The International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) is a nonprofit, democratic, academically focused professional organization devoted to the visual study of society, culture, and social relationships.
Founded in 1981 by Leonard Henry, Douglas Harper, and others, IVSA is a registered, tax-exempt nonprofit organization the members of which represent a wide spectrum of disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, education, visual communication, photography, filmmaking, art, and journalism.
The goal of IVSA is to promote the study, production, and use of imagery, visual data, and visually oriented materials in teaching, research, and applied activities. We foster the use of still photography, film, video, and electronically transmitted images in sociology and related fields. IVSA works to encourage (1) documentary studies of everyday life in contemporary communities, (2) the interpretive analysis of art and popular visual representations of society, (3) studies about the social impact of advertising and the commercial use of images, (4) the analysis of archival images as sources of data on society and culture, and (5) the study of the purpose and the meaning of image-making practices like recreational and family photography.
The principal activities of the organization are an annual meeting each summer in such locations as Kenya, Mexico, and Korea as well as the US and Europe–and publication of the journal Visual Sociology. Other IVSA initiatives include principal sponsorship, along with the International Science Council, of the Ethnografilm Festival held each April in Paris, France, and the Journal of Video Ethnography, an online journal of academic films to encourage the promotion and dissemination of visual scientific methods globally. IVSA and ISC also jointly sponsor an annual Workshop for Scientific Filmmaking for aspiring filmmakers in all scientific disciplines.
This page was updated in August 2025.
