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Introduction
The problem of visual images is active entered into modern cultural studies in world science. Visuality as a set of visual (visible, optical) mediums (transmission means, providing perception, disclosure meanings) constitutes the most important area of culture, which includes photography, cinema, design, visual image, computer interfaces, architectural and landscape designs, fine arts (Montessori,1967).
Undoubtedly, all these visual images have always been in the field of research culture. However, with the development of media technologies in all spheres of social life at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, visual practices begin to play a more important role a significant role in social communication and the culture of everyday communication, which requires comprehensive scientific research.
In the actualization of research on visuality, the so-called visual turn is of decisive importance - a shift in the interest of philosophers, researchers of culture and communication to the problems of iconic sign systems. The linguistic turn that preceded it, the beginning of which in the 1960s led cultural researchers to the maxim “everything is text,” which meant a structural logocentric consideration of non-linguistic objects not only in the sphere of thinking, but also of being. However, such researchers have scientifically proven that visual images (iconic signs) do not fit well into structural studies.
Structuralism developed through the use of multidisciplinary approaches that complement the general direction with phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and dialectics. This led to the formation of such current visual research projects as “iconology” and “visual culture." Thus, the visual turn continues and this process is explored in the article.
It is important for this study to clarify precisely the visual nature of the image as a unit of visuality. An image can traditionally be understood in two ways: as visual and as given in language (for example, poetic image). Distinction between spatial and temporal images (represented, for example, in spatial, temporal and space-time arts) is extremely important because gives us information about the processes of sequential perception spatial objects. Violation of the principle of sequential reception turns out to be fatal for visual imagery: it is difficult to formalize and amenable to logical analysis.
The visual image is not only a visible and contemplative phenomenon, but also an optical one. The visibility of the image is given to us by our senses.
Pure contemplation precedes the work of reason, and with it logic. For the present study, contemplation is the fundamental basis of the image. At the same time, the use of the term “optical phenomenon” in relation to a visual image indicates that it can be addressed not only to humans, but also to machines (for example, perceptrons and neural network technologies for visual recognition), and to society. In other words, the “opticality” of the image allows us to go beyond just phenomenological research and consider it as a media object, that is, a meaningful element of the communicative space (Vygotsky,1978).
The focus of the work is aimed at studying and theoretically substantiating the nature of visuality, its fundamental antithesis to logocentric conceptual method (Steiner,1996). The specificity of visuality requires conceptual elaboration of the nature of the intellectual space that determines rationality. Understanding this space as a productive mental environment that “works” with images, captures, constructs and produces them, is developed in the theory of the imaginary. In work, the imaginary acts as a filled environment, an abode of figurative meanings and values; it uses images of the surrounding world and carries out mental assembly, synthesizes new images, and fills the sociocultural environment with them.
Object of study: communication processes in the modern cultural space.
Subject of research: the nature of visuality in modern media.
Purpose of the study: to carry out a comprehensive study of visual images in the cultural space and processes of modern media communication.
Materials and methods
Philippe Perrenoud is a Swiss educator who has actively researched the issues of competency-based approach in education, professional development of teachers and innovative educational practices. Michael Fullan is a Canadian researcher whose work has had a significant influence on educational policy and practice in many countries, including the European Union. Fullan focuses on educational change, leadership, and school curriculum development. Andreas Schleicher is the Director of Education and Skills at the OECD and the initiator of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). His work focuses on the analysis and comparison of educational systems of different countries, which helps to form a theoretical basis for the development of effective pedagogical concepts. Gert Biesta is a professor of education with a strong emphasis on philosophy of education, learning theory, and educational theory. His works include critical analyzes of contemporary educational practices and suggestions for their improvement. Paolo Freire is a Brazilian educator and philosopher whose ideas on critical education and teaching methods have had a significant influence on pedagogical concepts throughout the world, including Europe. His work continues to inspire European educational researchers (Freire, 2000).
These researchers have made significant contributions to the development of theoretical foundations of education, although their work may not always be explicitly titled as "theoretical principles for the development of pedagogical concepts." Their research covers a wide range of topics, from teaching methods and assessment to educational management and policy issues.
The study is based on a systems approach that represents culture as integrity, the structural elements of which are visual culture and media communication. To search and justify the structural-functional connections between these elements, general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, deduction, dialectics. In general, all methods used can be distributed in accordance with the specifics of the tasks being solved according to the following points:
The historical method makes it possible to comprehend the logic of the development of ideas about visuality and media communication, to highlight both key trends and different interpretations.
The method of analysis allows us to identify such components in the phenomena of visual culture and media that can be put in antithetical contradiction to each other.
The method of dialectical synthesis makes it possible to put forward conceptual definitions for the visual image and processes of media communication.
Phenomenological methodology allows us to study the visual image as a phenomenon of the perceiving consciousness, to identify noetic and noematic components in its structure.
Based on the existential method, it becomes possible to study the visual image in the process of subject-object interaction and its formation as a cultural phenomenon.
Based on structural-semiotic analysis, the interpretation of the visual image as a sign system is realized.
The poststructuralist approach allows us to characterize the features of the structural interaction of the image with the signified and the signifier.
Phenomena of modern culture, such as, for example, digital photography, a computer game, a program and an electronic network object, indicate that media reality is a special environment that provides substantiality to a whole class of cultural objects that cannot be clearly classified neither as part of material culture nor as spiritual. The possibility of identifying this kind of environment allows us to talk about modern “new” media. New media are interpreted as forms of digital mediation of traditional forms of communication, in other words, new media these are forms of universal mediation in which the use digital technologies are a necessary condition for interaction with media reality.
Thus, a holistic picture of the cultural space of media is formed, the role and status of the visual image in media reality is indicated. Moreover, media reality is not only a space of the probable and conditionally reliable, it is a culturally predetermined reality. The conclusion is made about the global nature of modern media, their interactivity and automation. A visual image in media reality is considered as a media object that occupies an intermediate position between objects of empirical reality and mental phenomena.
Interpretations of the photographic image as an iconic sign and as an indexical sign. The process of transition of an image from the class of iconic signs to the class of indexes is described. It is concluded that that the image as an indication sign (index) is functionally realized in the process communication due to the fact that it contains a certain code.
“Codification” and “decoding” are carried out through existing cultural guidelines, norms, and also subject to the cultural values shared in society. Three main difficulties of such an interpretative model are shown: 1) multidimensionality and inconsistency of the image, which complicate unambiguous decoding; 2) the complexity of codification and decoding outside the conditions of mass culture, which provides standards for the interpretation of images; 3) problems of multi-level codification in the context of the network structure of society and digital culture. It is noted that coding analysis can be carried out by means of iconological or discourse analysis, and the iconic image cannot always be studied as a discourse or a set of discourses; for its analysis it is possible to use, for example, poststructuralist, psychoanalytic and phenomenological methods.
In addition, criticism of the interpretation of visuality is analyzed, it is noted the tendency of visuality to transition from indexical to iconic forms representations. From all this it is concluded that, by removing itself from the image, the code moves to the “support” - the media context of the image. Media as a form of mediation lends itself to conceptual analysis much better than visuality.
The image indicates the fundamental horizons: objective and mental. Two givens of the image are formulated: as an empirical object (a material image or picture consisting of pixels and program code or paints, canvas, etc.) and as a medium (an interface of the virtual space of possible realities).
It is concluded that the rejection of the logocentric interpretation opens opportunities for developing more precise methodologies and theories that allow us to comprehend the image in culture (Piaget, 2001; Biesta,2013; Macanchí Pico et al., 2020).). Thus, phenomenology, media philosophy and the theory of the imaginary allow us to expand the horizons of understanding the visual.
Overcoming logocentrism in the theory of visuality also has a downside:
the difficultly formalized nature of the image takes it out of the field of rationality. For understanding the visual image as a cultural phenomenon, it is necessary to separate its essential forms. In the structure of the image, four modalities of its existence are analytically distinguished: 1) image-object, or material image, image; 2) image-medium, visual media object with virtual content (Fullan,2007; Villalobos-López, 2022); 3) image-event, or image understood as experience of consciousness; 4) an imaginary image, in other words, an image as non-rational phenomenon of consciousness. A visual image in the media is perceived as an event and acquires a new form of existence in the mental environment, in memory, in the imaginary space. In the same time an image as a mental construct is objectified through an event, and not just becomes part of the objective world, and brings the author’s mark into it.
Consequently, if the media act as a tool for society’s self-awareness, and technogenic virtuality forms and supports the circulation of images in media reality, then the imaginary acts as an anthropogenic living environment, an abode of images, capable not only of retaining and circulating images, but of their birth and Development (Schleicher,2019; García-Yepes,2020). The imaginary sets the vital rhythm of visual images, while the virtuality of media is a space for their technical objectification. Virtuality is thus an attempt at a technical simulation of the social imagination.
It is noted that visual culture structurally and dynamically related to the nature of social connections. So, classical new European sociocultural practice objectifies visual images. The visual culture of the industrial era can be called non-classical. At this stage, images become a tool for influencing masses, a means of their construction (Schön,1983). The visuality of this time aggregates social stereotypes and articulates a significant sociopolitical agenda in them. Visual culture these days is rapidly developing and globalizing, and at the same time there is a unification and universalization of visual systems.
A concept is being formed according to which the visual image in modern media is revealed as virtuality. The image achieves this by representing the obvious, but not the exact in a strict logical sense.
In this regard, the question of the role of visual media in the formation of post-truth is becoming relevant. Post-truth should be understood as a regime of truth that is being formed in the context of the multipolarity and polycentricity of the modern world. It is noted that a pluralistic approach to interpretation of events and phenomena more focused on visual communication, since media images can offer multiple interpretations that simultaneously satisfy interests various groups of subjects. Visual media communication expands a person’s ability to construct and manage his virtual identity, or, in other words, speaking, media identity. Images of artificial alternative identities become indistinguishable from real images, and at the same time the sharp opposition between appearance and reality, appearance and being is removed. At the same time, there is also a danger of social and psychological disorders due to multiple identities.
The virtualization of visual culture is expressed in the consolidation of the polysemic structure of visual images. Virtual media images form a probabilistic space, both idealistic and related to objective empirical reality. This space can be called hyperreality. To understand the virtualization of visual communication, we note that hyperreality is the world of public representations, aggregated media. It is in this vein that the concepts of “virtuality”, “hyperreality” and “media reality” come together.
Globalization of media communications is expressed in the unification and standardization of organizational, structural, functional and institutional principles of information interaction.
Globalization of media communications is globalization in the broad sense of this words, it can be explained as a fundamental universalization communication system of society. Globalization of communications includes not only a unified language, but also unified visual images.
The digitalization of visuality is expressed both in the introduction of digital technologies in the production, storage, and distribution of visual images, and in the departure from the concept of traditional visual media to software.
Digitalization blurs the concept of visuality, as it merges visual images with other mediums, which allows us to talk not only about the spread of multimedia, but also in general about the advent of the post-medial era and digital culture.
Along with the progressive changes in visual culture, there are also some contradictions that arise due to its mediatization. The general spirit of these contradictions is expressed mainly in the multidirectionality of technical and technological unification and universalization of visual images, with one hand, and the growing need of society for the humanization of media environments traditional sociocultural systems - on the other. The multidirectionality of these trends ensures the dynamics of the transformation of visual culture, the search, forecasting and design of its new forms.
The article argues for the need to distinguish between naturalistic and phenomenological understanding of the visual image in media processes. The naturalistic interpretation of the image understands it as part of objective reality, a physical image, ontologically related to the depicted object. Phenomenological interpretation image interprets it as a phenomenon of consciousness. According to this position, mental the image is immanent to consciousness, while what is reflected is transcendental. Consequently, the image acts as a visible (optical) interface of media reality.
Media reality is formed by means of communication and represents virtuality, that is, an epistemic system that has not an actual, but a probabilistic status. Media means a universal form of mediation of information, which specifically includes itself a complex set of social and technical phenomena, ensuring communicative interaction in society, influencing public consciousness, culture, social and individual consciousness.
Media realize the transition of the objective to the subjective. The possibility of fixing transition states allows us to identify a new substantial class - media objects. Technology development (from inventions of photography and sound recording, to the latest digital multimedia) made it possible to ontologize this intermediate class. To category media objects should include visual images placed in the media sphere.
A visual image as a media object has complex and dynamic connections with the depicted object, with the viewer, with its creator. A visual image is not a logical concept or linguistic structure. Semantics and pragmatics of visual image (iconic sign) are limited and mechanically reduce it to an index sign.
These circumstances find their conceptual explanation of the theory imaginary, in the analysis and interpretation of the visual image.
Analysis of the visual image in the processes of media communication provides the basis for identifying four modalities of the visual image: 1) image-object (material image, optical reality, image without interpretation); 2) image-medium (image as a virtual media object, media reality interface); 3) image-event (image as a noetic act of consciousness); 4) image-imaginary (image as a phenomenon of mental space - imaginary).
Visual media images play a significant role in the culture of media communication. One of the key features of modern culture is an expansion of the visual sphere. Mediatization of visual culture is interpreted as a process of mediation of all spheres of sociocultural practice by their images in visual communication. The mediatization of visual culture is accompanied by three fundamental processes: globalization, digitalization, virtualization.
The result of a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of visual image in modern media is formulated. It is clarified that key static parameters have been studied and given interpretations and dynamic aspects of visuality in the communication sphere. The results of a detailed analysis of the visual media image as a phenomenon of modern culture are summarized, as well as the results of studying its most fundamental, essential features. It is noted that the study opens up prospects for scientific research within the framework of the theory and philosophy of culture, theory of knowledge, psychology of perception, cognitive research and other areas of knowledge that explore the problems of imagery, visuality, digital culture, communication.
Conclusions
The author's definition of a visual image is proposed from the standpoint of a synthesis of media theory and the theory of the imaginary. Thus, the image is revealed in four modalities, allowing it to be understood as part of objective reality and as a virtual media object, as an event and as an imaginary one.
The duality of the nature of visuality is revealed. Images (especially technical ones) are represented in culture in two ways: they depict reality extremely accurately, but at the same time they have an “author’s mark”, allowing one to contrast the image with the world.
The limitations of the use of logocentric structural methodology in the study of visual images have been established. The image is not we reduce it neither to text, nor to language, nor to predicative logic. The image is substantial, it is presented in research not as an imaginary likeness, and not as an accident prescribed to something material. The visual image is an important element of human practice, represented both in processes mental activity of the subject, and in the diversity of material culture.
A class of media objects is defined and described. This class occupies an intermediate position between real objects and perceived phenomena and describes virtual phenomena. Visual images can be interpreted as media objects. Selecting a given class improves the accuracy of research into visual culture and processes communications.
A theoretical description of the phenomenon of mediatization of visual culture is given. It is shown that, finding its expression in globalization, virtualization and digitalization of cultural forms and practices, the process of mediatization not only represents the most significant trend in the formation of culture, but also ensures the strengthening of the visual in it component.
The author's interpretations of the phenomena of “post-truth” and deepfake technology, little studied within the framework of cultural and philosophical studies, are proposed. Visual media images change culture and communication, bringing into it its own epistemic principles, the main ones: polysemy, dynamism, mobile structural connections.
The results of the study, as well as the theoretical and methodological approach used in it, can find wide application in theoretical studies of culture, in studies of visuality, and in communication theory.
