Viewers Make Meaning Analysis

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"Viewers Make Meaning" is the second chapter of the book "Pratice of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture"by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.Oxford University Press, New York,2001. In our daily life all of us see hundreds of images through different media's.All images contain a message.But how can we understand the message or meaning of the image ad a viewer? This article provides a analytical explanations of this question.The author's tried to discuss and clear about how, why and by whom the meaning of images is produced and changed. And they also give the answers of these questions through their conclusion. They said,"The viewer who makes meaning does so not only through describing an experience with the images but also through …show more content…

Viewers make meaning of images but they are also interpellated by images.But what is the process of these interpellation? This process is developed in three ways …show more content…

The authors describe here the idea of "Connoisseurship". But my question is, the well-bred person is also a member of a society and he holds an individual culture, political and social standard. He is also an individual and has an individual way or practice of looking.So how can he or she define the good and bad choice of others without influence of own way of perception? They owned their own perception and ways of seeing.So how this process will be impartial?As we read in the section "Collecting, Display, and Institutional Critique"that the value of art or image rely on who holds it's ownership. It will be institutions like museums and private collectors.But these institutions is affected by the gaze power.Here I found the Fred Wilson's "Guarded View"(1991) image interesting about institutional critique. The collecting and displaying process of institutions is motivated by politics, art market and dominant social classes.According to Karl Marx,the rise of industrialism and