Examining Web Images: A Combined Visual Analysis (CVA) Approach

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12376
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020

Examining Web Images: A Combined Visual

Analysis (CVA) Approach

KATRINA PRITCHARD

School of Management, Swansea University,Bay Campus, Fabian Way, Swansea SA18EN

In this methodological paper I set out a framework for Combined Visual Analysis (CVA), bringing together

compositional, reflexive and semiotic analysis. I explain how CVA was applied in a research project exploring the

visual repertoire of human resource management (HRM). I describe each stage in detail, consider how research

practice is instrumental in shaping research outcomes and reflexively explore the challenges encountered. The CVA

framework provides a research protocol for those working with (in visual analytic terms) large numbers of pre-

existing images. It offers an approach that enables breadth and depth, while maintaining a qualitative focus on the

images themselves.

Keywords: visual analysis; web images; qualitative research; human resource management (HRM)

Introduction

Management researchers are increasingly attending to

visual analysis. There are excellent resources available

for visual researchers (Margolis and Pauwels, 2011;

Emmison et al., 2012; Bell et al., 2014) while special

issues (Acevedo and Warren, 2012; Davison et al., 2012)

facilitate debate. Nevertheless, as Shortt and Warren

(2019, p. 539) highlight, robust ‘analytical protocols’are

lacking. Such protocols facilitate the sharing of research

experience, supportresearchers in enhancing practice and

prompt methodological development. However, space

restrictions in typical empirical publications mean that

methodological accounts are often too brief to serve as a

guide. Outlets such as EMR’s‘Methodology Matters’

provide a muchneeded opportunity for publishingdetailed

methodological frameworks.

In setting out the Combined Visual Analysis (CVA)

framework I draw on compositional, reflexive and

semiotic analysis. Compositional analytic approaches

facilitate an unpacking of image content while semiotic

approaches relate image content to meaning (Rose,

2012). These are brought together in three stages

(compositional categorisation, compositional themes and

semiotic analysis)and collectively inform the steps within

each stage (readiness,recognition, refinement, reflection).

CVA developed from my need for a qualitative method

suited for large numbers of pre-existing (Meyer et al.,

2013) web images in a project exploring HRM.

Specifically, this attends to what Rose (2012) refers to as

the ‘site of the image’and is informed by Van Leeuwen’s

(2005) notion of cataloguing. Together thesehighlight the

importance of examining breadth of visual repertoire

while also unpacking depth in terms of the relation of

image to concept construction. This requires an approach

that enables both analytic breadth and depth, while

maintaining a qualitative focus on the image.

Below I explain how, in meeting these research needs,

CVA contributes to the development of visual research

since it both:

•facilitates research examining pre-existing web images;

and

•prioritises a qualitative focus on images using a

structured approach that enables analytic breadth and

depth.

Facilitates research examining pre-existing web images

Following Meyer et al. (2013), it is usual to distinguish

between pre-existing images found by the researcher and

image creation within a participatory research process

(Shortt and Warren, 2012). Meyer et al.(2013,p.504)

label the former archaeological, describing a focus on

‘“pre-existing”visual artifacts and data thatthe researcher

can collect and interpretin order to reconstruct underlying

Correspondence: Katrina Pritchard, School of Management, Swansea

University, Bay Campus, Fabian Way, Swansea, SA1 8EN. E-mail k.l.

pritchard@swansea.ac.uk

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12376

©2020 European Academy of Management

European Management Review, Vol. 17, 297–310, (2020)