Review of Shooting Youth photography exhibition at Knowle West Media Centre

In Roland Barthes’ influential book about photography, Camera Lucida, the French theorist writes, “Ultimately, photography is subversive, not when it frightens, repels, or even stigmatizes, but when it is pensive, when it thinks.“
The new photography exhibition at Knowle West Media Centre, Shooting ‘Youth’, is subversive therefore for a number of reasons.  It is an intelligent photography exhibition which encourages you to appreciate the images and think at the same time.  It contains central threads of ideas which have influenced how the photographs have been taken, style following content. The work on display is thoughtful, sensitive, well crafted, subtle, and to borrow from Barthes, pensive.  The exhibition is subversive also for the fact that all of the images have been taken by young people, in an era when to be merely young is often to be labelled subversive; blamed for riots, anti-social behaviour, illiterate text speak and being intimidating, when all they may have done is stand on a corner wearing a hooded top.

It is this idea, of challenging superficial assumptions of others, that informs
the work of Kiri Tierney, who has two displays in the exhibition.  “Breaking the Stereotype” is a series of twelve symmetrically arranged images of a young man, seen in the first image dressed smart casual, then seen in the subsequent images with his body exposing a multiple array of tattoos.  Rather than being purely decorative, his tattoos are all codes of his personal philosophies and beliefs.  The work challenges the audience to consider, what do you see, and what do you imagine you see?  Tierney’s second display, ‘Facial Awareness’, is a montage of a face consisting of parts from different people, speaking to the paradoxical notion that humans are all the same and at the same time all different – which ultimately makes us all the same in our difference.

Kiri Tierney – Breaking the Stereotype

Sabrina Chowdhury’s exhibit, ‘The Truth About Youth’, challenges the sitters of her portraits directly with the task of summing up young people in a single word,
writing their answers on a held up piece of paper in a style reminiscent of the
artist Gillian Wearing.  The fascinating element of the results Chowdhury elicited is how all the young she photographed contained words which were predominantly honest and self-aware, (carefree, fun, lost, naughty and rude), whilst the older people she asked wrote words of encouragement and idealism, (potential, inspiring, future and (again) potential).  This is not to say that the
words provided by the adults are not also true (the word ‘potential’ hides a
multitude of contrasting meanings), but the straight forward honesty of the
young people’s quotes strike as refreshing – saying to the world, no we are not
perfect, but neither are you, and neither is the world.

Sabrina Chowdhury – The Truth About Youth

The theme of teenage parenting is the subject of two bodies of work in the
exhibition, that of Lucy Fulford and Callen Hale (the accompanying text tells
the viewer that Hale himself is a teenage father, which interestingly is a
demographic we don’t hear much about).  Both photographers take different approaches to representing the girls (only girls are included, none of the dads).  Fulford presents a sensitive and upbeat set of environmental portraits, representing the girls as friendships groups, as mothers with their children, and importantly, also as individuals, which is an aspect of their identity often forgotten.  The series presents a positive and fun representation, in very natural and casual poses in real life locations, working as a counterbalance to the more problematized representations often seen in mainstream press.  Hale’s work is
equally as optimistic and upbeat, presenting a set of accomplished portraits of
the young mothers with their children in a studio setting, in the style of high
street commercial photography, which he has achieved in a convincing way.

Lucy Fulford – Teenage Parents Project

Callen Hale – Teenage Parents Project

The work of Rachael Heapey turn the lens onto a senior citizens dance group rather than young people, and has captured a beautiful and sensitive set of portraits and documentary images. Simply presented, with large formal portraits of the dance partners together, and smaller documentary photographs of dancing in action underneath, the series is heart-warming, fun and energetic, showing there is plenty of life and high spirits left in the elders of our communities.  Heapey’s work compliments the teenage mums images well, spanning ages and experiences, both showing life is to be lived to the full in the face of any challenges that may arise.

Rachael Heapey – Young at Heart

Not all of the work in the exhibition looks at the subject of age in a direct
way.  Matt Green, Tom Hawkins and Mateo Ocasta each exhibit more abstract and impressionist work, pointing their cameras out into the fabric of the world, rather than concentrating so much on other people.  Green presents a highly accomplished series of photographs titled ‘Different Light’, offering fleeting glimpses into life, fragmentary views of time passing – traffic, texture of tree trunks, abstract light trails, and cloud formations, amongst other things.  The photographs are all confidently produced and evidence that Green has good technical control of his chosen medium, to make the ordinary extraordinary to the eye.

Matt Green – Different Light

Tom Hawkins is also a photographer fascinated with the visual interest in his everyday surroundings, concentrating for his series on broken windows and the glass protection of a local community centre.  The beauty of dereliction has long been a fascination for photographers and Hawkins’ work falls within that tradition.  Close-ups of fractured glass, peering through the rippled patterns of re-enforced glass onto the outside world, and abstract views of twigs and branches intermeshed with security fencing, offers a subtle comment on the often unseen dynamics within community spaces neighbourhood living, and the reality that any system, whether it be a physical building or human relationships, requires constant maintenance.

Tom Hawkins – Untitled

Maseo Ocasta presents a pair of urban landscape documentary
photographs, showing people going about their everyday lives in the shadow of
their concrete surroundings – one of the back of a group of people walking past
a wall of graffiti, and the other of a Muslim woman on her phone stood in front
of a derelict shop next to a massage parlour.  The diptych is titled ‘Not my Property’, offering perhaps the suggestion that, in city life especially, people just get on and make do living their daily lives, even if they have no control or influence over their environment.  Ocasta’s work is deceptive in appearing at first glance to be straightforward slices of life, though offering more hints and details of narrative on closer inspection.  The work would benefit from being printed much larger to draw some of the nuances out of the images for audiences to fully appreciate.

Maseo Ocasta – Not my Property

Lewis Saunders explores the idea of narrative in a more direct way, presenting the most mixed media body of work in the exhibition with the creation of a comic
strip, employing dramatised photography techniques along with creative writing,
graphic design and post-production image manipulation.  Titled ‘Beware of the Giantess Kate’, the storyline follows the fortunes of the title character who, when accidently drinks a magic potion, turns into a 200ft woman.  Going on a rampage through the now tiny city of Bristol, Kate uses her new found power to wreck havoc and destruction, before eventually returning back to normal size, with very little remorse of her actions. The comic strip is a good fun dramatic romp, in the surreal tradition of the b-movie Hollywood classics from the 1950s, (the subtitle of comic strip is ‘The Attack of the 200ft Woman from Earth’).  In that same tradition, Saunders’ work has a healthy refusal of trying to communicate a moral or serious message, which is as refreshing to see in a young people’s exhibition as more serious subjects.  Both light and shade are needed in successful exhibitions to provide surprises and a sense of journey, and this inject of humour creates an effective balance celebrating unashamed imaginative creativity and youthful playfulness, which still needs to be celebrated.

Lewis Saunders – Beware of the Giantess Kate (The Attack of the 200ft Woman from Earth)

The final body of work in the exhibition is from Liam Charlton, who presents a
thoughtful series of portraits titled ‘Hopes and Dreams’.  The work shows people of all generations – from a teenager through to an elder gentleman – all holding props which hint at their aspirations for their futures.  The work speaks to the idea that ambitions never die and people should not write off their lives or give up their aspirations, that there is always more to strive for in life.  Charlton offers only the photographs to the audience and no text detailing what exactly the aspiration was for each sitter and what the props mean, which was an excellent curatorial decision.  Not knowing exactly what props are alluding to, (though admittedly some are more obvious that others), allows the audience to make up their own minds, encouraging us to look closer at the people in the images and making connections with the props as visual hints, rather than having to rely on accompanying text interpretation to do all of the work for us.  Making the audience look closer at the images, at the people represented in them, encourages us to work it out for ourselves, which is just as it should be, rather than having information spoon fed to us with no effort.  This is what Barthes
had in mind when speaking of photography’s quiet subversive nature, encouraging the audience to leave the room thinking a little more about certain aspects of life than before they entered, the photography working its magic on us in a subconscious fashion.

Liam Charlton – Hopes and Dreams

This marriage of photography and young people is interesting, happening at a time (in digitally active societies) when photographic technologies are ubiquitous in daily life, unquantifiably more ubiquitous than photography in advertising and print media that we have been used to for generations.  Easily captured on mobile phones and games consoles, and as equally easy to exhibit and distribute using social network platforms, photography exists in every corner of our existence, as common as the material texture of our surroundings; we no longer even notice them. (How often do you actually look at adverts on the internet?)  Young people are at the cutting edge of technological photographic revolutions without even realising it.  This exhibition is a timely reminder that good photography, no matter how technologically advanced, resonates deeper with an audience when the thing that the camera has been pointed at has been thought
about and considered, even if thought about after the split second act of actually taking the photograph, which may have been purely by instinct.  This exhibition contains good work of that nature, and is part of Barthes’ quiet encouragement of subversive photography, that which is and makes one pensive, rather than merely mirroring life, also asking questions of life, in a quiet subtle way.

The exhibition is open until Christmas 2011.  Click here for further details or visit www.kwmc.org.uk

Review by Dr Shawn Sobers, Senior Lecturer – Photography and Media, University of the West of England
31 October 2011

Photos of exhibition taken by my 10 year old daughter Mahalia! 

 

DON’T RIOT, READ A BOOK INSTEAD! #ukriots

My first suggestion for Looters reading is ‘No Logo’ by Naomi Klein.  You’ll then realise you’re only puppets (consumer slaves) of the designer goods you are stealing and wearing.  Wikipedia says, “The book discusses how brand names such as Nike expanded beyond the mere products which bore their names, and how these names and logos began to appear everywhere. As this happened, the brands’ obsession with the youth market drove them to further associate themselves with whatever the youth considered ‘cool’.”

Wise up!!!

Bristol police miss opportunity to work with community filmmakers to build dialogue after riots

See below the latest street news video by the South Blessed Community Channel, as a follow-up to their anti-Tesco film, (see previous post).  Last night the local police used vans and deployed a helicopter to stop the screening of a film in a park about last week’s riots.  When the screening moved to a local house, at first the police then attempted to stop that happening too.  Surely the police need to realise that such heavy-handed strategies will only make relationships worse, and tensions rise.   The reason they gave for stopping the screening was that they feared it would stoke the flames and cause more violence.

It’s true that the screening did not have a public licence, but lots of such events have not had one in the past and they have never seen this over the top reaction to close them down.  By carrying out these actions the police could be accused by many of censorship, being paranoid, oppression of civil liberties, trying to stifle public opinion, and patronising local people with the assumption they will riot again based on a film screening. 

(If video does not embed properly – see video direct here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN4djlBGu6k)

 
See coverage of this story by the local BBC news office here.

There is no doubt film is a powerful medium that can influence audiences, but rather than seeing it as a tool that could incite violence, the police need to work with the local filmmakers and see it as a tool to engage in dialogue with communities.  I wrote about this subject over a year ago – see ‘Community Media as Third Cinema (January 2010)’.   There is a real opportunity here for the police and Bristol Council to stop acting in such a stifling top down fashion, and to organize an event with local people to have a proper debate about what happened last Thursday, and to find solutions for the future.  Last night could have been one such opportunity, but it was squandered by a misguided demonstration of visible state power. 

I’m pleased the policemen interviewed by South Blessed at least tried to engage in a conversation, even though they eventually bottled up and walked away.  It was good to see as often the police refuse to speak to cameras at all.  In this high-speed digital age, the police need to see community & social media such as this as a good place to start building local dialogue, not fight against it.  Citizen journalism will not be going away, rather it will be on the increase.  A public screening in a park should be viewed as a positive step to work with, not something to fear or stifle.

Missing persons reportage in the traditional press and social media outlets

The following is a reply I sent to Rachel MacPherson, a journalism student from University of the West of Scotland.  She was writing her dissertation on the media’s representation of victims of crime, in particular missing person cases, and read my post about Serena Beakhurst and wanted my opinion.  I provided answers to her questions, as shown below.  The topic is an interesting one, as for me it highlights differences in emphasis and approach between traditional journalism outputs and online social media platforms. 

Unlike a lot of community media/alternative media researchers and activists, I still believe there is a place for traditional media platforms such as the already established newspapers and tv news.   The Serena Beakhurst story however highlighted the limitations of traditional media in what it covers and considers to be of interest to their audiences, and online social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs allows for an additional layer of ‘news’ that would not reach the mainstream, and now also informs the editorial decisions of the mainstream press  if/when those stories eventually reach their headlines.  Although I don’t personally believe in media hierarchies in relation to quality and validity, the Serena Beakhurst case still shows that such hierarchies still exist in relation to power, value and representation.  No one was complaining that certain blogs hadn’t covered the story, the complaints were levelled at the mainstream press and their evident lack of interest.  It can only be a matter of time before the social/alternative media outputs get confident enough to ignore what the mainstream are or are not covering, and see themselves as the media itself, with inherent quality, validity, power, value and considered representation.  Hence the strap-line of this blog – Don’t hate the Media/Become the Media.

Anyway, enough of my preamble, here are my responses to Rachel.

What do you feel are the responsibilities of the press, if any, to report on missing person cases in the UK?

The word ‘responsibilities’ is an interesting one.  It brings to mind the title of James Curran and Jean Seaton’s book ‘Power without Responsibility’.  In the introduction, justifying the title, they say “that something which daily intrudes in our lives in ever more sophisticated ways needs to be, itself, the subject of continual public surveillance.  That the media interferes with us; therefore we have a right and duty to interfere with the media.”  (Curran, J. and Seaton, J. (2003), Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain, Routledge, London, UK, page 4)

That is what I see going on at the moment with regards missing persons.  To answer your question directly, no I don’t think the national press have an automatic responsibility to report on missing person’s cases.  The cold fact is they are private commercial companies in the business of selling news to audiences – and selling audiences to advertisers.  Though I would say local news have more of a responsibility to report missing person stories, as they are directly serving close geographic communities, but the national press have no such obligation to their audiences.  The nationals are interested in what missing person stories can resonate further than the immediate geographic area? (How that is judged is highly debatable/controversial).  They have a responsibility to practice ethical methodologies, and to report fact not fiction, but regardless of what we the public think, the press do not have a responsibility to have to cover a certain type of story.  The agitation and accusation that is happening now however (though the agitation and accusation is far from new), is that the press should be reporting certain stories, especially now when certain stories become big in the blogosphere/twitter, but nowhere to be seen in the mainstream press.

Missing persons is a good case study for this.  When a person goes missing it is a deeply personal and emotional event.  We call friends, friends of friends, family, tenuous links, anybody who might have seen or know something, and of course the police when we know it’s serious.  Now in the internet age we get onto Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, etc.  In these cases social networking will invariably carry this news before any mainstream press may pick up the ‘story’, as the ‘event’ and momentum has happened from the ground up.   So in the case of Serena Beakhurst, it became a huge story online, but wasn’t at all picked up by the mainstreams.  So the online communities (myself included) eager to spread the word to get Serena found started to provide a “public surveillance” on the mainstream press and tried to “interfere” with the editorial decisions.   In the heat of an emotional frustration, accusations started to fly.  So a key question is what did the online agitators, strangers to Serena, (myself included), see in the Serena story, that wasn’t seen or appreciated by the mainstream editors?

What factors of a missing person case make it newsworthy? 

The simple answer is; a good story.  Some hypothetical questions journalists will be asking are; is it out of character?, is it suspicious?, are there any clues?, can the audience relate and sympathize, even if it ends tragically or happily?, what could be the motives of disappearance?, what visual material have we got access to show?, is it unique?, and other questions to judge whether it will be a worthwhile story. 

I’m not in a position to know, but I can only assume that Serena’s story did not answer enough of these questions favorably enough to satisfy the journalists.  This is where the journalists will also be listening to the signals coming from the police and friends they get access to.  Possibly Serena had run away before.  Possibly she had threatened running away in the days leading up to her disappearance, so it wasn’t a surprise.  The headline of Serena, a 14 year old girl goes missing over Christmas – made a startling ‘story’ to us strangers, and we hit the blogs, etc, and it exposed a chasm between the “news values” of the mainstream press and the citizen journalists.  Most citizen journalists (myself included) aren’t journalists at all, they are polemicists.  If I lived in London I MIGHT have gone to interview her mum and friends, but the fact is I didn’t and instead recycled news with my own opinion. 

It’s a harsh judge for an editor to declare what is or is not worthy of being “news”, especially when a missing 14 year old girl get subsequently classed as “not news worthy”, and that is what fuelled the anger and frustration from us online agitators.  I tried to use my blog post first and foremost to help find Serena, with some side digs and the press in the process.  Some other bloggers went on a full-out assault on the press about race bias, etc, with hardly any information about Serena herself, which I did not feel was the appropriate emphasis to be having whilst she was still missing. 

So the Serena case exposed some of the differences in what are considered news values between mainstream press and social media.  It would be the logical prediction that these cases will affect mainstream press more, as they are in a dire need to retain audiences – so they will invariably find new ways of doing what they do, and if that means reporting more missing persons stories (even if only online), then so be it.  It was interesting to note that when the mainstream press did pick up the Serena story, the main emphasis was on how the story grew via Twitter, Facebook, etc, not the fact that she was still missing.

The contrast with Milly Dowler’s disappearance in 2002 I guess is down to the answers to those hypothetical questions and the signals coming from police and friends.  I think it’s also down to the forcefulness of the parents and organizing press conferences, etc.  Serena’s mum in her writing after her daughter was found seemed happy with the police approach and not overly forceful or frustrated, but in the Dowler case the sense of urgency was from the very beginning.  Of course Serena’s mum was still highly worried, but probably the journalists and police respond to different types of urgency reactions in different ways.  The same goes with missing girls that go out with guys they have met on the internet.  The reason they are story classed as stories is due to the still novel nature of the circumstance – the internet as a new cause of crime.  Those stories contain timely modern morality tales of caution for the readers, and allows a bit of awareness raising without looking too preachy.  Many other girls who run away will also be with guys, but if it’s a local lad and not a stranger from the internet then it’s deemed as having less news value, and remains absent from the press.

Do you believe the news media is capable of influencing the public opinion on certain criminal matters?

Most definitely.  Even though public opinion should not matter in a court of law, it invariably will have some influence.  If a jury have down their job well they will return a verdict they ‘know’ is right, even if that flies in the face of public opinion.  Of course this is an idealistic position, as I know there have been tragedies of miscarriages of justice in court that have been influenced the media, public opinion, politics, racism, sexism, etc.  It’s interesting with the Joanna Yeates case how Chris Jefferies the first suspect was absolutely hounded by the press with all his private life exposed, but since this new guy has been charged, it’s all gone very quiet.  I may be naive, but it almost feels like they realized they went too far.  If Jefferies was guilty, it could have been near impossible for him to have had a fair trial.  “Power without Responsibility.”

Does the media select only certain missing persons cases for publication and, if so, why?

Good vs weaker stories, (in the minds of news editors).

Do you believe that by only selecting certain missing person cases to represent, the news media are simply giving the public what they want?

Not really.  I think audiences of news media take what they are given.  It is only the well referenced and media literate amongst the audiences that agitate and say what they are not being told.  Otherwise, people don’t really know what they are not being told.  The majority of audiences don’t question the news.  They may occasionally ask, “Why is that on the news?” (e.g. Take That releasing a new single).  But it is a small minority that will ask, “why was that not on the news?”  That’s the interesting tension now between the mainstream press and social media, bloggers etc. – the online documenters are picking up things the mainstream press don’t know about yet.  If they do get ‘picked up’, that’s fine, if they don’t, there can be claims of a conspiracy of silence.  It’s not really that simple.

Why do you believe there was such widespread media interest in the Joanna Yeates case but a lack of interest in the Serena Beakhurst case?

Professor David Wilson, author of ‘Looking for Laura: Public Criminology and Hot News’, (which you’ll find interesting), was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine Show yesterday on BBC Radio 2 (Mon 18^th April) about these issues.  He said at the same time as the Stephen Lawrence murder a white boy was murdered by an Asian boy, but that didn’t hit any of the headlines or cause any of the ramifications of the public eye.  This to me shows how there’s not a news media rulebook that is cast in stone. 

I said at the time Serena was found that I believed had she been a white girl the mainstream press would have picked it up.  Of course I can’t prove that.  With time passing and reading what her mum had to say, I still believe race played a part, but I think the behind the scenes factors (those hypothetical questions) are also significant.  I now believe it would never have been a front page big news story, but still believe that it would have at least got a mention in more press had she been a white 14 year old from a conventional family, but saying that I have also to recognise that the answers to those hypothetical questions would change, so it would be unfair to compare them as like for like.  And this is the problem with the notion of ‘news values’ – as when all said and done a 14 year old girl was missing – regardless of socioeconomic background, class, race, etc.  But those backgrounds builds the story, and that’s where/when mere facts are not enough for the judgment of news values.  Yes a 14 year old girl is missing, but what type of 14 year old girl?

Joanna Yeates was older, steady job, steady relationship, keys left in flat, missing pizza, it had mystery all over it from the start.  News stories, like drama, needs tension to hook the audience.  It was weighed up with Serena and the 14 year old lost out.  At Christmas there will only be so many missing persons stories the press are going to want to deal with, so the editors took the gamble, and in a depressing gruesome macabre way it paid off.  It obviously sounds cold to discuss such tragic events in this detached commercial way, but that is the commodity that is being dealt with in this business of news journalism.  The mainstream press being silent on the Serena story was not racist, but it did expose a bias – which was a bias of what makes a good story.  I’m sure Serena would have provided a good story, but one seemingly not good enough for the news demographic for audience/readers to care.  The online agitators rightly questioned that logic of judgement. Thankfully it also had a happy ending.  It is depressing to think that only a tragic ending to the Serena story would have vindicated that questioning of the news values status quo.  That is one battle I am so glad to have lost.        

Dr Shawn Sobers – University of the West of England
20^th April 2011

YouTube – UNDER the spotlight, IS the spotlight, and source of energy FUELING the spotlight

Earlier this week MIT Press published a ‘video book’ called ‘Learning from YouTube’ by Media Studies Professor Alexandra Juhasz.  The book is not of the physical kind, nor is it a downloadable file for your Kindle or iPad.  It is a website-book which has been peer reviewed and given an ISBN number, which exists in, amongst and around YouTube, with the site being the subject matter, field of research and platform for dissemination.

An additional architecture framework has been created linked into the YouTube site which includes a multi-search facilitate to navigate the various chapters  which creates the (non-linear) video book concept, with the content being quite short written pieces with dynamic links to video content produced by Juhasz, her students and (laterally) related pieces found on YouTube.  Juhasz herself does not use the term ‘chapters’, instead has coined the phrase ‘textios’, which are the 15 webpages which include text and videos, alongside other forms of non-linear navigation such as tags and tours.

 To see the ‘Learning from YouTube’ video book for yourself, and to describe it for yourself – click here.

As Dr Juhasz herself says, there is not one linear argument this video book is making, but rather multiple arguments that were explored during her ‘Learning from YouTube’ classes at Pitzer College Los Angeles, since 2003.  There are many points of innovation that could be discussed in relation to this video book, including;

-       the experiment’s research findings on YouTube , (and the challenges of even getting qualitative research findings out of something so random and fast as YouTube.);

-       the concept of a ‘video book’, and how this could inform the future directions of media literacy.  Also interesting that such a video book is based on trust of other YouTube users that they will not take down their videos, leaving a video book with empty pages.  It would be unethical to copy their videos to a video book archive without the owners’ permissions as security, so those questions of participation and ownership etc are really interesting in relation to this work;

-       this video book being published and disseminated free by MIT Press, and the future of academic publishing.  This video book was peer-reviewed, copy-edited, has an ISBN number, and went through all the processes of traditional academic publishing.  It is completely free to access and as far away from the inaccessibility of the academic journal system as you can get, which costs money to access, slow to publish, and not updatable.  Also how the concept of a peer-reviewed free ‘video book’ could inform other academic websites and blogs, and how publishing houses and universities could respond to this changing dynamic in academic texts.

-       Dr Juhasz’s concept of ‘Third YouTube’, and its relationship to Third Cinema.

‘Learning with YouTube’ also highlights something to learn from with regards the underlying pedagogy of the production of this video book, as an example of dynamic curriculum delivery for Higher Education.  As an educator I am always interested in ways teachers teach, and am always trying to find new ways for students to experience the curriculum.  As someone who works with young people both in formal education institutions such as universities and schools, and also in less formal spaces such as community centers, galleries and museums, I’m interested in how to reconcile the different styles of pedagogy between those spaces, from traditional top down ‘banking’ style teaching, through to less hierarchical forms of group facilitation.  In the ‘Orientation to the Class’ tour Juhasz explains how her course was run.

“Our classes were recorded and put on YouTube, and all of the students’ research and course work was confined to the form of either videos or comments on YouTube. We learned together in and about Internet culture, DIYmedia, and social video networking by reframing YouTube for higher education, critical reflection, and reflexive processes. Just so, I made videos too. But because of the limits of YouTube (and video), I also chose to blog in real time about these experiences. And then … the course went viral: a telling if tiring opportunity for even more self-reflection and YouTube critical reflexivity!”

Even though criticized by some quarters when Juhasz’s classes were first announced in 2007,  finding innovative ways to teach/deliver/facilitate classes (call it what you will), and to keep them relevant for students has to be one of the key areas that universities have to keep their eye on and develop.  Especially in the UK with the current tensions concerning the raising of tuition fees, students will increasingly want curriculums that reflect the world they live in today.  Rather than wallowing in media communication theories from the 1970s, with ‘Learning from YouTube’ Alexandra Juhasz has put her money (time and effort) where her mouth is and sought to create a class which drags media communication theories into the here and now.

By being a harsh critic of YouTube as well as an enthusiastic user, and producing a media research work inside the very medium of its study, Juhasz’s ‘Learning with YouTube’ highlights the simple fact that, love them or hate them, these new technologies are now a part of our (online) lives that we can seldom avoid.  My friends who swear blind they would never join Facebook still have the occasional glimpse via their partner’s profiles, and get invited to parties etc arranged through their partners profiles, but because they don’t have a profile themselves they can still claim they have clean hands. 

The majority of YouTube users will not have YouTube profiles as there is no real need.  As Juhasz says in one of the tours, YouTube hardly encourages participation in the same way as social network sites, and is more about “solo play”.  So even as a critic Juhasz also understands the potential for YouTube to innovate, as without it this very innovation would not have been possible.  Like with all technologies, if we view it as a tool we can use it for our own ends accordingly for educational, liberation and other processes for the social good.  But we are still only human with temptations, and we want our cake and eat it too.

Even though we may disdain at the huge amount of crap on YouTube and what that says about people living in developed societies with time on their hands, we can’t deny we are also a part of that developed society with time to think about such questions, and the Achilles heel of our human selves may be disgusted, but at the same time fascinated, like anthropologists who at the same time are disgusted and envious of what they witness.  This is why my current favorite video I found on the ‘Learning with YouTube’ so far speaks to that truth, made by one of Dr Juhasz’s students who goes by the YouTube moniker of ‘PerchysBigAdventure’.  YouTube adopts a personality and taunts the politicized student. 

“Go ahead, watch. What, you have better things to do with your time? Write a book?”

And of course he clicks to watch more.  We all click eventually.  Our curiosity gets the better of us.  Go ahead…..click!

There is a lot of content in ‘Learning with YouTube’, which shouldn’t be a surprise, after all it is a book!  I wish this experiment all the best and I shall watch with interest, and will hopefully also act accordingly, and not just wait for the academy to change around me.

Burning Responsibility: Young Lives and Media Projects

Just over a month ago I attended the funeral of a 24 year old young man who tragically took his own life. His death and its circumstances shook the whole community, especially his peers.  12 years ago I was teaching him how to edit – me working as a facilitator on a community media project, working with colleagues I still work with today.  About 5 years after that he worked as a music producer on another community media project we were running.  We managed to bring him in to be involved after realizing he was ‘not around much’ lately. His sister had become heavily involved in the media project, and we kept asking how he was.  A couple of years after that, after spending some time ‘away’, he started to get involved with a weekly media club we ran, again it was great to see him sharing his talents – he was a natural editor and music producer, but he never boasted.  He was a very humble guy.

Why am I writing about this?  One of the reasons is to remember, to acknowledge, and the continual need to realize.  At his funeral two video youth workers gave speeches about his life.  Everyone who knew him knew of his skills, but as a laid back guy no one realized the urgency of that need for him in his life, or how vulnerable he was.

I am also writing this as I know I was also once a bit like that 24 year old, but my epiphany came earlier and in a less chaotic manner.  At the age of 19 I had a moment of depression and realized I needed to do something more constructive with my life.  On Christmas Eve I decided to apply to college and study media production.  I haven’t looked back since, I dare not, as I fear turning into salt like Lot’s wife.

Media and creativity was my lifeline, and true to the ‘wounded healer’ archetype I have gone on to work with other young people who seek creative ambitions possibly for similar reasons.  I am of course oversimplifying the past 20 years, but this distilled interpretation is still valid. 

I don’t want to go to any more funerals like this, though I also know I cannot save anyone, and that would be an arrogant claim and thought.  I can continue to work with others to try and provide opportunities for young people and spaces for their skills to be nurtured and witnessed, and from a pastoral perspective their emotional needs to be supported also.  Ultimately however I also know my own limitations, and realize I am no longer the best person to be working in intense youth community contexts any more, as vulnerable young people need time, attention and continuity from facilitators that I know I can no longer personally provide.  This is not a grumble however, as mentioned before, I know my limitations.  There are better (and younger) community media youth workers than me, but I can continue to help create the projects to put them in place.

So with the year ahead and the challenges for young people with regards; cuts to the community sector for arts funding; raising university tuition fees; harsher penalties for being unemployed; and all the other general stuff of life that makes being a young person today like swimming against the adult tide – to young people all I can say is if you have a talent, then don’t hide it, bring it to the surface.  Work towards getting your talents recognized and pursue your ambitions with all your heart, as that will generally make you happy.

When all said and done, the 24 year old young man took his own life because he was not happy.  So do whatever makes you happy, share your ideas with other people and find good people to work with, and keep on doing it.  It’s the difference between participating, and not participating, in your own life destiny.  If this sounds like a gross oversimplification, maybe that is what is required.

At the funeral his uncle spoke in a heartfelt way about how people should not be whispering and criticising the family and friends of the deceased, as God forbid the same can happen to anyone.  He advised rather to spend time with family and friends, to make sure in this busy hectic world we are not missing vital signs.  He is so right.

A related musical interlude, listen to the lyrics (and read them below) of ‘The Fire’ by The Roots featuring John Legend.  Inspiring stuff!  Keep your heads up, no matter what!

The Fire Lyrics – The Roots feat. John Legend

[John Legend]
Ohhhh, the fire, the fire
Ohhhh, the fire, the fire

[Chorus: John Legend]
There’s something in your heart
and it’s in your eyes
It’s the fire, inside you
Let it burn
You don’t say good luck
You say don’t give up
It’s the fire, inside you
Let it burn

[Black Thought]
Yeah, and if I’m ever at the crossroads
and start feeling mixed signals like Morse code
My soul start to grow colder than the North Pole
I try to focus on the hole of where the torch goes
In the tradition of these legendary sports pros
As far as I can see, I’ve made it to the threshold
Lord knows I’ve waited for this a lifetime
And I’m an icon when I let my light shine
Shine bright as an example of a champion
Taking the advantage, never copping out or cancelling
Burn like a chariot, learn how to carry it
Maverick, always above and beyond average
Fuel to the flame that I train with and travel with
Something in my eyes say I’m so close to having the prize
I realise I’m supposed to reach for the skies
Never let somebody try to tell you otherwise

http://www.elyricsworld.com/the_fire_lyrics_the_roots.html

[Chorus]

[Black Thought]
One love, one game, one desire
One flame, one bonfire, let it burn higher
I never show signs of fatigue or turn tired
cause I’m the definition of tragedy turned triumph
It’s David and Goliath, I made it to the eye of
the storm, feeling torn like they fed me to the lions
Before my time start to wind down like the Mayans
I show ‘em how I got the grind down like a science
It sounds like a riot on hush, it’s so quiet
The only thing I hear is my heart, I’m inspired
by the challenge that I find myself standing eye to eye with
Then move like a wise warrior and not a coward
You can’t escape the history that you was meant to make
That’s why the highest victory is what I’m meant to take
You came to celebrate, I came to sever great
I hate losing, I refuse to make the same mistake

[John Legend]
Ohhhh, the fire, the fire
Ohhhh, the fire, the fire

[Chorus]

[John Legend]
Ohhhh, the fire inside you
The fire inside you
The fire inside you
The fire inside you

Fresh Flix young people’s film festival, Watershed, Bristol

This review was originally written for an AHRC/Radio 3 proposal.  (I’ve added a few extra words to the 300 word limit I was given.)

———-

Last week I attended a showcase of films made by 12 young people from Bristol, all taking part in a UK Film Council scheme which aims to support Black and minority ethnic talent to enter the film & TV industries.  Work screened was made over the past nine months, half way through their scheme. 

The films were a mixture of very strong productions, through to looser works in progress, but they all showed a talent for filmmaking that none of the audience could deny.  One of my favourites was a documentary about First Responders in rural Devon – members of the community trained to respond to emergency calls before the ambulance crews could reach such isolated areas.  It was well made with a fascinating story, everything a good documentary requires.

One of the films I found so shocking I still don’t really know what I think about it.  A short film called ‘Test’, set in a school exam situation containing just two teenagers.  When the teacher momentarily has to leave the room, the boy bullies the girl to see her answers.  The shock value was not only that their acting was so powerful the violence sent a chill down my spine, but I was also taken aback for the representation of the characters – the remorseless evil boy perpetrator was black and the girl victim was white. 

In the discussion following the screening the audience was told the film was based on a true story, and that the original boy was not black, but the actor was chosen simply because he was by far the best at the audition.  In this supposed post-racial Obama era, I’m still not sure whether this film symbolises the future of race representation in filmmaking, or the past.  The future, where race shouldn’t always be an issue, or the past, where race representation is full of stereotypes and can’t be ignored?

An entertaining and thought-provoking event.

Lenny Henry: from being Black representation to researching Black representation

I read with interest that Lenny Henry is to embark on a PhD researching into the representation of Black people in the media (see BBC article here).  25/30 years ago Lenny WAS the representation of Black people on UK television, so a big part of his thesis could aptly employ the methodology of vulnerable anthropology and autoethnography, which sees the researcher transparently including their own story into the research data and interpretive narrative. 

Lenny is the best placed person to take on this task as long as he can disassociate himself from his younger self, and critique his own role in the history as well as others.  The danger is that he will overcompensate, and over criticize his own role and be less critical of others, (as he’s such a nice guy!).  But this assumes he’ll be analyzing individual artists at all, and may instead be critiquing the media machine and market forces for the prevalence of certain types of representation.  This begs the question, where does the representation start and finish – at the commissioning stage, in the writing process, at the point of acting, in the edit suit, or at the point of transmission?  Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding analogy suggests representation is an ongoing process with the viewer employing their agency to create their own meanings in the work.  I agree with that, but drill back further, and ask what is the motivations of the actors themselves who need to pay their mortgages and feed their children.  Where do their motivations lie in the process of representation?

During the 80s Lenny Henry was a comedian that I presume had a team of writers behind him, but he was his own talent vehicle and his skill was portraying characters.  On television he was more of a sketch show comedic character actor than straight up comedian.  (I say ‘on television’, as I watched him do a stand-up routine in person at the Bath Theatre Royal and he was hilarious, and much more raw and edgy than his comedy was on television).  For his television work he was praised and vilified in equal measure for his representations of black people – from the (in my opinion) funny over-sexed Theophilus P. Wildebeest, to his (in my opinion) embarrassing “OOOOOOKKKKAAAAYYYYYY” chanting Rastafarian character that made me want to curl up and die every time I had it shouted to me on the way to school. 

So who were the audiences for that work when Henry formed those characters, as that would then arguably inform the basis of the subsequent representation?  Black people watched his shows, as that is what black people did in those days – we watched anyone who looked vaguely like us as the novelty was so rare.  His show was also funny, so we watched it for that as well.

In many ways his PhD is already in his own back catalogue of sketches, as the majority of his work was a parody of the representation of black people in popular culture.  But that is where the analysis of Henry’s back catalogue gets tricky in relation to representation, as his parodies were of the individuals themselves, and not the media machines that projected them.  Were we laughing at ourselves, or were we being laughed at?  The representation of black people according to who?  Was Henry’s portrayal of these characters ahead of its time, or a product of its time?  Likewise all the black drug dealers who acted on The Bill and other cops shows.  In this supposed post-racial post-modern world we all now live in, is the unapologetic sight of a black drug dealer on television progress, or is it just a sign that nothing has changed?  Mortgages are getting paid, but as I keep telling every black actor I know, “write your own scripts!”  Actors are ciphers of the characters they are given, so whose representations are being presented? Who wrote The Bill, Eastenders, and the other shows notorious for badly written and suspect black characters?  Looking at today’s television, I watch Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and other shows, and as much as I may like them, I can’t help but notice their black characters are problematic.   (Ugly Betty is really bad for this, I’m not sure if any of their black characters over the years has ever been a good person!)

In much of what I written here I’m assuming Henry will be analyzing television from when he was in his mainstream prime up to today, but he may be concentrating more on contemporary representations.  I can’t help but feel it would be more honest if he looked at his own era rather than avoid it, but of course that is up to him.  It’s his PhD and I should keep my nose out, I already have mine!

Back in 1994 I defended Lenny Henry in the (now extinct) Weekly Journal newspaper, after their ‘culture columnist’ criticized a documentary Henry presented about black comedians.  (You can see the full letter here.)  As I said back then, and as I say now, I feel he is the perfect person to write about the representation of black people in the media as he informed so much of it, but he needs to be mindful that he’ll need broad shoulders if he’s going to tackle this subject honestly and transparently, as much of it will read like an analysis of his own career.  In some cases that was argued of pitching black representation as two steps forward and one pace back, (or even one pace forward and two paces back, though I don’t agree with that harsh judgement).

On the flip side, I feel the service Lenny Henry (and others like him) have given to the black community is the ability to laugh at ourselves.  As a Rasta I would say this is a serious time and the situation of education of black young men is no joke, or the high percentages in prison, etc.  But at the same time humor is a part of humanity and the ability to laugh actually breaks down more barriers than it builds up, and is a survival instinct.  One has only to look at the horror of the Danish cartoonist who was threatened with death and other artists who have been murdered for their portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam, to see how a deficit of humor in a community is an unhealthy and self-destructive thing.

I don’t know how Henry’s PhD supervisors will be suggesting he measure notions of representation, but if I was his supervisor I would be saying “autoethnography all the way baby!”

I would say it exactly like that, just to see his reaction, and hopefully make him laugh.  I’ll forgive him the awful Rastafarian character.  What didn’t kill me made me stronger. I wish Lenny all the best with his studies.

 

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.

Brown, Cameron, Clegg, and the art of Participation in political rhetoric

This week in the UK we’ve had our first ever televised political leaders debate in an election campaign.  50 years after the USA first did it with Kennedy vs Nixon, there’s no turning back now……..  

I am interested in participation, access, inclusion and those kinds of things, so below is my transcript of the Brown vs Cameron vs Clegg debate, but only including those moments when they were  reaching out to the general public, referencing people they had met on the campaign trails, name-checking the questioners from the audience, reflexively referencing themselves, and also when they were trying to be inclusive with one another.  I’ve cut out the bits where they actually talk about policy, as you can find those details in every other analysis about this event.   

The way the three of them presented their participatory credentials was quite amusing really, and just goes to show that when there is an election looming, all of a sudden politicians remember that we are out there, the Great General Public.  Now is the time to give their Achilles heal a tweak and make them listen to you.  They will take notes, and you might even find yourself name-checked on the next live debate next Thursday.  I’ll see you there!  (I might even read them a quote from Paulo Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’!).   

The Players…….   

GB = Gordon Brown (Labour)   

DC = David Cameron (Conservative)   

NC = Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats)   

 Let the show commence…..   

   

     

IMMIGRATION (theme introduced by Gerrard)   

   

GB – “I’ve been listening to people….”
GB – “I talked to a chef the other day who was training…..”
GB – “I then talked to some care assistants….”
GB – “I’ve been visiting a lot of employers in this region…”
DC – “I was in Plymouth recently and a 40 year black man made the point that…..”
NC – “I was in a pediatric hospital in Cardiff a few weeks ago….I asked the ward sister…”
DC – “A lot of people would ask though…..”
NC – “I’m like everybody else….”
GB – “I agree with Nick….”   

     

CRIME (theme introduced by Jacqueline)   

DC – “I went to Crosby the other day and I was talked to a woman there who had just been burgled….”
NC – “In my city of Sheffield where I’m an MP……”
GB – “If you are dissatisfied with the way the police are dealing with your case…….we’ll give you the right to ….….”
DC – “I even went to a drug rehab recently in my own constituency and met a young man who told me…..”
NC – “What I’ve seen in my city of Sheffield….”
GB – “When I was young my father  used to run a youth club with my brother for young people………the more people who do voluntary activities the better…..”
NC – “I think that’s what Jacqueline is talking about…..”
NC – “I met a young man in London the other day and his flat had been burgled five times, and one of them, would you believe it Jacqueline……”
GB – “At Reading prison we’ve been working at this young offenders institution..……”
GB – “I’m grateful for David…..”
DC – “I went to a Hull police station the other day…..”
DC – “My mother was magistrate in Newbury, for 30 years she sat on the bench …..”

   
EXPENSES SCANDAL / CREDIBILITY OF POLITICS (theme introduced by Helen)

   

GB – “I was brought up to believe by my parents…..”
GB – “I want to give the right of recall to you the constituents…..If your MP is misbehaving and guilty of corruption you should have the right to recall…….”
GB – “To give people the right to petition parliament so that your issues can be raised in parliament…..”
DC – “Well Helen I’m not surprised you talked about it in your pub…..”
DC – “As Nick says….”
DC – “I know how angry people are in this county…..I know how angry I was…..”
NC – “You deserve the right to sack your MPs when they are corrupt….”
GB – “You see I agree with Nick…….I think Nick also agrees with me about…..”
GB – “Now Nick supports me in..…..”
GB – “The truth is that Nick does support…..”
DC – “Let’s try and find something that we’d all agree on….I think we’d all agree about that……” 

  
EDUCATION (theme introduced by Joel)   

   

GB – (To Joel) “……I hope I can work with you to do so…”
DC – “As someone who’s got two children, one of them who started in a state school…..”
DC – “I want what every parent in this country wants….”
NC – “I think creativity is important, I think that’s the point you’re making Joel…..”
NC – “Friends of mine who are teachers say…..”
DC – “As a parent of children at state schools…….”
DC – “….what family hasn’t had to do that…..”
NC – “Let’s get back to Joel’s question……”
NC – “As you know, as I certainly know, my two sons go to a local excellent state funded school in my area……”
NC – “That one-to-one tuition that I think Joel agrees is necessary…..”   

 
ECONOMIC GROWTH (theme introduced by Robert)
DC – “A 100 of the leading business people in this country, have all said..….”
NC – “Where are you Robert I can hear your voice but I can’t see you…..ah there you are….Robert I think we need to be open with you, straight with you……”
DC – “Let me take on, Robert, this argument directly……”
NC – “……are we going to be open with people, with you…..?”
NC – “….people before politics……”
GB – “Back to the question Robert put……”
DC – “What are 100 of the leading business people in this county saying…….?”
DC – “I think people at home watching this will find it extraordinary……”   

    

RESOURCES FOR THE ARMED FORCES (theme introduced by Nick)

NC – “You’re right Nick…..”
GB – “My pride and admiration for all our armed forces……”
GB – “Every time I’ve got to write to a family where someone had died….”
DC – “Sorry I couldn’t see Nick in the audience, can you put your hand up?……first of all can I thank you for what you do, and I join with Gordon…….I’ve been to Afghanistan in each of the last four years…..”
NC – “I was in a factory in my own city a few weeks ago.…..”
NC – “…..when, as Nick said in his original question……”
DC – “I went each year, and you didn’t have to talk to that many service men and women before they told you……”   

HEALTH (theme introduced by Sindra) DC -“First of all can I thank you for your incredible service to the NHS……what it did for my family and for my son I will never forget……I went from hospital to hospital……”
NC – “…..maternity ward in the NHS hospital where my third son was born just over a year ago is threatened with closure……”
NC – “I was in Burnley the other day…..I think Jacqueline was saying, you come from Burnley, as you know Jacqueline, they’ve closed the A&E department……. ”
DC – “…..for exactly the reason the Sindra gives…..”
GB – “I had a lady write to me who said, I would not be alive today if……”
DC – “I have a man in my constituency called Clive Stone, who had kidney cancer and he came to see me with seven others, tragically two of them have died……”
GB – “Where Nick and I agree is……”

  
CARE FOR THE ELDERLY (theme introduced by Alan) 

DC – “Thank you Alan for asking this question…….”
NC – “I think Alan that this is an issue so big that all parties need to come together to……”
GB – “I agree with Nick….”
DC – “The thing that every carer always says to me more than anything else, is ……..”
NC – “Of course I agree with that……”
NC – “….people before politics…..”
GB – “There are 6 million carers in this country, I’ve met many of them and talked to them about their needs…..”
GB – “…..as Nick said…..”
DC – “….I think it’s right to form a consensus [across the parties]……”
DC – “……we tried to do this with my son……..I found it testing enough……”
GB – “…I think it’s right in the next government to form a consensus……”   

    

CLOSING STATEMENTS   

NC – “Thanks for sticking with us for a full 90 minutes…..I know many of you think that……I hope I’ve tried to show you that……whether it’s questions from Alan on care, Jacqueline on crime, Helen on politics, Joel on schooling, Robert on the deficit……..that will give you and your family a better fairer life.”   

GB – “I was particularly struck by the question from Robert about…….”   

DC – “Let me tell you my values……if you work hard…….if you want to raise a family…….if you’re old or you become ill………”   

.   

.   

AND THE WINNER GOES TO……….(find out on May 6th!   I just hope the winner is the British Public!)   

.   

End of Act One.