A Picture is Worth A Thousand Negotiated Meanings: Conversations with Women Regarding Credible, Still Photographs

ABSTRACT
DANIELS, MEGAN. A Picture is Worth A Thousand Negotiated Meanings: Conversations with Women Regarding Credible, Still Photographs. (Under the direction of Colleen Aalsburg Wiessner)
The purpose of this qualitative study has been to determine how and why adult women make meaning of credible, still photographs without the accompaniment of text. Still photographs that are used in the field of visual sociology are credible when they “contribute valuable evidence of how people want to be seen by others…aspects related to the real world that reflect or arbitrarily invent questions we care about,” according to University of California - Davis Professor Wagner (2004, p.1478). Based on Freire’s theories concepts of generative themes, the conceptual framework of the study was designed from several questions based on a review of current adult education and visual sociology literature. Meaning making is a broad term and to narrow the field, I referenced adult education theorists Knowles, Lindeman, Merriam and Caffarella, Meizrow, Taylor, and Freire. Four women, currently attending four different community colleges and living very different lives, discussed twelve black and white still photographs, shared practical perspectives based on their lived experiences, and demonstrated developmental stages bolstered by Freire’s concept of generative themes. While the professional literature tended to emphasize the importance of visual media and still photography, its impact on adult consumers in society, and the multi-faceted associations with children’s learning, none focused on how adults make meaning from credible, still photographs according to their personal experiences. In this study, the women formed stories in order to draw parallels between their lives and the people’s lives featured in the photographs. They made the unfamiliar, familiar. Their unconscious feelings became conscious emotions, triggered by a moment represented in a photograph. Reflection brought inquiry, which in turn brought discourse. Through dialogue with the researcher, each of the four women negotiated personal meanings of the photographs according to their souls. Finally, by viewing, decoding, interpreting, and discussing the photographs the women began to make meaning of credible still photographs of midwifery and homebirth. The meaning making process that occurred within the women demonstrated the facets of Freire’s life-long work with generative themes.