Visual Culture and Public Policy

<p>Traditionally images have played an important role in politics and policy making mostly in relation to propaganda and public communication. However contemporary society is inundated with visual material due to the increasing ubiquity of media and visual technologies that facilitate the production distribution and consumption of images in new and innovative ways. As such a visual culture has emerged and a number of authors have written on visual culture and the technologies which underlie it. However a clear link to policy making is still lacking. </p><p>This books links the emergence of this visual culture to policy making and explores how visual culture (and the growing number of technologies used to create and distribute images) influence the course content and outcome of public policy making. It examines how visual culture and policy making in contemporary society are intertwined elaborating concepts such as power framing and storytelling. It then links this to technology and the way this can enhance power transparency registration surveillance and communication. </p><p>Dealing with the entire cycle of public policy making from agenda-setting to policy design decision making to evaluation the book contains diverse international case studies including water management risk management live-stock diseases minority integration racism freedom of speech healthcare disaster evaluation and terrorism. </p>