Imaginaries of Dying: The Visual Rhetoric of Stock Images Tagged with “Palliative Care”

Metzger, Gaudenz Urs; Braun, Tina (2023). Imaginaries of Dying: The Visual Rhetoric of Stock Images Tagged with “Palliative Care” OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying Sage 10.1177/00302228231184296

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In digital culture and its global economy, images circulate transnationally and shape cultural ideas about social and existential issues. While there is growing interest in death online, few studies have investigated the role of visual material in different forms of communication in this field. In this article, we examine the depiction of dying and death in stock photographs tagged with “palliative care” drawing on an image corpus of 618 photographs. Stock photographs are images produced for commercial purposes that are stored in databases by agencies on the Internet. To analyze how these representations depict fictional palliative care settings, we used visual grounded theory. The findings show that typical caregivers are portrayed as emphatic individuals, while patients appear as composed human beings facing death without fear. We argue that the images represent aspects of the modern hospice philosophy and the cultural narrative of healthy aging.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

Bern Academy of the Arts
Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute of Design Research
Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute of Design Research > Design and Rhetoric
Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute of Design Research > Social Design

Name:

Metzger, Gaudenz Urs and
Braun, Tina

Subjects:

G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology
N Fine Arts > NC Drawing Design Illustration

ISSN:

0030-2228

Publisher:

Sage

Funders:

Organisations 188869 not found.; [UNSPECIFIED] Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH

Language:

English

Submitter:

Tina Braun

Date Deposited:

08 Dec 2023 11:29

Last Modified:

03 Jun 2024 15:24

Publisher DOI:

10.1177/00302228231184296

ARBOR DOI:

10.24451/arbor.20588

URI:

https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/20588

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