Image and Representation: Key Concepts in Media Studies [Paperback]

Its major accomplishment is to clearly link image analysis to the field of communication, as well as to reintroduce social and historical considerations into what is too often considered either an individualist or a formalist task. Lacey emphasizes throughout that individual interpretations have a common basis determined by culture and history, and that individual images can be examined carefully in order to suggest this basis.

By taking this view, Lacey avoids the "art-appreciation" trap, stressing that the goal of interpretation is to describe how images work in society, not what the proper meaning is. He also deftly minimizes the mechanistic implications of a (generally speaking) semiotic perspective by emphasizing that codes are fluid social conventions, not invariant and timeless structures.

Lacey begins Chapter 1 by introducing linguist Roman Jakobson's model of communication, a six-faceted one consisting of addresser, addressee, context, message, contact, and code, to emphasize the social and contextual nature of interpretation. This is combined with a clear run-down of features of images, from nonverbal communication (such as facial expression, body gestures, and clothing) to form (such as framing, angle, height, and depth of field) and content (subject, lighting, and setting). Additional media-specific features (such as anchorage and juxtaposition) and editing are also noted. This discussion is particularly useful for students who have not taken courses in television- or film-production or in photography. All this and more takes place in the (50-page) first chapter, no less!

Chapter 2, which introduces semiotic analysis via Saussure, Peirce, and Barthes, finishes the overtly methodological discussion. It does as good a job as any on a notoriously difficult topic.

The remaining five chapters build upon the theoretical and descriptive basis laid down in the first two. Stronger chapters alternate between somewhat weaker ones.

Chapter 4, titled "Advanced Image Analysis," introduces larger issues surrounding images (and media) in society from a cultural and critical perspective. Brief discussions of authorial intent, preferred reading, discourse, and hegemony are fleshed out with an account of alternative ways of editing and a short history of Western images and their uses in society.

Similarly, Chapter 6, titled "Representation and Reality," provides a clear introduction to the emergence of realism as a way of understanding and packaging the world. The discussion ranges from a history of realism to its use in documentaries and the challenges to it in the late 1960s. Less useful chapters include a short elaboration of Jakobson's theory of communication (I've generally skipped it when assigning readings from this book). Case studies included in Chapter 5 reflect the experience of Lacey's primary audience in Britain, and students in this country may find them obscure and therefore less useful. Chapter 7 contains the almost obligatory discussion of new technology, but it unfortunately has little new to say.

In sum, though, Lacey has done a fine job with this book. The stronger chapters not only provide students with a conceptual and methodological framework, they acquaint students with major issues while also including fine, brief discussions about the uses of images in history.

Suggested exercises are scattered throughout the text in key places (most work well as prompts for in-class discussion), in addition to many clearly described examples and a compact bibliography at the end that serves as a resource for students interested in reading in more depth.

Of course, no book can do it all. But this book packs more between the covers than any I've yet found.