1. Using Visual Methods in Research
Barry Gibson1 and Judith Barker2
School of Clinical Dentistry, University of Sheffield
DAHSM, University of San Francisco, California

2. Aim
is to encourage thinking on how we could draw on a visual approach to qualitative data analysis

3. Visual methods Historical analysis Elicitation Content analysis
Social Semiotics

4. Historical Analysis
David Kunzle, (1989) “The Art of Pulling Teeth in the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Centuries: from Public Martyrdom to Private Nightmare and Political Struggle?” in Michael Feher, Naddaff and Nadia Tazi, (1989) “Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Part Three.” The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussetts.

5. Kunzle – The Tooth Drawer
Van der Borcht, The Monkey Tooth-puller, Beginning of the 17 Century. Netherlands. In Kunzle, D., (1989) p. 28.

6. Kunzle - The Tooth Drawer
Hans Sebald Beham, Detail of The Great Country Fair, 1539 (Nuremberg, Private Collection). In Kunzle, D., (1989) p. 36.

7. Kunzle – The Dentist
Pieter J. Quast, The Dentist (Cologne, Kulturhistorische Sammlun des Bundesverbandes der deutschen Zahnaerzte). In Kunzle, D., (1989) p. 43.

8. Kunzle – The Dentist
Harmen Hals, The Dentist (Cologne, Kulturhistorische Sammlun des Bundesverbandes der deutschen Zahnaerzte ) In Kunzle, D., (1989) p. 49.

9. Kunzle – Exploitation and revolution
Rowlandson, Transplanting of Teeth, 1787 (London, British Museum) In Kunzle, D., (1989) p. 57.

10. Visual methods Historical analysis Elicitation Content analysis
Social Semiotics

11. Photo Elicitation – to get more detail
“Look his teeth are all broken because he didn’t brush them!” [Harry, Dublin PS1]

12. Tooth brushing ‘rules’: photo elicitation
Muriel: “You’re not allowed to drink fizzy drinks when you
get up in the morning but I still drink it [pause and then
threatening] . . don’t you tell anyone, don’t you even think
about it!”
Sally: “Her Mammy works in the school.”
Muriel: “She does.”
BG: “Who makes up the rules then?”
Muriel: “Me.”
Sally: “Me.”

13. Tooth brushing ‘rules’: photo elicitation
Muriel: “I know who makes the rules in my house my Daddy
and my Mummy but I don’t care I always wreck them.”
Sally: “I know my Mammy says, ‘Keep your room clean’, and
I mess it up again!”
Muriel: “Do you see when we went to her house her Mummy
said not to go up to her room and wreck it and we wrecked
it!”
Sally: “My first rule - the Mammy is the maid and she will
tidy [your room] up for you and the second rule is don’t make
the bed, the Mammy will make it”. [Belfast PS2]

14. Visual methods Historical analysis Elicitation Content analysis
Social Semiotics

15. Content analysis
“an empirical and objective procedure for quantifying recorded ‘auto-visual’ representation using reliable, explicitly defined categories.”
Philip Bell “Chapter 2 Content Analysis of Visual Images” in van Leeuwen, T. and C. Jewitt, Handbook of Visual Analysis. 2002, London: Sage Publications, p. 13.

16. Teeth in advertising
Comparative method – so typical questions include:
how are males and females represented in the news?
How are older and younger people portrayed in films?

17. Teeth in Advertising
In this approach you have to define your variables carefully in order to reduce the overlaps between variables.
We defined 12 variables and tested the reliability of the observation sheet by getting two observers to code a sample of 40 images beforehand. Found that
teeth were displayed in 50% of instances
females displayed their teeth more than males and they did so more frequently in close personal and demanding poses.
males displayed their teeth in far distant and social poses offering a deal
male and female stereotypes are prevalent in advertising and these interact with the display of teeth

18. Illustration – heterosexual stereotypes in advertising

19. Visual methods Historical analysis Elicitation Content analysis
Social Semiotics

20. Social Semiotics What do images represent and why?
What ideas and values do the people, places and things represented in images stand for?

21. White smile: Oakwood dental.
Source:

22. Semiotic analysis demonstrated
Denotative meaning and Connotative meaning
Semiotic resources
Narrative structure, Conceptual structure
Interactive meaning
Contact, Distance, Point of view
Compositional Meaning
Information value, Framing, Salience, Modality

23. Conceptual structure – what does the image represent?

24. Interactive meaning:
Contact,
Social distance,

25. More powerful
Less powerful
Interactive meaning – Point of view

26. Narrative structure – reading left to right, centrality of older woman, males can have white teeth too perhaps?

27. Mexican mothers – Public health information leaflet

30. Summary
There are a range of techniques and methods available to enhance our analysis of the social environment and micro politics of oral health care encounters.
Move from specific instances towards the more general issues and then explore those throughout your data.
Qualitative research should seek to draw on a range of techniques.