(Fully Online Postgraduate by Coursework Elective)

Ever since the camera was invented people have used it to document and explore the world around them. Photographic images have great potential to investigate different social practices and phenomena in the world.

This course has a largely practical component where you will be encouraged to get out in the ‘field’, camera in hand, with the intent of capturing images that reveal in-depth insights about the society in which you live. You will investigate an emerging field within the Social Sciences, ‘Visual Sociology’, that will give you, as the social researcher, dynamic methods and tools with which to document, evaluate and consequently better understand society through the lens. The course will culminate in a reflexive photographic investigation that aims to create a catalyst for dialogue and consequent instigation of social change.

The course covers work by a number of contemporary practitioners and organisations worldwide, committed to the use of photography as a method of visual data collection and the generation of sociological knowledge. You will need to have access to a camera in order to participate in this fully online Masters course, which is suitable to students from a broad range of disciplines who are interested in the still photographic image and its potential to complement their individual area of study or specialisation. The course will provide various methods and knowledge well suited to undertaking further ethnographic research that makes use of Visual Sociology.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Students will receive course website location and log in instructions via their UNSW email account prior to the commencement of the course.