Abstract
This paper argues for a shift from the pictorial turn to the medial turn in the study images. In the pictorial turn, images pushed back against linguistic practices of knowledge. The medial turn, however, emphasizes how the mediality of images develops a knowledge-guiding dynamic that dominates the pictoriality itself. In the age of artificial intelligence, the medial turn shifts the focus to the mediality of images. This makes digital infrastructures, protocols, algorithms, interfaces, and data flows more important for understanding how images are created, circulated, and perceived. The pictorial turn trained us to see through images; the medial turn urges us to audit images in social contexts in order to gain trust and credibility. The guiding thesis is that AI-based image production transforms images from objects of interpretation into elements of socio-technical medialities in which data sets, models, prompts, interfaces, and platforms help determine the conditions of visibility, credibility, and impact. The image not only “means” something in societies, but also creates contexts for action that unfold through the co-action of AI. AI does not render images meaningless, but rather makes them sensitive to social and technical infrastructures. In order to analyze and control the sociocultural consequences, data sets, models, interfaces, and technical and political power structures must be fundamentally reevaluated, because the co-active intervention of AI gives rise to a form of mediality in which unfamiliar realities emerge in image-based communication.
Presenters
Andreas SchelskeProfessor, Institute for Media Economics and Journalism / Department Management, Information, Technology, Jade University of Applied Sciences, Niedersachsen, Germany
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2026 Special Focus—The Image as Advocate: Shaping Cultural Conversations
KEYWORDS
MEDIAL TURN, PICTORIAL TURN, REALITIES, SOCIOLOGY, COMMUNICATION SIENCE, SEMIOTICS
