chapter 3 & 4

In the chapter three, Sturken & Cartwright discussed how the gaze integrates to the system of power. Photographs and other forms media influence on people’s participation in social norm and sticking to dominant social value. Furthermore, they also talked the relationship between spectatorship and gaze to understand how viewers respond to an image in a historical and cultural context. Sturken & Cartwright asserted that “the unconscious and the symbolic activity that gives rise to representations, linking personal feeling to the world, are considered to be important components of that network” (p.120). The term of Gaze let me link to the idea of “tourist gaze” which is one kind of travel experience that captures the visual perception of a particular place, landscape, or a mega-event through photographs, films, postcards or guidebooks. For travelers, something different to everyday life, something new, worthy seeing site will draw their attention to take photographs to record the journey. The tourist gaze provides important connection to the traveler’s feeling and tourism destinations. In the concept of tourist gaze, taking photographs is also a good way to catch particular live political, celebratory and sporting events that what happens at a specific moment such as US president Obama’s inauguration, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

In chapter four, Sturken & Cartwright discussed the convention of realism and abstract. There is no clear distinction between realism and abstract. The art or representations of realism reflect the truth about society and can reproduce historical meaning in contemporary context. Sturken & Cartwright talked about the role of perspective in visual system to understand that images can perform as not only reproductions of the world but also of ways of seeing and emphasized that “reproducibility in images is not just about the capacity of art works and images to be copied but also about the aim to copy or reproduce the real” (p.143). Furthermore, they discussed the change of convention of realism in the context of digital media. For instance, video game places viewers in interactively creating environment and the players are afforded the experience of seeing as if the eyes of character. Sturken & Cartwright asserted that the term of virtual provides misconception of not real or only exits in imaginations and stated that “virtual reality systems create simulations that attempt to provide an experience in which players feel as if they are physically incorporated into the world on all sensory levels” (P.177). Digital media bring different kinds of perspectives and provide more interactive interactions with viewers. I was wondering comparing to the photographs and films, would the digital media be more realistic.