1. Deep/3D image-object or artefact
  2. Surface-area (space to be measured/bounded/qualified)
  3. Physical/Material Landscape (to be situated/located/occupied/described/qualified/measured/numbered)
  4. Production/Process of Making images and artefacts by various actors engaged in complex relationships and networks
  5. Precise census & measuring
  6. Rigorous typology & classification
  7. Precise description of physical attributes
  8. Geographical mapping of physical places (points), zones (areas), frontiers (lines) and dynamics (arrows)
  9. Distorted vision of images
    1. Flat/2D image (image-representation)
      1. Surface-Mirror (Pang's "distorting mirror" 2008)
      2. Mental Landscape (Mittler's mindmaps/mindsets 2013)
  10. Focus on consumption/consumers and their assumed desires/imaginaries (despite the lack of material evidence)
  11. Deceiving lenses, unsatisfying methods and instruments
    1. Numerical Approximations
    2. Vague inventory and imprecise description
    3. Fleating localization and cultural mapping
  12. Narrow scope of questions/problems
    1. China/West, Nationalism/Imperialism (Dikötter, Fraser, Gerth) & postcolonial approaches (MGAW)
    2. Relationships between Nation-State/Family/Individual & social-political approaches (Tsai 2010)
    3. Women/Gender approaches (MGAW, Mittler, Pang, etc.)
  13. Limited set of materials
    1. Press
      1. Daily Newspapers (Büschel, Mittler)
      2. Periodicals, mostly illustrated magazines (Liangyou) (Pickowicz 2013, Yan 2012)
    2. Calendar Posters (Laing 2004)
  14. Narrow range of product-oriented monographies
    1. Medicines (Cochran 2004, 2006; Lean 1995)
    2. Cigarette (Büchel, Cochran 1980, Pedelty 2012)
    3. Cosmetics (MGAW)
    4. The two most represented products in advertising spaces at the time: a major documentary bias, revealing the neglect of such basic rule in historical practice as external/critical analysis of available materials (to discriminate what is present from what is missing in the corpora)