The Image in Society: Exploring the social effects of the image The first is its empirical connection with the world–telling something of the world, reflecting the world. It re-presents the world. How does it do this? What are its techniques? What are its mediations? What kinds of ‘truth’ can we have in images? A second property of consequence — the image has a normative loading. No image can ever solely be a reflection on the world. It is also a perspective on the world, an orientation to the world. This is because it is the incidental outcome of an act of design. It is the product of an act of human agency. An interested image-maker takes available resources for meaning (visual grammars, fabrication techniques and focal points of attention), undertakes an act of designing (the process of image-making), and in so doing re-images the world in a way that it has never quite been seen before. The human agent is central.