Representational Paradigm --representing the social

Dominant Representational Paradigm
Representing the Social

paradigm--according to Thomas Kuhn (not Saussure) -- in science theories, practices, training methods, and professional organization cluster together forming a Paradigm. Paradigms "offer a complete system whose elements define the very structure and content" of knowledge.

A paradigm contains a world view--"set of statements which define its subject-matter, lay out what constitutes the role of the scientist, and at the same time offer scientists working within the paradigm interesting puzzles about the natural world to be solved" (Hall 78). [cf Foucault's notion of discursive formations]

Paradigm-shifts occur when no new puzzles to solves, anomalies arise that can't be answered by using the theoretical basis of the paradigm, and a new group of emerging researchers emerge. "Familiar things" can be then seen "in revolutionary ways" (e.g. the linguistic shift in humanities research sparked by Saussure prompted a new paradigmatic way of looking at communications)

In the essay “Representing the Social” on French postwar photography (in the Hall book), the author Peter Hamilton uses the term “dominant representational paradigm.”He uses the term to define a shared “photographic approach” that “offers a certain vision of the people and events that it documents” (76).The author suggests that there are six elements to French photojournalism of this period (universality, historicity; quotidienality, empathy, commonality, monochromacity). He also discerns 10 themes (the street, children/play, the family, love/lovers, Paris, clochards [homeless people], fairs and celebrations, bistrots [popular restaurants], housing, work/craft).

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/003154.html


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/StreetphotogrpahyDoisneau.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sauer-thompson.com/junkforcode/archives/003154.html&usg=__Cehj-WOPs0ztD_ZM9ws9hjuHDBI=&h=550&w=496&sz=30&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=lQ1m9uAcOFMqtM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRobert%2BDoisneau%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&biw=1280&bih=610&gbv=2&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=Robert+Doisneau&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

http://helenafrithpowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/henri-cartier-bresson13.jpg

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1280&bih=610&q=cartier-bresson&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

com/images?hl=en&biw=1280&bih=610&gbv=2&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=willy+ronis&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/cartier_bresson/images/boy.jpg

http://tingkelly.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/artwork_images_424175658_232693_henri-cartier-bresson.jpg

dorothea lange
walker evans
carl mydans
arnold eagle


James Van Der Zee
Gordon Parks

Roy DeCarava

Carl Van Vechten