Why has the visual largely gone missing in sociology done so poorly when done at all? Visual sociology has been part of the sociological vocabulary since Howard S. Becker's 1974 article, 'Photography and Sociology' but until now there has not been a comprehensive text that introduces this area. Written in an engaging and lively style Visual Sociology will serve as a main text in the growing number of stand alone courses in visual sociology, visual research courses and in qualitative methods courses in sociology and related disciplines.It will introduce: visual sociology as embodied observation, part of all sociology that includes observation visual sociology as the analysis of symbolic properties of the visual universe (semiotics) visual sociology as an approach to data: empirical, narrative, phenomenological and reflexive visual sociology as an aspect of photo documentary visual sociology and new forms of digital visualization.