Seenikultuur

Seenikultuur is a term used to describe the social and cultural significance of images and visuality in a society. It covers how visual representations are produced, circulated, interpreted and valued across media, art, design, advertising, public space and everyday life. The concept treats images as active agents that help shape knowledge, memory, identity and power relations rather than mere reflections of reality.

Practically, seenikultuur encompasses photography, film, television, online images, memes, graphic design, fashion, architecture, museums and galleries. It examines how people look at visuals, what is considered meaningful or beautiful, and how representation and symbolism relate to gender, race, class, nationalism and ideology. Topics often studied include visual rhetoric, iconography, spectatorship, visual literacy and the politics of image production and curation.

Academic approaches to seenikultuur draw on semiotics, discourse analysis, reception studies and digital humanities. Researchers analyze images, captions, interfaces and the algorithms that determine what people see, as well as the broader contexts in which visuals circulate and acquire meaning. Methodologically, it combines close reading of visuals with attention to media industries, cultural institutions and everyday practices of looking.

In the digital era, seenikultuur is heavily shaped by smartphones, social media, streaming platforms and automated recommendation systems. These technologies influence what counts as recognizable, how attention is captured, and what kinds of imagery gain or lose value. The study of seenikultuur thus bridges media studies, art history, sociology and cultural studies to understand contemporary visual life.