Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture

Rating:
Summary: Chapter 6 Review
Review: After looking very carefully at Chapter six of Sturken and Cartwright's The Practice of Looking, I found the text to be an insightful and enjoyable read. The incorporation of images and text allows me as the reader, to gain a better understanding of Sturken and Cartwright's ideas and examples. The images are one of the most beneficial aspects of The Practices of Looking. Schudson, Ewen, Adorno, Hebdige, and Coombe are the five key sources that I used in evaluating and analyzing Sturken and Cartwright's accuracy and credibility. For the most part, in all five sources Sturken and Cartwright were accurate in their wording and noting whom they were borrowing their ideas from. There were two problem sections that I thought Sturken and Cartwright could have done a better job on. I thought that the Sturken and Cartwright could have cited Rosemary Coombe's ideas in a clearer manner, and also could have paid closer attention to who coined the term, commodity self in reference to Stuart Ewen's, All Consuming Images. Sturken and Cartwright did a great job with referencing a large amount of sources, giving the reader new insight on a large variety of theorists and scholars. This beneficial characteristic of their chapter was also one of the main weaknesses. I think that a lot of the knowledge that Sturken and Cartwright were trying to convey, might have been more beneficial if they elaborated more fully on a smaller amount of sources. Sturken and Cartwright could have cut there sources in half, and put twice as much detail into the ideas of each author. Overall, Sturken and Cartwright's The Practices of Looking, was an insightful but depressing read into this consumer society reality.

Rating:
Summary: Chapter 6 Review
Review: After looking very carefully at Chapter six of Sturken and Cartwright's The Practice of Looking, I found the text to be an insightful and enjoyable read. The incorporation of images and text allows me as the reader, to gain a better understanding of Sturken and Cartwright's ideas and examples. The images are one of the most beneficial aspects of The Practices of Looking. Schudson, Ewen, Adorno, Hebdige, and Coombe are the five key sources that I used in evaluating and analyzing Sturken and Cartwright's accuracy and credibility. For the most part, in all five sources Sturken and Cartwright were accurate in their wording and noting whom they were borrowing their ideas from. There were two problem sections that I thought Sturken and Cartwright could have done a better job on. I thought that the Sturken and Cartwright could have cited Rosemary Coombe's ideas in a clearer manner, and also could have paid closer attention to who coined the term, commodity self in reference to Stuart Ewen's, All Consuming Images. Sturken and Cartwright did a great job with referencing a large amount of sources, giving the reader new insight on a large variety of theorists and scholars. This beneficial characteristic of their chapter was also one of the main weaknesses. I think that a lot of the knowledge that Sturken and Cartwright were trying to convey, might have been more beneficial if they elaborated more fully on a smaller amount of sources. Sturken and Cartwright could have cut there sources in half, and put twice as much detail into the ideas of each author. Overall, Sturken and Cartwright's The Practices of Looking, was an insightful but depressing read into this consumer society reality.

Rating:
Summary: Review of Chapter Nine
Review: As a class assignment, I closely studied chapter nine of <i>Practices of Looking</i>, and researched several of the listed source materials. This chapter is entitled "The Global Flow of Visual Culture" and deals with the globalization of Western media, primarily in the form of television and the internet. The authors explore such topics as the history of media globalization, its effects on non-western cultures, pros and cons of the internet, and possibilities that new global technologies afford us.
This chapter was well-presented, persuasive, and useful. It offered a cohesive and informative discussion of a broad variety of topics, dealing with each one in satisfactory depth and detail. After researching a few of the listed sources, I found that while some of them seemed to be surplus to the actual chapter content, those that were used were, on the whole, represented accurately and fairly.
I recommend this book to anyone studying visual culture, due to its detailed and informative treatment of this broad and varied topic.

Rating:
Summary: Review of Chapter Nine
Review: As a class assignment, I closely studied chapter nine of <i>Practices of Looking</i>, and researched several of the listed source materials. This chapter is entitled "The Global Flow of Visual Culture" and deals with the globalization of Western media, primarily in the form of television and the internet. The authors explore such topics as the history of media globalization, its effects on non-western cultures, pros and cons of the internet, and possibilities that new global technologies afford us.
This chapter was well-presented, persuasive, and useful. It offered a cohesive and informative discussion of a broad variety of topics, dealing with each one in satisfactory depth and detail. After researching a few of the listed sources, I found that while some of them seemed to be surplus to the actual chapter content, those that were used were, on the whole, represented accurately and fairly.
I recommend this book to anyone studying visual culture, due to its detailed and informative treatment of this broad and varied topic.

Rating:
Summary: Review of Chapter Nine
Review: As a class assignment, I closely studied chapter nine of Practices of Looking, and researched several of the listed source materials. This chapter is entitled "The Global Flow of Visual Culture" and deals with the globalization of Western media, primarily in the form of television and the internet. The authors explore such topics as the history of media globalization, its effects on non-western cultures, pros and cons of the internet, and possibilities that new global technologies afford us.
This chapter was well-presented, persuasive, and useful. It offered a cohesive and informative discussion of a broad variety of topics, dealing with each one in satisfactory depth and detail. After researching a few of the listed sources, I found that while some of them seemed to be surplus to the actual chapter content, those that were used were, on the whole, represented accurately and fairly.
I recommend this book to anyone studying visual culture, due to its detailed and informative treatment of this broad and varied topic.

Rating:
Summary: Pleasure in Looking
Review: As an introduction to the subjuct of visual culture I found this text to be extremly inclusive. I looked specificly at chapter 3 of the book entitled, "Spectatorship, Power and Knowledge" in this chapter Sturken and Cartwright discuss the variables that effect the practices of looking. They do this by refrencing several influential figures who have touched on this subject, one of the most note worthy being feminist film critque Laura Mulvey, who wrote extensively on the gender differentials involved in spectatorship in the cinema from a psychoanalytic perspective. Also included in the chapter are the ways in which a capitalistic society sees an "uncivilized" society, and the power/knowledge struggles that accompany this view. From feminism to anthropology this chapter covers a great degree of possibilities all regarding the ways in which we see and the consequences/pleasures that derive from our practices of looking.

Rating:
Summary: Pleasure in Looking
Review: As an introduction to the subjuct of visual culture I found this text to be extremly inclusive. I looked specificly at chapter 3 of the book entitled, "Spectatorship, Power and Knowledge" in this chapter Sturken and Cartwright discuss the variables that effect the practices of looking. They do this by refrencing several influential figures who have touched on this subject, one of the most note worthy being feminist film critque Laura Mulvey, who wrote extensively on the gender differentials involved in spectatorship in the cinema from a psychoanalytic perspective. Also included in the chapter are the ways in which a capitalistic society sees an "uncivilized" society, and the power/knowledge struggles that accompany this view. From feminism to anthropology this chapter covers a great degree of possibilities all regarding the ways in which we see and the consequences/pleasures that derive from our practices of looking.

Rating:
Summary: Practices of looking: Specifically Chapter 2
Review: Chapter two in Sturken and Cartwright's book "Practices of Looking" discusses in great depth and clarity the relationship between the viewer and the image, also looking at the complex social interaction between the two in the establishment of meaning. Other topics touched on are appropriation and re-appropriation, Marxism, textual poaching and bricolage. Sturken and Cartwrignt's writing style will help you establish a firm understanding of the role of the image and it's place in Visual Culture. I found this chapter, as well as the whole book, to be highly interesting and would recommend it to others who are interested in learning more about the subject.

Rating:
Summary: More Taste, Less Filling
Review: Considering how difficult it can be to see the forest through the trees in attempting to analyze contemporary visual culture while being immersed in it, Sturken and Cartwright have done an exceptional job of condensing a rather convoluted into an easily digestible book. The chapters are well organized, the reading flows rather well, but reads something like that of stereo instructions. French Theorists such as Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard and various other noteworthy figures in recent visual culture are skillfully compacted and reduced right to their points. My only complaint is that the extremely complicated subjects are not always given enough attention by the authors. Simplifying the rough stuff is not always a good thing; it could not've hurt to make the book a bit longer to accomodate. However, one cannot expect perfection in every facet of such a difficult topic. Sturken and Cartwright wrote a very solid book on the power of images in our society and practices of looking.

Rating:
Summary: Practices of Looking
Review: I read and researched the first chapter of Practices of Looking. I looked up some of the authors and philosophers mentioned in this chapter. Roland Barthes, John Berger, Charles Peirce, and Allan Sekula. Each author had an idea about how and why we interpreted images. All of these people put out good information about images in our culture. However, their writing is not very easy to understand.
Sturken and Cartwright are like their translators. If I were to read and understand the writings of these people on my own I would have learned nothing. However, reading about them through Practices of Looking allowed me to understand much more. Sturken and Cartwright quote the philosophers and then explain what they meant, and the context of what they wrote. They also used art and other well-known images to get the point across about the importance of images in our culture and what they do for our everyday lives. I learned a great deal form this chapter, and book, and I will continue to use it as a reference in the future.