vizualitást

Vizualitást, commonly translated as visuality, is a concept in philosophy, art history, and media studies that refers to the social and cultural production of seeing and the status of images and visual experience within a culture. It encompasses how images are created, circulated, interpreted, and regulated, as well as how observers perceive and are affected by visual media. The term is central to discussions of visual culture and the politics of perception.

Etymology and scope: The word derives from Latin visualis and is used in Hungarian scholarly discourse as vizualitás, with vizualitást serving as a form in specific syntactic contexts. In broader English-language scholarship, visuality denotes the conditions that enable seeing and the ways visibility is organized by technology, institutions, and power relations. It contrasts with visibility itself by emphasizing processes, infrastructures, and social meanings that make certain visions possible or restricted.

Core ideas: Visuality treats sight as an active, mediated practice rather than a passive reception. It analyzes the role of cameras, screens, online interfaces, and other technologies in shaping what can be seen. It also examines gaze, representation, ideology, and surveillance, exploring how image-making participates in knowledge production, identity formation, and social power. Material aspects of images, including their production, distribution, and reception, are foregrounded alongside interpretive frameworks.

Applications: The concept is used across film theory, art history, design, architecture, digital humanities, and media studies to analyze how images structure understanding, influence public debate, and encode cultural values. It informs critical assessments of advertising, news imagery, political iconography, and algorithmic visibility.

See also: visual culture, spectatorship, image politics, surveillance studies, visual rhetoric, digital visualization. Scholars associated with visuality debates include W. J. Mitchell, Jonathan Crary, James Elkins, and Nicholas Mirzoeff.