the furthest distance away agreed to take the job. It was a rush to get it there and back in enough time for the showcase. In my mania, I had not realised a ridiculous spelling error. I spelt the word relationship incorrectly in the secondary title as “realtionship”. My punishment was having to stand next to it for 3 hours: smiling like a fool. I brazened it out and just pretended nothing was wrong. Needless to say I didn’t win any prize. And in the most ironic twist I was subjected to the exact shame and embarrassment I was hoping to avoid. What made it worse was that the comic’s vividness excited people, so it drew a large crowd. I had the pleasure of observing each different group realise the spelling mistake over and over. Some smirking, or eyebrow-ing to their friends, not knowing whether I realised or not. I of course would be doing the same. As my embarrassment started to wane, I was genuinely surprised by the amount and variety of students, staff, and publics that were interested in the format. I learnt a valuable lesson also about not being embarrassed by minor errors. Many people asked me how they might utilise the format to communicate their own research. I must find them, give them a copy of this book. The comic representation captured attention far beyond what I imagined. Play & Transparency was forged by the lack of time, holistic data, pressure, desire to communicate the context effectively, and to create an aesthetically appealing output. Following the showcase, I reflected on the form with regard to the research process, analytics, and interpretation; in a relatively short timeframe the comic greatly enhanced my understanding of the context and the nature of the research process in general. I also reflected on the resonance value, audience engagement, and its ability to attract audiences. I knew there was significant value in exploring the possibilities and potential of the comic book form in more detail, but first I had to complete my PhD, and secure a stable academic position. The comic book project evolved in true Wiener Werkstätte style: it is better to write one book over ten years, than ten in one.

Index 10 Business Days 145–160, 163, 166, 183, 197–211 2000AD 74 A Rake’s Progress 63 Abstraction 116, 137 Academic film making 46–49 Ace Hole, Midget Detective 73 Action Comics 71 Advertising 17 AI 4, 21, 170–174 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 13 Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 64–65, 82 Alternative shapes of knowledge 178–184 Analysis 113–128 Analytical comic book 120–128 Anthropocene 5, 20–21 Anthropometrics 42 Arabic Mickey 78 Archer 15 Archie 68, 89 Art-based research 49–52, 149–150 Assembly line 11 Asterix and Obelix 78 Attention market 174–175 Audience studies 133–135 Autovideography 47 Bash Street Kids 68 Barnard 2, 31, 32 Barthes 14, 16, 18, 24, 27, 37, 42, 51, 132, 147, 164, 173 Batman 71 Batman Dark Knight 77 Battleship Potemkin 17, 45 Baudrillard 4, 6, 18, 21, 22, 76 Baumann 5, 17, 134, 138, 139 Beer Pong 133–135, 187–195 Biodiversity collapse 20–21 Binocularity 86–88, 138, 169 Black Death 145 Blackwood 46 Blue Marble 18 Bob’s Burgers 173 Bojack Horseman 173 Book as machine 12 Book of Kells 9 Bosch 165 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110781137-014

Bouquet of evidence 113 Boylan 1, 2, 3, 4 BPONG 123–128 Breughel 62, 172 Bridging device 162–175 Broadsheets 62–64 Bunty 70 Callous consumption 159 Camera 13, 41, 45 Canaanites 9 Candy 70 Captain America 71 Captain Marvel 71 Carte de vite 15 Cartography 39 Cartoon Fun 96 Categorisation 115–116, 122 CCTV 47 Charlie Chaplin 11 Charlie’s War 67 Chatbots 21 ChatGPT 21 Children’s Games 62, 172 Christian imagery 10 Cinema 17 Cinema direct 44 Cinema verité 44 Claustrum 19 Coding 115–116, 137, 150, 166 Collaborative photography 43 Collage 107 Comic Cuts 65 Comic dialects 83 Comic Life 121 Comic note taking 100 Comic-Con 76 Comicals 63–64 Comics code authority 71–74 Comix 73 Comix Book 74 Communication 4 Confessional tale 136, 213 Constant comparison method 116–118, 122, 150 Consumer culture 3, 18, 52, 67, 168, 173 Cool media 23

216

Index

Covid couture 157 Covid-19 145–160, 166, 197–211 Creative Explorations 93 Creative shapes exercise 94–95 Creative visual research agenda 50–52 Creativity 22 – h-creativity 22 – p-creativity 22 Crisis of creativity 21–23, 179–184 Crisis of representation 132, 165 Cross-media supersystem 75–76 Crouwel 13 Crumb 73 Culture of busyness 6 Culture of knowing 21–23, 179 Daguerre 14 Dali 13 Dan Dare 69 Data collection 166 Data generation 166 Data manipulation 114 Data set 114–128, 166, 213–214 DaVinci 121 DC Thompson 67 De Bono 22, 94, 96, 168 Decoupage 108 Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight 132, 167 Demos 3, 4, 5, 19, 21, 183 Dennis the Menace 68, 89 Depresentation 148, 182 Desperate Dan 68 Detective Comics 71 Diana 70 Dick Tracey 69 Dickins 82 Digital screencast recording 48 Dimensionalisation 117 Disconfirming observations 118–119 Disembodiment 154 Disney 76, 78, 105 Documentary 44–45 Dolly the sheep 21 Dotty 70 Drawing 39–41, 93–106 – Drawing exercises 95–110 – Draw-write-speak 41 – Objective drawing 39–41 – Native drawing 40–41

– Sketch 40–41, 93–106 – Subjective drawing 39–41 Eagle 69 Electric communities 16 Ellipsis 82 Emergent design 118 Empathic identification 132 Empathic identification 36, 180–184 Ethnography 33–37 Ethnographic data sources 35 Experimental ethnography 133 Exhibitionism 47 Expedition film 44 Expressionism 16 Facebook 20, 156, 174 Family albums 15 Fieldnotes 35, 100 Fieldwork 35, 100 Filling-in 102–104 Film 17, 44–49 First-order codes 115–116 Flaherty 44 Flash Gordon 67, 69 Flattening the curve 154, 158 Fox News 156 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper 65 French realities Fun Home: A Tragicomic 77 Gadgets 19 Gamification 20 Gasoline Alley 66, 89 Gauntlett 23, 30, 40, 49, 50, 51, 93, 103, 121, 134, 136, 181 Go for Broke 152 Google Earth 18 GPS 20 Graphic novel 76–77 Graphs 120 Grawlix 85 Great depression 69 Great Expectations 82 Grounded theory 117, 124, 149–150 Guttenberg 11 h-creativity 22 Ha’penny dreadfuler 65

Index

Haddon 44 Happy Hooligan 72 Heavy media 24 Helps 138–139, 152 Hermeneutic perspective 31–33 Hero’s journey 8 Hiding theory 172 Hogan’s Alley 66, 82 Homo aestheticus 9 Homo ludens 9 Hot media 23 Hulk 72 Hurston 45–46 Icon 10 Illustrated Police News 64 Imaginative closure 88, 138 Imagining the audience 133–135, 151 Inference 113–128 Infodemic 156 Infomania 154 Instagram 20, 156 Integrative studies 163 Interdisciplinary 162–175 Internet 18–24, 47, 174 Interpretation 113–128 Intersemiotic translation 165 iSquare 41 Iteration 118, 126, 150 Jackie 70 Jigsaw puzzle 114 Jim Crow 3 Jinty 71 John Bull’s Progress 63 Joyce 82 Judge 65 Judge Dredd 74 Judy 70 Kafka 165 Kathy 70 Katzenjammer Kids 66 Kinross 11, 12, 179 Kitty Hawk 70 Knowledge transfer 162–175 Knowledge translation 162–175, 179

217

Kozinets 19, 30, 33, 34, 36, 46, 47, 48, 135, 136, 147, 149, 164 Kukukuku 46 Lascaux 8 Lateral thinking 22 Lego 50 Light media 24 Little Lulu 70 Little Nemo in Wonderland 66 Little Orphan Annie 70 London Illustrated News 64 Long exposure exercise 99 Lumière 17 Lumitopia 2 Magazines 63–65 Magritte 13 Making entrée 34, 45, 124 Man with a Movie Camera 44, 66 Mandy 70 Manga 78, 84 Marcoci 60, 89, 90, 105 Mari Gras Indians 30 Marvel universe 72 Mass communication 17 Materialism 17 Maus 77, 165 McLuhan 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 23, 30 Media 4 Media intellectual 169–175 Meme culture 85, 157 Memorable data moments 137 Messages 4 Messy texts 133 Metaphor 119 Mille the Model 70 Minnie the Minx 70 Mode 86 Models 120 Morse code 18, 32 Mortal Combat 76 Movie theatre 17 Mr. Men 107 Mr. Pencil 65, 85 Multi-representational 169 Multidisciplinary 162–175

218

Index

Multimodality 86–88, 108, 164 Multiple intelligences 49 Munari 2, 33, 51, 134 Mutative technologies 20 Nanook of the North 44 Narcissus 18 Nationalism 12 Native drawing 40–41 Negative case analysis 118–119 Neoliberalism 20 Netflix 157 Netnography 36, 148–149 Neuenshwander 105 Neuroscience 19 Newgrange 8 Novelist manque 131 Objective drawing 39–41 Ogham 9 OnlyFans 19 Organic intellectuals 171 Ornamental calligraphy 9 Ozenfant 9, 11, 31, 39, 62, 65, 86 p-creativity 23 Pagination 84, 139–141 Panel 84–90 Patsy Walker 70 Penny dreadfuls 64 Persepolis 77 Perspicacity 114 Photo-diary 43 Photo-essay 43 Photo-interviewing 43 Photography 13–16, 41–44 Photoshop 121, 213 Pink 19, 33, 36, 37, 42, 43, 44, 113, 115, 116, 136, 147, 148 Plastic Man 71 Pleiades 7 Plurality 30 Poker 142 Poly-semiotic 82 Popeye 75 Portraits 15 PowerPoint 121, 213 Practical knowledge 178 Prehistoric art 7–10

Print 11–13 Printing press 11–13 Productive knowledge 178 Propositional knowledge 178 Prosumers 19 Puck 65, 66 Pulp Fiction 23 Punch 64, 65 Punctum 14, 37, 132, 151, 173, 180 Purposive sampling 117, 119 r-number 155 Radical empiricists 131 Radio 16 Realist tales 132 Representation 131–141 Researcher-as-instrument 34, 51, 93, 99, 113, 115 Resonance 131–141 Rock carvings 8 Rollright Stones 8 Roy of the Rovers 69, 84 Sabin 62–78 Salvage ethnography 67–68 San Gaudioso 9 Sanserif typeface 13 School Friends 70 Scopic regimes 3 Second-order codes 116 Self-detachment 154 Semiotics 32–33 Sensory ratio 5–6, 174 Sheena, Queen of the Jungle 70 Signing 32–33 Sketch 40–41, 93–106 Sketching 93–106 Slavery 46 Snapchat 20 Social media 18 Software thinking 19, 22 Sonic the Comic 76 Sonographic 85 Sontag 14, 15, 16 South Park 173 Soviet cinema 45 Spanish flu 145 Speech balloons 85 Speech bubbles 85 Spiderman 71, 73, 77, 165

Index

Spiggle 112–120, 131 Splash page 83, 167 Star Wars 76 Start Trek 76 Sticky media 24 Stone Age 8 Story-world codes 136, 137, 140, 151 Storyboard 139, 152 Storytelling 7 Street Fighter 76 Strong theory 2 Structural perspective 31–33 Studium 37, 173 Subculture 35 Subjective drawing 39–41 Subjective drawing exercise 98–99 Superman 71 Superstition 10 Surveillance society 3, 20 Sweeney Todd 64 Tables 120 Tammy 71 Technologies of self 20 Technology 5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 76 Telegraphy 18 Teleography 47 Television (TV) 17 Terminal culture 19 The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck 65 The Beano 67 The Dandy 67 The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel 62 The Fantastic Four 72 The Fixer 77 The Four Marys 70 The Glasgow Looking Glass 66 The Phantom 69, 71 The Pier Piper of Hamelin 5 The Scruffy Blue 150 The Seven Sisters 7 The Yellow Kid 66, 82, 85 Theoretical knowledge 178 Thick description 34, 115 TikTok 22, 47, 174 Tillie the Toiler 70 Timelessness 153

Tintin 78 Toeppfer 65 Torres Strait Islands 44 Tourism 15 Toxic Play 135–141, 152, 163, 166, 183, 187–195 Transferability 114 Translating in 166–175 Translating out 166–175 Translation studies 164 Translation turn 164–175 Transmediation 164 Transmutation 165 Triangulation 116–128, 122, 126 Tropes 118 Twain 65 Twister 152 Twitter (rebranded as X) 20, 152, 156, 174, 181 Typography 12 Ulysses 82 Universal visual language 14 Validity 114 Veracity 113–128, 133–141, 183 Verstehen 132 Vertov 44 Vicky 70 Video diary 47 Video recording 46–49 Videography 48–49 Visual culture 1–4 Visual data 37 Visual environment 2, 13, 29, 36, 43 Visual literacy 49 Visual phenomenology 31 Visual research 29–33 Visual research methods 37–39 Visual scholarship 29–33 Vitruvian Man 121 Viz 74 Walking 147–148 Weak theory 2 Welcome to the New World 77 Wiener Werkstatte 118, 214 Wonder Woman 70, 71 World Series of Beer Pong (WSOBP) 124–128, 131–141, 187–195

219

220

Index

Writing Culture 132 Writing systems 9 X-ray 16 Yellow Kid 66 Young Romance 70 YouTube 19, 47, 156, 174

Zap Comix 73 Ze Carioca 105 Zippy Stories 74 Zoomorphism 165