Watching thousand images at once. Content analysis toolkit in the photo-driven research project “The Invisible City”

Abstract

Regardless of the growing popularity of visual studies, the subject of the tools for image content analysis particularly employed in the non-critical paradigms to categorize large amounts of data and allow triangulation between the qualitative and the quantitative techniques is nearly absent in Polish sociological writings. The main goal of this article is to at least partially fill this gap. The author pursues this objective through the adoption of a broad perspective for the discussion of the manner in which the coding sheet has been designed and used in a research project “The Invisible City.” Illustrating the point with the chosen example, he follows the rules in the sheet construction and operation, and also seeks them in a photographing scenario, the initial categorization of data, and sampling. Also, he analysis the aims and the consequences of a non-institutional forms of space modification in a large Polish cities and the methodological dilemmas of studying the subject with a visual means.