Nicholas MIRZOEFF, pioneer of visual culture studies, once wrote that for two decades after the 1970s, "social art history and visual culture studies worked closely together before visual culture became a separate area of study around 1990, largely due to the rise of digital media."

Digital media have also caused great changes in photography which as a significant component of contemporary art, therefore on the one hand responds to the contemporary trends and debates in arts, and on the other studies and reflects on the various uses and conceptions of photographic images in our society and history.

Furthermore, the teaching of photography at Hong Kong Art School pays special attention to academic training: although there should not be any formal rules or methods in art making, when we study art in an academy it is really our duty to investigate with academic approaches. We have on several occasions cited the 'heuristic' approach that Victor BURGIN, British scholar of photographic studies, has put forward, " ... aiming to provide students with a wide range of facts and data, as well as numerous tools for critical interpretation, in order to enhance their intellectual capacity and the development of their individual thoughts.”

圖像文化學的先驅者尼古拉斯· 米爾佐夫(Nicholas MIRZOEFF)有次寫道：自一九七零年代以來圖像文化研究都是與社會藝術歷史學緊密合作的，直到約一九九零年時主要因為數碼媒體興起，圖像文化就「不得不」成為了專門的學科。

數碼媒體也令攝影術發生了很大的變化，故此攝影作為當代藝術的重要一環，既呼應著藝術的當代整體發展和討論，也注意和反射攝影圖像在社會和歷史上的各種使用和想法。

除此之外，藝術學院的攝影課程也特別重視學院式的教育訓練：藝術製作固然沒有需要是學院式的，但學院教育探索學術性模式則屬必務的事。我們常常引用的是英國攝影學者域陀˙貝爾根(Victor BURGIN)在一九八二年時提出過的「啟發式」(heuristic)教育理念：「目標是向學員提供廣闊範圍的資訊，以及多種明辨批判的工具，從而使他們增加識見能力，發展出獨立的思想。」