Book Review: Visual Culture and Public Policy: Towards a Visual Polity? by Victor Bekkers and Rebecca Moody

Abstract

Visual Culture and Public Policy: Towards Visual Polity? Victor Bekkers and Rebecca Moody. London and New York: Routledge, 2015. 242 pp. $140 hbk.The goal of Visual Culture and Public Policy: Towards Visual Polity? authored by Victor Bekkers and Rebecca Moody is threefold. One aim is to explore the evolution of contemporary by the growing number of information and communication technologies (ICTs) used to create and distribute information over the last two or three decades. Second is to explore the links between what the authors call visual culture (e.g., visualization of events) and public policy-making in political and societal contexts, especially with the rise of populist democratic process. And third is to conceptualize the changing nature of relations between media, including new and social media, and the entire cycle of public policy making from agenda setting to policy design. The authors use several case studies from North America, Europe, and other regions to illustrate their arguments and theoretical assumptions and discuss the future implications.Bekkers and Moody specialize in research on public administration and public policy, with focus on contemporary technological trends and changes that affect policy-making in modern democracies, especially in Europe. Both are professors of public policy and public administration at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This volume is part of broader research project dubbed the Erasmus Studio Rotterdam, which asks the following: How do media images interplay and impact politics and the policy-making process in relation to public communication in modern democracies? How are and policy-making intertwined, elaborating concepts of and public communication?The 10 chapters of the monograph are designed to assess the background, development, and interactions between media culture, politics, and policies of contemporary democracies in the era of the information and social media revolution. To conceptualize their research approach, the authors have developed their theoretical framework, research methodology, and analytical model based on a comparative case study method. They argue that although policy makers make much use of the power that resides in words, scholars in public administration have not paid substantial attention to the emergence of new persuasive practices in which pictures, videos, films, photos, and 3D simulations are being used to frame policy problems and policy actions. This process of visualization of actions is co-evolv[ing] with other social, economic, cultural and practices.The book opens with four chapters that introduce the world of images, providing brief historical overview and conceptualization of modern technologies and their impact on policy process. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the emergence and history of visualization in modern societies, going beyond the so-called CNN effect (or how television has shaped public opinion) into recent technological inventions that have created whole new world of events and consequently led to new social, economic and practices. …