PolarVis: Visual Persuasion in a Transforming Europe
Funded by: Austrian Science Fund (FWF – Der Wissenschaftsfonds)
Duration: November 2022 – October 2025
PI: Annie Waldherr • Nicola Righetti (Co-PI)
Climate change has been called the defining crisis of our time. In the last few years, millions of people have taken to the streets to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency. Social media have had great importance in the development of the movement. For example, the virality of posts on Twitter and Instagram has quickly transformed the activist Greta Thunberg into an iconic figure, attracting supportive but also openly hostile reactions. The importance of images in the online communication of the movement and the emotions moving these activists and those who attack them online draw attention to the symbolic and emotional role of images for social movements. The PolarVis project will examine the role of visual content in processes of political polarization and belonging in the digital age by focusing on the intergenerational issue of climate change and the green transition.
Pictorial Affect. Articulating Togetherness in Converging Media Environments. Exploring pictorial practices and concepts of sociality among Representatives of Youth Media Cultures in Malaysia, Vietnam and Austria
Funded by: ASEA-UNINET
Duration: 2016 – 2017
PI: Gerit Götzenbrucker
Collaboration: Margarita Köhl
Status: Completed
Pictorial Practices. Transdisciplinary Studies on Materiality and Habituality of Visual Conventions
Funded by: Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) – DOC-Team
Duration: July 2013 – April 2017
PI: Gerit Götzenbrucker • Hannes Haas
Collaboration: Maria Schreiber
Status: Completed
The conjunction of pictures and practices and the combination of concepts from picture theory and praxeological approaches functioned as analytical frame of the project. In three specific contexts, the project team aimed to empirically understand how conventions become relevant in iconic representations and in practices with pictures.