The World Language of Key Visuals

Our international network of experts from the humanities, the computer and the social sciences focuses on collective visual memories and neglections. The latter are systematized and decoded by means of the concept of “Key” Visuals, which encompasses visual images and stereotypes. Our major areas of expertise are Key Visuals in the media systems of the contemporary military, political and media superpower of the United States, set into contrast with Germany, Brazil, i.e., the potential leading power of Latin America (with one of the world’s biggest TV stations and significant export quota) and the uprising world power of China. By means of a comparison between selected media, in their cultural contexts, over the period of about a decade, we inquire into the accelerating Americanization, visualization and globalization of screen media.

The analysis and interpretation of the vast amount of visual data from television, web offerings and those transmitted via mobile devices requires cooperation with specialists in semi-automatic picture retrieval and information management. Our cooperation aims at the specification of culture-specific vs. trans-cultural and global visualization patterns. A systematic sample of TV programs and web offerings from Brazil, China, Germany and the United States as well as a model of common categories for analysis, statistical tools and devices for semi-automatic picture retrieval allows for a coherent research network. Our website informs about 8 dimension of our research, subdivided into more than 60 categories. We show more than 20 power-point presentations with integrated examples of Key Visuals, 40 excerpts of interviews with international students from Jacobs University Bremen on their media biographies, and offer more than 220 selected links pertinent for research on Key Visuals.

You are invited to register our website and use it for scientific purposes.
Please fill in the Key Visuals Registration Form.