There are several reasons, why the use of images in qualitative research is not very common. A rather obvious one is that is is harder to handle images with technology ¹. Great amounts of text are easily stored and searched, but images and video have vastly larger file sizes and searching for all pictures showing a person is much harder than searching for all texts containing »Participant-7« or »Alice«.

As well, it is just unusual to use images: »It should be remembered that for most of the last century, continuing to the present day, conventional ethnographic studies have typically incorporated little or no visual data« ².

But aside of being unusual the use of image in qualitative research of images is philosophically debated. A commonplace critique is the claim that photos and videos don’t show »the truth«, since they are made with certain intentions, and cropping, moment and perspective are chosen by the photographer ³. But: Researchers are probably well aware of this problem: »Researchers understand that video-recordings do not of course capture the "world-as-it-happens" and they recognise that« ¹. As well, text or speech is naturally selective as well and is not »the truth« either. So the argument may be a strawman, which is put up by the claim that images are not questioned and/or inherently misleading.

Images in qualitative Research: A (very brief) review of reasons of non-use by Jan Dittrich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.