Ghislaine Chabert
Jacques Ibañez Bueno
University of Savoy
G-SICA / IREGE laboratory

Body image in businesses

One of the specific aims of G-SICA research group on image, communication and digital arts in the university of Savoy is to studying the visual practices (e. g video-meetings and videophone) in companies. We find in French advertising a lot of promotional screens for new media and in particular for video-meetings and Telepresence with Images and Sounds (with 3rd generation mobile phone) but few researches on their uses in businesses. This subject has already been studied in private setting (De Fornel, 1994 & Jauréguiberry, 1989) but not much in professional one (Bernard, 2007). It is clear that the issue of communication practices and in particular of images and their uses is a subject that interests companies. Thus, with the help of the firms club of the university, the research group has observed new visual practices of workers in an industrial company. Classical techniques of sociology (face to face interviews) have been used in this project but also virtual anthropology methods (Pink, 2003) with video interviews or skype interviews for example. Moreover, the uses of a ‘web-meeting’ (that was concerned two members of the firm who met them by using skype software and a webcam) have been filmed on-site. The film will be presented during the oral presentation. With the obtained hypermedia, another issue for the researchers is to highlight the relevance of visual methodologies for research on digital practices of users (Friedman, 2006).