A2 MEDIA RESEARCH BLOG 2

Introduction

1 The gaze’ (sometimes called ‘the look’) is a technical term which was originally used in film theory in the 1970s but which is now more broadly used by media theorists to refer both to the ways in which viewers look at images of people in any visual medium and to the gaze of those depicted in visual texts

2 'the male gaze' has become something of a feminist cliché for referring to the voyeuristic way in which men look at women (Evans & Gamman 1995, 13).

3 Mutual gaze is now possible in forms of interpersonal communication other than direct face-to-face interaction: current examples are video-conferencing and the use of 'cam-to-cam' communication via the World Wide Web.

4 The impossibility of mutual gaze between viewers and those depicted in media texts unfortunately means that much of the research by social psychologists which relates to the human gaze tends to be of limited relevance to media theorists.



Forms of gaze

5 gives the viewer's gaze a voyeuristic dimension.

6 As Jonathan Schroeder notes, 'to gaze implies more than to look at - it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze' (Schroeder 1998, 208).

7  The most obvious typology is based on who is doing the looking, of which the following are the most commonly cited:

8  the spectator’s gaze: the gaze of the viewer at an image of a person (or animal, or object) in the text;

the intra-diegetic gaze: a gaze of one depicted person at another (or at an animal or an object) within the world of the text (typically depicted in filmic and televisual media by a subjective ‘point-of-view shot’);

the direct [or extra-diegetic] address to the viewer: the gaze of a person (or quasi-human being) depicted in the text looking ‘out of the frame’ as if at the viewer, with associated gestures and postures (in some genres, direct address is studiously avoided);

the look of the camera - the way that the camera itself appears to look at the people (or animals or objects) depicted; less metaphorically, the gaze of the film-maker or photographer.  

 9

• the gaze of a bystander - outside the world of the text, the gaze of another individual in the viewer’s social world catching the latter in the act of viewing - this can be highly charged, e.g. where the text is erotic (Willemen 1992);
• the averted gaze - a depicted person’s noticeable avoidance of the gaze of another, or of the camera lens or artist (and thus of the viewer) - this may involve looking up, looking down or looking away (Dyer 1982);
• the gaze of an audience within the text - certain kinds of popular televisual texts (such as game shows) often include shots of an audience watching those performing in the 'text within a text';
• the editorial gaze - 'the whole institutional process by which some portion of the photographer's gaze is chosen for use and emphasis' (Lutz & Collins 1994, 368).

10  James Elkins offers :

1. You, looking at the painting,
2. figures in the painting who look out at you,
3. figures in the painting who look at one another, and
4. figures in the painting who look at objects or stare off into space or have their eyes closed. In addition there is often
5. the museum guard, who may be looking at the back of your head, and
6. the other people in the gallery, who may be looking at you or at the painting. There are imaginary observers, too:
7. the artist, who was once looking at this painting,
8. the models for the figures in the painting, who may once have seen themselves there, and
9. all the other people who have seen the painting - the buyers, the museum officials, and so forth. And finally, there are also
10. people who have never seen the painting: they may know it only from reproductions... or from descriptions.

In relation to viewer-text relations of looking, Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen make a basic distinction between an ‘offer’ and a ‘demand’:

• an indirect address which represents an offer in which the viewer is an invisible onlooker and the depicted person is the object of the look - here those depicted either do not know that they are being looked at (as in surveillance video), or act as if they do not know (as in feature films, television drama and television interviews); and
• a gaze of direct address which represents a demand for the viewer (as the object of the look) to enter into a parasocial relationship with the depicted person - with the type of relationship indicated by a facial expression or some other means (this form of address is the norm for television newsreaders and portraits and is common in advertisements and posed magazine photographs). 

11  To a statistically significant degree, women look into the camera more than men, children and older people look into the camera more often than other adults, those who appear poor more than those who appear wealthy, those whose skin is very dark more than those who are bronze, those who are bronze more than those who are white,
12 One might also expect some change over time, as cameras became more common everywhere, but there is no difference in rate of gaze when the period from 1950 to 1970 is compared with the later period' (ibid., 371-2).
13 In some well-known studies Hess found that pupil dilation can also be a reflection of sexual attraction, and that photographs of female models in which the pupils had been artificially enlarged elicited unconscious pupil enlargement from male viewers (Hess & Polt 1960, Hess 1972, cited in Argyle 1975, 163). Knowledge of this has led some 'glamour' photographers to enhance their photographs in the same way and thus to increase the attractiveness of the model.
14  Where the female model typically averts her eyes, expressing modesty, patience and a lack of interest in anything else, the male model looks either off or up.#
15   the focus of their eyes has shifted from a straightforward, open look to a sideways glance resembling glamour poses in fashion magazines.
16  The amount of gaze can also be related to status or dominance: higher status people tend to look more whilst they are talking but less when they are listening.
17  Michael Watson (1970) found cultural variability in the intensity of gaze. He distinguished between three forms of gaze:

• sharp: focusing on the other person's eyes;
• clear: focusing about the other person's head and face;
• peripheral: having the other person within the field of vision, but not focusing on his head or face. (cited in Argyle 1988, 59) 

18  Paul Messaris notes a common assumption that a direct gaze at the camera lens by a depicted person may remind viewers of their position as spectators, but that where such shots are subjective point-of-view shots within a narrative this effect is negated (Messaris 1994, 151).

Angle of view:

19  high angles (looking down on a depicted person from above) are interpreted as making that person look small and insignificant, and low angles (looking up at them from below) are said to make them look powerful and superior.

Apparent proximity:

20  In relation to camerawork, there are three main kinds of shot-size: long-shots, medium shots and close-ups.
21  Edward T Hall illustrated how physical distances between people in face-to-face interaction reflected degrees of formality. He referred to four specific ranges:

• Intimate: up to 18 inches;
• Personal: 18 inches to 4 feet;
• Social: 4 to 12 feet;
• Public: 12 to 25 feet. 

22  In camerawork these 'modes of address' are reflected in shot sizes - close-ups signifying intimate or personal modes, medium shots a social mode and long shots an impersonal mode.

The eye of the camera:

23   the camera turns the depicted person into an object, distancing viewer and viewed.
24  'Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention... The act of photographing is more than passive observing'.
25  'The camera doesn't rape, or even possess, though it may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate - all activities that, unlike the sexual push and shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with some detachment'

The social codes of looking:

26  Looking is socially regulated: there are social codes of looking (including taboos on certain kinds of looking). It can be instructive to reflect on what these codes are in particular cultural contexts (they tend to retreat to transparency when the cultural context is one's own).
27  Within the bounds of the cultural conventions, people who avoid one's gaze may be seen as nervous, tense, evasive and lacking in confidence whilst people who look a lot may tend to be seen as friendly and self-confident.
28  The directed eye contact violates a code of looking, where eye contact is frequently broken but returned to, and leads to depersonalization of the victim because an aggressor deliberately breaks the rules which the victim adheres to. (Danny Saunders in O'Sullivan et al. 1994, 205)
29  One woman reported to a male friend: ‘One of the things I really envy about men is the right to look’. She pointed out that in public places, ‘men could look freely at women, but women could only glance back surreptitiously’ (Dyer 1992a, 265). Brain Pranger (1990) reports on his investigation of 'the gay gaze.
30  Almost everyone I interviewed said that they could tell who was gay by the presence or absence of this look. (in Higgins 1993, 235-6)

John Berger's ways of seeing: