The use of audiovisuals in the research in Social Sciences: A pending challenge

Abstract

By the middle of September 2015, an image shook the consciences of people all around the planetand mobilized (in an unfortunately ephemeral way though) European policy. It was the body of a Syrian child drowned in a beach in Greece. This is not the time, nor the place, to analyze the tragedy, its consequences or getting into the topic deeply, but it does serve as an example of something that in social sciences has been considered a challenge for a long time: the use of visual material in our research, the huge power of its content. Before said image was published, numerous headlines had given a very accurate figure: the Syrian conflict has left ten thousand civil victims, a fourth of them children. Why did not the words “two thousand five hundred” or the number “2500” in both cases referring to “dead children” mobilize anybody and the image of one of them did exactly that? In social studies we use numeric data extensively (with the quantitative approach) and textual data (with the qualitative approach) but what about the use of visual data? © Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales.