Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-30-2025
Abstract
This methodological paper examines the image production process as a site of meaning making in a participant photography project with 20 Black college students attending historically White universities in the northern, southern and western parts of the U.S. Examining the process of image production provides insight into how and why participants produce particular images and the accompanying narratives, who students consider important to the issues of concern to them, and how students anticipate their images will be received by various audiences. This paper first examines the various image making strategies employed by the students in the production of their visuals. Image making strategies included pre-planning their visual project, capturing photos spontaneously, or drawing upon previously created images. Next, attention will be paid to the students’ articulated intended or “imagined” audiences for their images and will examine how the participants made meaning of the various audiences. Some of the intended audiences of the images included a non-Black audience, a Black audience, and an institutional audience. The paper will conclude with a discussion on the implications of the image production and potential audiences of visuals in a participant photography project with Black college students.
Recommended Citation
Allen, Q. (2025). “My ideal audience…”: image production and imagined audiences in a visual project with black college students. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2025.2579539
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
Taylor & Francis
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Educational Sociology Commons, Higher Education Commons, Photography Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons
Comments
This is an Accepted Manuscript version of an article accepted for publication in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education in 2024 https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2025.2579539. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.