Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Hypotheses from Heaven -- Into the Fog Without a Compass -- The Cart Before the Horse -- Picking Only the Sweet Fruits -- Unresearchable Problem Statements -- The Rule of Action -- Organisation of This Book -- References -- Chapter 2: Scientific Knowledge and Practice -- The Characteristics of Scientific Knowledge and Practice -- Scientific Statements -- Empirical Statements, Norms, and Practice -- More on Testing of Scientific Statements -- Our Social Construction of the World -- Science and Knowledge Development -- The Contested Truth -- From an Understanding of Knowledge to Social Science Practice -- References -- Chapter 3: Social Science as Reconstruction of Social Phenomena -- The Study of Social Facts and Phenomena -- Explanations in Social Science -- Social Science as Reconstruction of Social Patterns and Processes -- The Elements of Reconstruction -- Backgrounds -- Concepts -- Theories and Hypotheses -- Models -- Data Construction -- From the Building Stones of Reconstruction to the Logic of Reconstruction -- References -- Chapter 4: The Logic and Methodological Rules of Reconstruction -- Hypothetical-Deductive Research Logic: Explaining by Laws -- Abductive Research Logic: Uncovering Social Mechanisms -- Hermeneutic Research Logic: Interpretative Understanding of Social Phenomena -- Critical Theory -- Discourse Analytical Research Logic: Hegemonic and Alternative Frameworks of Understanding -- A Comparison of the Research Logics -- References -- Chapter 5: Design of Research Projects -- Research Purposes, Data Construction, and the Phases of the Design Process -- Research Designs and Purposes -- Theory- and Hypothesis-Testing Purposes -- Concept- and Theory-Developing Purposes and Questions -- Theoretically Interpretative Purposes.

Visual communication is critical in contemporary societies. Research in social sciences increasingly tends to mobilize the image, for example, in the form of photography, in its processes (in the collection and interpretation of information) and products (in the communication of research results), which leads to the need to reflect critically on its specificities. This paper aims to add to the analysis of the potentialities, limitations and challenges of the use of photography in social sciences research. For this purpose, the paper presents and discusses empirically collected documentary expressions, selected from an organizational case study based on their heuristic capacity to illustrate the argumentation put forth herein. It is concluded that the potential of the use of photography in research in social sciences is high, but it is essential that the researcher considers, besides more technical aspects and ethical complexities, that photography is, in part, also the materialization of a certain socially constructed representation of reality.

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