Using Visual Materials to Study Social Perceptions of Criminal Offenders: Some Methodological Conclusions From Research on Stigmatisation

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present a number of methodological conclusions drawn in the course of research on social stigmatization. The Author discusses the methodology of a social experiment involving the use of photographs as part of open interviews and focus group study. The photographs of people had been selected according to a pre-determined set of criteria and were used to elicit responses shedding light on how the subjects associated a person’s physical appearance with an alleged propensity for committing crimes. The use of photographic material made it possible to discover the real views of the subjects – often contrary to those they claimed to hold prior to seeing the visual materials. One may therefore assume that within the strictly controlled conditions of the experiment, iconography played an important role in demystifying stigmatizing behaviour. The goal of the experiment was to determine factors and processes that are normally hidden and which, although natural and part of our observation spectrum, for obvious reasons are subjected to political correctness and usually not voluntarily revealed. The rules of social co-existence require us to obey certain norms and often to conceal what we really think and act upon. This does not mean that the said factors are insignificant. In my view, they are often decisive and lead to cognitive dissonance whenever our beliefs and actions diverge. In the case of the said experiment, a discrepancy was observed between the attitudes of the subjects before and after they were confronted with the photographs. They exhibited more spontaneous behaviour and statements, there was also a change in their opinions and they produced all sorts of evidence and examples which in their view supported their newly revealed ideas. Studies of open interview and focus group techniques lead to the conclusion that visual materials can add to these techniques, making them more ‘friendly’ and balancing the asymmetrical relationship between subject and researcher while also making it easier to extract information subject to social taboos. In the study under discussion, the photographs were a catalyst in getting the subjects to reveal opinions they had previously largely concealed. Yet it must be borne in mind that the experiment requires a careful selection of appropriate photographs so that the subjects do not form new opinions but only reveal those already held yet not expressed. Otherwise these types of studies will not shed light on existing phenomena but rather create new ones, which leaves an ethical question mark when it comes to the purpose of such studies. It is worth adding that the experiment corresponds to various processes occurring in our world, including various ethnocentric and xenophobic movements, today on the rise. The logic behind the experiment seems universal enough to allow its application in studying the perception of other social groups at risk of marginalization and stigmatization. I am thinking particularly of the great migrations of today which are changing the ethnic face of Europe.