Vaizdo link: okuliarcentrizmas ir jo tyrimo metodologija
Towards the Visual: ocularcentrist orientation and its research methodology

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses the empirical methodology of the research of ocularcentrism. Visual culture for a long time has been a privileged object of semiotics in which the meanings of the objects of culture are analysed. The importance of visuality in Western European culture traditionally was analysed by culture studies. Martin Jay has used the term ocularcentrism to describe the centrality of the visual in the contemporary Western life and stated that visual culture, more precisely the focus on vision, is a significant and exceptional feature of Western culture. However, ocularcentrism of Western culture in sociology is usually taken as an axiom or based on the power of mass media and arguments of other sciences. The methodology of estimating the preference of vision in respect of other senses was verified during the research in Lithuania, Latvia and Norway. The methodology is based on the analysis of indirect attitudes towards different aspects of personal presentation. For the analysis of attitudes toward visuality, the cognitive aspect of value attitudes was used. The questions were formulated to elucidate indirect experience and generalised observation rather than individual preferences. This, on the one hand, allows avoiding stereotype answers that may give the respondent a possibility to portray him/herself as having ‘good taste’ or being a prudent person (what is usually happening if we ask about the respondent’s own preferences). On the other hand, it allows an extension of information validity, because respondents present not their own attitudes but a generalisation of their observations. Data analysis proved the methodology through showing the existence of a relation between behavioural and emotional attitudes towards artefacts of ocularcentrist culture and cognitive ocularcentrism in public and private spheres. Data analysis showed Norwegians to be more ocularcentric, while Lithuanians are oriented to deconstruction of meanings. While regarding local culture as a different one, Lithuanians may see a need for a deconstruction of the meanings of visual materials that seem to be obvious for Norwegians.

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