Digital gaze and visual experience

Abstract

This chapter seeks to make some connections between social research, images and the Internet, from the standpoint of a sociology of the sensibilities, that allow us to introduce ourselves to a critique of the political economy of the visual in Societies 4.0. Based on this objective, we will follow the following argumentative strategy. Firstly, we will carry out a preliminary exploration of some debates on the relationship between photography-image and the Internet, from which some relevant dimensions of the experience lived by millions of subjects will emerge. Secondly, we will trace several cues in order to problematize the 'global/local structuring' of contemporary knowledge practices. This will make it possible to reflect upon the role of sensibilities in knowledge processes. Thirdly, we will emphasize the importance of making the 'politics of looking' critical as a condition for research practice, and we will advocate for the notion of 'visual experience' on the basis of a critique of the extended forms of understanding 'the visual'. Fourthly and lastly, we will offer some considerations about the contents of a critique of the political economy of looking, highlighting the reception conditions of the images and the implications of the actions of seeing-feeling-looking in the current structuring contexts.