Social and cultural interpretations of photography

The bachelor's paper Social and Cultural Interpretation of Photography is concerned with social aspects of photography, primarily the way photographs are read, their relation to the social sciences, and the transformation of their functions, from their development to the present time, primarily in relation to the individual concept of the photograph. The text briefly outlines the definition of a photograph as a technical image and the related act of photography, and introduces us to the possibilities of its social examination through visual sociology via visual social facts. It shows photography to be a form of social ritual, a tool for preserving the present and a confirmation of an event, as well as a means of power. It presents the impact of technical reproduction on the mass dissemination of images and the related changes in the relationship to images. It shows the transformation of analogue photographs archived in family albums as a means of preserving family memory and biography, to digital photography that assumes a new role of self-presentation, primarily thanks to the new way of archiving in the virtual environment of social networks, thereby presenting a related theory of individualization