This book explores the impact of digital algorithms on visual culture, examining how these technologies influence the creation, circulation, interpretation, and archiving of images. It presents a focused analysis of how algorithms reshape key sociological themes such as power, social relations, labour, racialisation, gender, and representation. Through a combination of case studies and theoretical essays, the book highlights the algorithmic shift within visual sociology, addressing crucial questions: Can algorithms interpret images like humans? How do they affect our understanding of subjectivity, agency, truth, and creativity? With perspectives from multiple geographies and cultural contexts and the analysis of visual phenomena across various digital platforms, this volume is essential for students and scholars in visual sociology, digital sociology, and visual studies. It serves as an accessible, thought-provoking resource for understanding the rapidly evolving relationship between visual culture and technological intervention.

Explores how AI-driven algorithms reshape visual culture, influencing power, identity, and social relations Provides insights into the role of algorithms in creativity, representation, and the politics of images Shows how visual AI transforms social behaviours across diverse global contexts and digital platforms

Autorentext

Gary Bratchford is Associate Professor in Photography, Birmingham City University, UK. He is also Co-Editor of Visual Studies; Visual Culture in Britain and co-editor for Palgrave’s Social Visualities book series. He explores the intersections between vision, visibility and the ways in which image-makers engage with these themes in various contexts and geographies.

Maria-Carolina Cambre is Professor of Education at Concordia University, Canada. She investigates questions of the image, the politics of communication, critical theory and identity by weaving together post-structural semiological, anthropological and sociological visual frameworks.

Dennis Zuev is Senior Researcher at CIES-ISCTE, Portugal and coordinator of the Research Lab for Cultural Sustainability at University of St. Joseph, Macau. His research interests are: urban mobilities, visual methods and Chinese studies.  

Regev Nathansohn holds a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan, USA. He is an independent scholar exploring visual anthropology, digital urbanism, collaborative media, and engaged research.

Christine Lavrence is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at King’s University College, Western University, Canada. Her work examines questions related to memory, digital infrastructures, visual and cultural sociology, contemporary subjectivities, as well as feminist critical analysis of popular media.

**Tommaso Durante **is Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Durante’s research is located at the intersection of global aesthetics, visual culture, and philosophy of technology.

Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Culture, with a focus on the Middle East and Global South. Downey's interdisciplinary research contributes to and supports a critical understanding of postcolonial art practices, Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital methodologies in the arts, and Post-Disciplinary research methods.

Wilson Gomes Caldeira is a guest lecturer at the University of Saint Joseph, USA. His research explores the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on communication processes, with a particular focus on visual culture, human perception, and the ethics of generative technologies.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. Introduction: Sociality and Algorithmic Images - Gary Bratchford, Maria-Carolina Cambre & Dennis Zuev.- Chapter 2. The algorithmic Eye - Maria-Carolina Cambre and Christine Lavrence.- Chapter 3. Sensitive Content: From Cultural to Digital Algorithms in News Photography - Regev Nathansohn.- Chapter 4. Relationality and the Human-Machine Imagination: Sociology of Visual Generative Media - Dennis Zuev and Gary Bratchford.- Chapter 5. Occupied Futures: AI, Visual Cultures, and Neo-Colonial Visions - Anthony Downey.- Chapter 6. The Algorithmic Global Imaginary: the case of Dall-E - Tommaso Durante.- Chapter 7. The Aesthetic Algorithm: Ethics, Generative AI and the Transformation of Visual Culture - Wilson Jorge Gomes Caldeira.