Pictures in the substantiation of organisation: a study of radiology

Abstract

The motivation for this study is an interest in technologically produced imagery and its effect on the contemporary world. Natural events, pictures, diagrams, paintings, spectacular performing arts, icons, etc, are persistent features in the repertoire of language for expressing and constituting knowledge. Much of present day common sense knowledge, however, is constituted through observation made in direct, yet technologically mediated ways. From television to computer graphics and radiographs, a plethora of technologies offer visual experience of a kind available only through techno-scientific means. Using technical instruments requires constructs created by user’s and see-er’s. Language that evolves, is often interpretable only through a unique cultural practice dependent on expertise. Technically produced imagery raises issues of individual and collective interpretation. The thesis method is eclectic to discern the complexity this involves. Intertwining of technical and scientific modes of professional conduct is examined through the implication of Galilean discovery, by way of the technical effects of glass in the 17th Century, and Roentgen’s accidental discovery through x-rays in the late 19th Century. Field work centers on issues pertinent to technologically mediated knowledge. This involved a small group of radiologists in the hospital of a provincial New Zealand city. Engaged variously in difficult radiographic interpretation, they are teaching newly qualified doctors entering the radiological profession to successfully “see” the imagery evoked by the radiograph. Medical practitioners, and especially radiologists, are a profession required specifically to develop skills of image and sign interpretation. Fundamental to their accountability is intersubjective agreement on what is “seen” on a radiograph and other technical equipment. The third dimension of “depth” has to be accurately imputed to a two dimensional radiograph. Radiological “objectivity” is the outcome of collective discourse. Central to this discourse is a specific employment of particular metaphors. Metaphorical transferrence occurs during the process of diagnosis as the interpreter moves between what is seen on the radiograph and his or her medical repertoire. Diagnosis through the inspection of visual items involves the skilled (but often intuitive) decoding of complex systems of iconic and symbolic (conventional, arbitrary) signs. Diagnosis is sanctioned by collective agreement accomplished through dialogue. The basis of the radiological code is an inextricable use of metaphor and metonymy in the syntagmatic construction of an image. The nature of what is seen on the radiograph is based on the notion of caricature. This implies that the person who can interpret a radiograph is able to “see” in it the embodiment of some image which may be completely obscure to the uninitiated. Caricature interpretation is fundamental to constituting the typifications of daily life. This has particular significance in what might be termed a “techno visual” life-world.