PhD Thesis – BEYOND PROJECT: An Ethnographic Study in Community Media Education

ABSTRACT

BEYOND PROJECT: An Ethnographic Study in Community Media
by Shawn Naphtali Sobers

Research Question
“According to facilitators, participators and trainees of community media educational activity, what are the prime motivations of involvement, and what impacts and areas of sustainability result from the sector’s instances of pedagogy?”

Thesis Summary
The author of this thesis is active as a practitioner working within the area of community media education activity: the focus area of this research.  This research links practice to theory to address the central research question.  It employs methodologies informed by post-colonial theories including auto-ethnography and critical pedagogy to discuss the research findings in context of wider literature drawn from the disciplines of community media, community arts, media education, educational psychology, informal education, anthropology and cultural studies.

Community Media activities operate in a fragmented landscape of practice, making the notions of impact and sustainability problematic issues to negotiate, and presents difficulties with identifying related evidence.  This research presents extensive qualitative ethnographic investigation into the impacts and sustainability in the lives of facilitators, participants and trainees who have been involved in such projects for a minimum of four years.  This research evidences the prime motivations of why these stakeholders got involved with the projects from the very beginning, and maps these findings against the impacts and cultural sustainability as articulated, gaining an insight into both the pedagogic journey of the individuals, and the pedagogic qualities of the media projects.

This study employs a methodology that favours the stakeholders to speak for themselves, presenting individuals articulating what the impacts were on their own lives directly, thus matching the methodology of the study with the principles of the community media sector itself: to enable individuals to represent themselves.  At specific instances throughout this thesis the author will be referred to in the first person, due to the adopted additional methodology of autoethnography, which links analytical interpretation with personal exploration. 

Download pdf of full thesis – click here.

3rd Cinema Screening Room #2: Average Journey For An Average Refugee

Continuing the theme of Third Cinema films coming out of community media, please see the film below.  It is based on a true story, and by a pure coincidence relates to the discussion of ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ that I explored in the previous post, though the film has a very different conclusion.

Average Journey For An Average Refugee

 

Written by Muhammed Ali.  Directed by Chris Barnett.  Produced by Firstborn Creatives and Calling the Shots. (c) 2009

3rd Cinema Screening Room #1: Women’s Voices

This film was made with female prisoners in the UK.  Originally commissioned for a conference on the issue of women in prison, the work was deemed too powerful for the prison service and they tried to stop it being shown.  Their decision was not honoured and it was shown anyway and caused much debate.  The women prisoners who gave their voices to this film were fully in support of the screening as they felt it was one of the few times their stories had been heard and taken seriously.

 

Produced by Louise Lynas, Directed and Edited by Chris Barnett, Camera by Tom Swindell.  A Firstborn Creatives production.

Essentially non-narrative, (containing fragments of story rather than an overarching narrative arc), this film defies the conventions of traditional documentary and drama, although it contains elements of both.  The film plays both to the arthouse and also to conventional cinema, creating a ‘mood’ piece which lets the rich audio fragment narratives drive the slower visual metaphors. According to Wayne (2001):

“The great advantage of Third Cinema is that while it is politically oppositional to dominant cinema, it doesn’t seek, at the level of form and cinematic language, to reinvent cinema from scratch…; nor does it adopt a position of pure opposition on the question of form (it is too interested in communication for that).” (page 10)

Although visually stunning, there is an implicit understanding in this film that the images are but mere vehicles for the voices to be heard.  Without the visuals, with eyes closed, the film still works.  Though the visuals provide a strong visual aesthetic which allows an accessible reading.  It is designed to capture the attention of the viewer, to make you empathise with the voices that are in fact the real visual content.  Visual in that they force the audience to visualise the faces and lives of the anonymous speakers.

The women gave the filmmakers their stories like a present.  The filmmakers then have the double responsibility of representing and disseminating the women’s life stories sensitively.  The film does not seek to educate like a documentary or entertain like a drama, but simply to be listened to and reflected upon.  It challenges the audience to question and have an opinion, although the film itself does not provide any answers or suggestions, although there is no doubt with whom the sympathies of the filmmakers lies: with the prisoners.  There is little sense of hope at the end of the film, ending as uncertain as the lives of the women we heard.

 The challenge of Third Cinema and community video is how to exhibit and disseminate the work.  There are lots of great community media produced films out there that have never been screened beyond their original intended event.  For such films to have the power and influence they intended it is important that they are seen.  The audiences would ultimately decide the relevance of the films and where there was any influence and impacts to be gained, which as described in the previous post demonstrates ‘media praxis’ not media passive. Wayne suggests “it is precisely this question of the role of the audience and the nature of their engagement with the text that is central to Third Cinema” (page 11).  Community media video projects need to try and find outlets to give audiences that opportunity to see the work, otherwise the notion of media praxis remain a utopian ideal rather than an everyday sector practice.

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 References

 Wayne, M. (2001) Political Film: The dialectics of Third Cinema, Pluto Press, London

Community Media as the constant entity in generational change in education, and elusive Clout and Capital.

Last night I went to an interesting seminar at the Watershed Media Centre called ‘Cultural Learning: Young people – schools – creative industries’.  It was all about the 8 month relationship the Watershed have built up with Fairfield High School, which has seen a teacher being based at the Watershed one day a week, film & TV professionals working in the school, and the students taking part in projects. 

One of the refreshing things about the event was that the residency (for want of a better term) didn’t seem to revolve around the need for the students to make short films, and no films were shown at the event, though the young people were there and talked about their experiences.  The residency was focused more on educational experiences for the students and also Continuing Professional Development for the teachers and encouraging whole school change to embrace media literacy across the whole curriculum.  This was a good balance and gave the students a rounded experience of media literacy, and not only the easy win of the seduction of production.  Dick Penny talked about the importance of schools to embrace the principles of media literacy and the need for young people to create media as well as deconstruct it to fully understand media, creating a Literacy in the fullest sense, and not only a sidelined media literacy.  These are ideas I share and have written about previously (see here for a 2005 article for the Westminster Media Forum).

At the event all the teachers were enthusiastic about the educational, social and cultural potential of media professionals working with school students.   Those of us who work in community media education know of the realities of this potential, as we have based our whole careers on it.  The teachers were advocating for a network to be established which encouraged the partnerships between cultural industries and schools, and of course I applaud that advocacy, as would all those of us who work in community media education, and over the past 10 years or so this argument has been made a number of times, by teachers and us alike.   One occasion the call has been heard for example, was when South West Screen in partnership with the Watershed funded the Media Education Hubs in circa 2002 (the one in Bristol ran out of funding circa 2005). 

With each new generation of teachers comes a new enthusiasm to work together, which is great, and the Watershed and community media education advocates become the constant agencies who fly the flag of media literacy, so the teachers want to talk and work with us, which is great, but what we don’t possess is any of the clout and capital to actually embed media literacy into the education system, despite the enthusiasm of the teachers. 

In 2005 my colleague Rob Mitchell from Firstborn Creatives gave a presentation titled ‘Getting the Head on board’, with primary school teacher Becky Davis from Oldbury Court School.  We had worked with the school for a whole academic year, not just making films but also working on Continuing Professional Development for the teachers and encouraging whole school change to embrace media literacy across the whole curriculum.  (Ironically, the venue where this talk was given was again at the Watershed!).

Rob & Becky’s talk centred on the cold fact that without the clout of the headteacher, any enthusiasm and good intentions of any individual teacher can count for nothing, rendering a powerful project as a one off event that fails to be built upon.   (Luckily at Oldbury Court the headteacher was fully on board.)  With headteacher’s power, soon follows capital, the other necessary ingredient needed for any network to work, or media literacy to be more than an idealistic academic theory and turn into an educational reality.  For all the best will in the world, the reality is that community media education organisations need funding to turn ideas into interventions.   Headteachers are the people to sell the idea to, and it was great to see the headteacher at Fairfield believing in the idea so much, that Anna the teacher is able to spend one day every week off-timetable to be based at the Watershed working alongside its staff.  For other teachers in other schools, this is like some kind of mythical holy grail. 

The powerful role of public funded organisations such as the Watershed is that they can act as an influential conduit to help build relationships between school management and media production & media education professionals, (and judging by the amount of times I’ve mentioned the Watershed’s events over the years in this article it is clear they have been trying to do this).  That was partly the aim of last night’s event, to get that conversation started, and those conversations definitely happened (although it was mostly educationalists and mainstream media professionals present, and unfortunately not actually others from community media education.  I’m sure they would have been invited though!). 

It would be good now for all of us advocating media literacy to work together to take those conversations to the National Association of Head Teachers, and other such head teacher networks, to now get these conversations turned into strategic systems and naturalised ways of working in their schools, in partnership with the media education sector. 

I know this is easier said than done, but I have to remain optimistic that in 10 years time we can have a seminar looking at the distance travelled since media literacy became embedded in the school system.

With that ambition, I also remain optimistic that the enthusiastic teachers of today that champion media literacy, are the headteachers of tomorrow, that by then are still championing media literacy, and leading by example.

Declaration of a conflict of interest in Communty Media

Unlike many MPs now the centre of public wrath, I will declare a blatent conflict of interest.  The website I am promoting here was made by me for a project I facilitated.

So in the interests of good old fashioned moral transparency – please go and visit it, it’s absolutely amazing! 

Thank you.

http://museummedia.wordpress.com/

The multiple faces of Media Literacy

I attended the informative “Your Media, Your Tools” dissemination event at Leicester’s De Montfort University run by the Community Media Association (CMA) last Friday. It included a presentation by Ofcom talking about their media literacy agenda, as well as radio and video groups from across the UK showcasing the results of their involvement in CMA’s media literacy project.

It has always struck me just how slippery the term ‘media literacy’ is, with a different emphasis depending on the agenda of the person talking about it. I used to get frustrated by what I saw as a watering down of the notion, wanting the literacy aspect to acknowledged as the critical pedagogy that resides in community media activity, and that was me wearing my personal agenda on my sleeve. I now feel however it would be more useful to slow my judgement and analyse each different face of media literacy in its own right, as each interpretation of the term contains pragmatic, theoretical and/or ideological meaning for each different type of user, so that is worth looking at without undue dismissal.

In future articles I will be exploring the idea of media literacy in the nine predominant guises that I have seen it discussed within the community media sector, media education events, published research and academia. As with all identities of phenomena there is some overlap different contexts, though they will be analysed from the perspective of emphasis, and therefore argue that the identities described here are valid. Notions described in the future will be:

-  Media Literacy as media savvy
-  Media Literacy as semiotics
-  Media Literacy as creative activism
-  Media Literacy as cross-curricula engagement
-  Media Literacy as IT support
-  Media Literacy as media sector training
-  Media Literacy as process
-  Media Literacy as informed media consumption and media use

Interestingly, given this fractious identity, the actual definition of media literacy itself is, with slight variations, mostly settled in a broad consensus without too much debate. It is the interpretation of the accepted definition which is the cause of the majority of debate. Even though there is not one single definition, in loose terms it is widely acknowledged as being about;

- the right to have access to media platforms & tools;
- the need for people to be empowered to understand the media and its ever changing nuances;
- the ability to create media communications if so desired.

Some example of this are;

Ofcom’s definition is; “the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts.” They acknowlegde they are mostly concerned with media literacy as applied to digital technology and that people should be able to use the equipment to get the most out of it. (Media Literacy as Media Savvy / Media Literacy as IT support).

According to The Media Literacy Task Force:
“If people are to participate fully at work or in their community, or communicate effectively with family, friends and colleagues globally, or consume media intelligently they need to be media savvy. They need to understand how media works and to feel comfortable questioning what they watch and read. They need a sense of who knows or owns what, and to what extent what you see is really what you get. And, very importantly, they need to become confident in using and exploiting the possibilities of new devices and media channels.”
(Media Literacy as Media Savvy / Media Literacy as informed media consumption and media use / Media Literacy as semiotics / Media Literacy as IT support)

The Center for Media Literacy‘s view is: the ability to communicate competently in all media forms as well as to access, understand, analyze, evaluate and participate with powerful images, words and sounds that make up our contemporary mass media culture. Indeed, we believe these skills of media literacy are essential for both children and adults as individuals and as citizens of a democratic society.
(Media Literacy as Media Savvy / Media Literacy as creative activism / Media Literacy as process)

At some point in the not-to-distant future I will expand on these ideas in a case by case basis in future blog articles, and also write this up as a full academic referenced paper.

Until then, thanks for popping by. Comments always welcome.

Shawn

MAKING IT WORK

UPDATE: Community Media South West have published a new report:

MAKING IT WORK:
An Enquiry into how companies in the Community Media Sector recruit and
retain skilled freelancersPublished by – CMSW / Blueboard – Jan 2007

Research by Ella Bissett Johnson

Edited by Shawn Sobers, and Steve Gear

Synopsis

This report is a timely and original development in the analysis of social interest creative practice. It takes the debate much further than merely exploring the merits of such projects, and directly provides an analysis of the economic and skills base for this area of work – the area of community media activity within the creative industries.

According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the creative industries are now one of the fastest growing sectors in the British economy, and socially aware creative practice is now gaining a stronger profile and being taken seriously by a wide range of cultural agencies. We feel this report provides an important step in recognising not only the economic realities of these community minded organisations via case studies of the companies themselves and the freelancers they employ, but also charts the average skills contained in this community media/arts field of work, and highlights its future sustainability.

This report has been designed to be not only illuminating, but also be useful. It will be of interest to stakeholders of community based media & arts activity, including project facilitators, managers, funders and policy makers, and also for areas such as careers advice and academic fields such as media studies and social policy. Hopefully this report will provide a platform from which to make informed decisions with confidence, from which the sub-sector of community based media education activity can strategically grow and flourish.

To order from Amazon click here.To download full report as a pdf file click here.

Research funded by ABI Associates, University of the West of England and South West Screen

Supported by Calling the Shots and Firstborn Creatives

Selling out from Community Media……

…….or bridging the gap?

Click here to watch a programme we (Firstborn Creatives) recently made for BBC1.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/bristol/realmedia/032007/marvin_insideout?size=16×9&bgc=C0C0C0&nbram=1&bbram=1

Films made for Mobile phones

As part of the Fresh 6 Film Festival, Calling the Shots, Firstborn Creatives and MicroFilm teamed up to run a day long workshop on making films for mobile phones. (As I said in an earlier post, I had man-flu so couldn’t be there to help out!!!)

Below are two of the six films that were produced. The makers were a mini bus of young people from Cornwall, a groups from Connexions (Bristol), and a few young people who came along having seen the publicity. (They are all creadited on the films). You can view all the films by clicking here.

Films for mobile phones itself as a genre and the part it can play/is playing in community media is something I’ll surely come back to at some stage. For now, i’ll just celebrate their achivements. Enjoy!

Title: CyclePath Granny

Title: The Very Lonely Pen

Production Alliances

Was part of a good event today organised by South West Screen called Innovation Alliances, which showcased various companies work that they funded from the Alliances funding strand. Firstborn had a stall with Calling the Shots and Knowle West Media Centre to showcase our “Independent State of….” project, which we are working on together.

All the other companies there were more mainstream corporate and”commercial” companies. I was pleased to see us three Community Media companies as equals amongst the crowd. Just the way it should be!

Please click here to download the Alliances brochure (pdf).

I was pleased to be at the event, (although strictly speaking I shouldn’t have been working at all as today was the 76th anniversary of the Coronation of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I. A Rastafari celebration day. The celebration event is on the 4th so I’ll take time off from work then!)

JAH Bless and goodnight.