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.

The need to stay connected – self-portrait (William Blake’s critique of Newton)

William Blake critiqued Issac Newton in the claim that scientific enquiry for its own sake was a folly that saw the scientist ignore the beauty of the world for the sake of an equation.  Blake saw all the answers he needed in the world around him in nature’s beauty and in his imagination, rather than seek the need to pin down the beauty of the world via mathematical equations.  The worldviews of Blake and Newton could not have been further apart, though in truth they were probably more alike than Blake cared to admit.  They knew the world contained a truth that they could capture and represent; Blake through visuals and text, Newton through calculus.  They were both in pursuit of the representation of the Earth’s patterns of existence, its poetry.

Blake’s grievance however was what he saw as the scientific community’s denial of the answers provided in the world’s innate spirituality.  He used Newton as a symbol of science’s new direction, and in his painting of Newton showed how the scientist had become disconnected from the luxurious world around him.

I make no secret of the fact that I started to research community media after working as a facilitator/practitioner in it for 11 years, and I basically needed to get off the treadmill for a while and analyse what it was I was doing, and not just keeping on doing it all the time with no reflection.  The relentless pursuit of ‘workshop’ ground me down.  I still run occasional workshops and media projects, but as my bones get tired, old and weary, the thought of staying at home writing instead is appealing I have to admit.  I also now have children of my own, so have developed the selfish need to spend the evenings and weekends with my own offspring, rather than primarily with other people’s.  (I know….it takes a village to raise a child…. etc!).

Working in academic research the journey towards becoming a parody of Blake’s rendition of Newton could only be a few paces away.  I make the following image as a self-manifesto of the need to stay grounded, related and connected.  To keep in touch with the poetry of the world, and to not get blinded by the pursuit of research for it own sake, with no discernable use or purpose.

Postscript:  Newton’s ideas have turned out to be extremely useful centuries after his (so-called) blinkered world view.  Looks like I needn’t worry after all.  Just do and be damned!!!!

Peace

Community Media as ‘Third Cinema’

I haven’t written here much lately as I had to put all my writing energy into finishing writing my PhD, which is now done, (the viva in May, wish me luck!!!).  There are a few places I want to take my research further in the future, one of which is to develop the discourse of positioning the films made in community media educational projects as a form of ‘Third Cinema’, the independent political film tradition  1. 

Mike Wayne describes Third Cinema as “a body of theory and filmmaking practice committed to social and cultural emancipation.  This body of filmmaking is small, indeed tiny in terms of world cinema output.  Yet Third Cinema films are amongst the most exciting and challenging films ever made….It challenges both the way cinema is conventionally made (for example, it has pioneered collective and democratic production methods) and the way it is consumed.” (Wayne, 2001)

I’m sure this description will resonate with those of you who facilitate the making of films with young people and adults in participatory contexts.

I’m interested in how community media is active in the sense that, rather than only documenting and reflecting on a social situation or problem, it also seeks solutions.  Solutions are often sought through either;

1) the promotion of debate when the work is screened (in schools, community centres, on community radio, etc);

2) through the use of allegory in the actual narrative;  

3) by using the work in training situations for community workers, counsellors, teachers, police, etc, to affect change in decision makers’ attitudes towards a situation.  Community media work is often used in mediation sessions with disputing members of a community as a tool for conflict resolution.

A ‘debate active’ community media ties in with my realisation that community media educational activities are primarily a form of action research (though often without the actual research!) rather than ethnographic in intention.  At the start of my PhD I was thinking that community media is very ethnographic as the films and radio programmes shine a light on their communities, engaging in oral history, unearthing hidden stories, etc, and therefore do anthropology in their own back yards.  I now realise however that these activities are more in the vein of action research, in that they work according to a method to affect change.  They instil a pride in their communities and cultural identities, promoting hidden stories to show the communities have ‘value’, ‘depth’, and a seriousness that can inspire younger generations to take pride in their surroundings, and the people who live there, or to raise awareness and educate about a certain social issue or problem.   

The use of the term ‘action research’ is of course problematic as community media facilitators on the whole do not conduct long term research studies about what they do and the effect it might have.  (That is essentially what my PhD was.)  I guess what I am suggesting by using the term, is that community media education is ‘lived’ action research, rather than academic.  The impacts of how participants have used the projects to progress themselves are evident in life, though often not analysed.  This is where Dr Alexandra Juhasz’s positioning of the term ‘Media Praxis’ becomes useful.  It is ‘Media as Action’, not solely ‘Media as Observation’.  Hence the difference between ‘Research as Action’ (action research), and ‘Research as Observation’ (ethnography).

Thus for participatory producers to consciously make a film, radio programme (etc), knowing they want the work to have an active impact on the audiences regarding their sense of self-worth as a community, and also on the behaviour of audience as individuals, is a politicised act.  This politicised community media practice and community media process sees the work residing in the realm of the larger film tradition of ‘Third Cinema’.  This again demonstrates how community media practice embodies a deep sense of history and theory that is ‘lived’, experienced and worked through, rather than consciously drawn upon and overtly realised.  The realisation of its context in history can only strengthen the work and confidence of community media facilitators.  It has long been realised in academia that community media is politicised and operates as an element of the Habermas’ notion of the Public Sphere, (Howley 2005, and Lewis 2006).  I would now like to take those ideas into the discourse of Third Cinema and methodologies such as ‘lived’ action research.

Soon on this blog I will create some ‘screening rooms’ where community media productions can be discussed in context of ideas such as Third Cinema, the Public Sphere and other notions that I feel are useful to actual community media practice (praxis).  I hope you join me.  Pass the popcorn!

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Footnote

1 – First Cinema are “dominant, mainstream” movies, and Second Cinema are ”art[house], authorial” independent films.  (Wayne, 2001, page 2)

 

References

Howley, K (2005), Community Media: People, Places and Communication Technologies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pages 19-20

Lewis, P. (2006). Community Media: Giving “a voice to the Voiceless”, in P. Lewis and S. Jones (Eds.) (2006). From the Margins to the Cutting Edge: Community Media and Empowerment. IAMCR, Hampton Press, USA. Pages 32-33

 Wayne, M. (2001) Political Film: The dialectics of Third Cinema, Pluto Press, London, page 5

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Debating process, product and progression in community media

A popular debate in community arts & media is based on the dichotomy and tensions inherent within the notions of process and product, and which state to value the most, and what ethics and emphasis are placed on each.  The liberal position (or more accurately, the centrist conservative position), is to compromise and value both elements in equal measure, which demonstrates a project that healthy in both regards.  The radicals on either wing denote the quality of process as protection of the safe environment for the participants, or the necessity of the product to instil a pride that process alone can never deliver.  

I argue that these tensions are valid, but flawed.  The foundation principles of my research is to analyse beyond the project, and therefore, beyond the product.  The process/product debate reaches a glass ceiling of ambition as it misses out the vital element that gives meaning to what product and process actually mean – progression.  Without a notion of what happens after a project, no real value can be placed on the elements in the project, as there is nothing to measure it against. 

Highlighting value in process or product alone in isolation of what comes afterwards devalues the work being done in both of those states, and fails to take notice of the actual impact that has taken place as a result of both of those states.  There is a vital consideration missed in this debate, that can only be viewed when you consider the position of the organisations that are funded to run these participatory projects.  The reason they are funded is that they have as their offer the product of participatory practice – that is to say, their product is process led production.  Process is product, and when working in a participatory way in community arts & media, and the two are not capable of being separate entities. 

The product that community media offers, to sell for funding, is the process way of working that leads to an end production of some kind.  Once a facilitator values one element over the other, they are devaluing their entire offer.  In pedagogical terms, the product is the lesson and the process is the education.  In the same spirit as B.F. Skinner’s famous quote, “education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten”, thus, the process continues long after what has been made has been produced.

Post-action theorizing in community media (Laws vs Tools)

A large tendency in community media analysis is to post-theorize, for example attaching Paulo Freire’s theories of Dialogic Pedagogy to activity that has already happened, even if the facilitator had never heard of Freire and his ideas.  I feel that is still useful as it helps us understand the dynamics of what is happening better, and it is like evoking Newton if we didn’t understand why a cup falls on the floor – but many would view that as different.  Positivists would say that Newton’s law of Gravity is an undisputable ‘natural law’, whereas Freire’s theory of Conscientization is a ‘social notion’, which can be disputed and is therefore flawed if treated as a law.    

Enter stage left, Emile Durkheim and his ‘Rules of Sociological Method’ where he advocated for empirical social phenomena to be treated as natural law, with his theory of ‘social facts’,  and for sociologists (social scientists) to treat ‘social facts as things’.

Now to make my position clear, I conduct sociological research, but I have no claims on aiming to make social science a natural science, just in the same way I have no desire to view community media in the same way as mass media – they have different roles for different purposes for different contexts.  Social Science can reveal things that the Natural Sciences can’t, and vice versa – and they both provide tools for us to understand the world better.  Whether then called ’tools’ or  ’laws’ I’ll leave for someone else to debate. 

As a tool, Paulo Freire’s ideas are central theories for understanding the nuances of the pedagocical aspects of community media and informal education dynamics, just as the theory of gravity, + Newton’s theory of motion, are essential tools for understanding why, if you are on a moving train and bounce a ball in front of you, it doesn’t fall into your feet.

Of course, over the course of time, undisputable theories become facts, such as with gravtiy, and that is fair enough.  The things sociologists study are less tangible and material, but that doesn’t make them any less ‘real’ or universal.  Right on cue, enter stage right Marx (in toe with the spirit of Hegel) with Historical Materialism, seeing the events of history as measurable material processes not fleeting mental whims.  Laws of history that are evidence of the state of the present.  More tools for social science ammunition to position social science as natural law.  The worship at the alter of the “fact”.  

That is all fine, but solid facts can be boring anyway.  I like the ongoing mystery of a tantalising idea.

Message to arts students (notes)

When I am not doing community media type work, my day job is teaching photography degree students. As with all teachers, you start to see patterns over the years in feelings and behaviour from which one can draw some ‘universal’ lessons and advice and guidance.

As head of 1st year, here are the notes for a presentation I plan to give to the new cohort in September, to give them a sense of expectations and conflicting feelings they may experience in the first year. Not sure it will be in this exact order. Will see how it looks & feels. Comments always welcome.

I admit in an anti-Friere approach to writing this, as there is an ‘us & them’ tendency in how this is written. Hopefully I have absolved myself somewhat in point 4. below.

I found these points quite easy to write for formal education students, as there is a structure that is set and repeated year after year, so ‘universal’ themes can be identified for advice and guidance. It would be more difficult, if not impossible, to write these for participants of Community Media education activity though, experiencing learning in the informal education sector – as hardly any two projects are the same, and the system and structures reinvent themselves with each new pot of funding.

Here goes: Message to 1st year art, media, photography & design students.

1.
We don’t remember you from your interviews. There is no legacy we are expecting you to build on. Now is the opportunity to reinvent yourself and be who you want to be, and not continue to be who everyone expects you to be.

2.
You all have a varied range of experiences and expertise, but you are all here for a reason and that is all that counts. Having an identical set of entry skills requirements would make for a dull class of students. Listen to each other, learn from each other and share with each other, but don’t fear or envy each other. You were all interviewed and you all arrived, like competitive sperm in the womb. Now it’s your gift to make the most of being here.

3.
You don’t know everything otherwise you wouldn’t be here, so try not to be too resistant and listen to advice and guidance, and don’t be afraid to take creative risks and work outside your comfort zone.

4.
Also we don’t know everything either otherwise we probably wouldn’t be here also. Teaching is also about co-learning, so be prepared to take ownership of your ideas and to engage in conversation and critical debate about your creative decision making.

5.
You have to work at finding answers, and also accept that there is not always necessarily a “right” answer to be found. Research is a necessary part of the creative process. When you are a professional you can do research in your head and it will be second nature, but now that you are in art school, we ask you to play the game and write it down. We have to grade you, so we need to base it on ‘evidence’. I won’t apologise for this as you will thank us the in 10 years time.

6.
This is not school. In the first year if you don’t turn up for sessions for the first 6 months or so then we will chase you down as we recognise living away from home for the first time can be a time of self discovery. But in the second year it is up to you to be the responsible adults that we first saw in you in your interview. If you need me to repeat this point, then is probably best you leave now and save your money.

7.
You will no longer be top of the class as your were in A-level. You will need to grow a thick skin and take on board criticism of your work. You will learn by doing, which is the only real way to learn arts practice at all.

8.
In a couple of months you may start to question yourself, your creative ability and your future. That is natural. Please talk to someone about this, one of your tutors or student support. Please remember that the creative process can be painful and scary, but in the interview we saw in you your ability to succeed. We do not set up anybody to fail.

9.
First year is largely about trying to support you to have the confidence so have the skill to achieve strong research as second nature. So in 2nd and 3rd year it doesn’t need as much effort but you are still producing strong results. Writing things down on paper is a life skills. If you are not confident at writing, now is as good a time as any to try and conquer this fear.

10.
Be personal with your work. Have an opinion. Read the newspaper. Understand what makes you tick, and don’t be embarrassed by it. This is important for both issue-based and non-issue based work. We don’t expect all your work to be political and save the world, but even if your work is about public toilets then we expect you to have an opinion about them.

11.
Don’t be the critic on your own shoulder. There will be enough people wanting to censor you when you leave this place. Be brave and be honest and make the work you want to make. Don’t make the work you think we want you to make. We have had our time to make work. Now is your time.

12.
Listen to your heart and not so much your head. Logic can really mess up a good creative project and trip you up at the last hurdle.

13.
Photography is difficult because it is so easy. Don’t take it for granted or underestimate its power. Any literate person can write ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’, but that does not make them Shakespeare. Likewise photography. Don’t just see things, start to look at them also.

 

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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

The first 2 years of my Research

Essays and Articles written for my research – May 2004 – November 2005 (PhD began in October 2004)

The following essays and articles (pdf downloads) explores some of the thoughts and issues I’ve been negotiating during the process of my research into the Community Media Sector so far. The main focus of the research is to analyse the cultural sustainability of educational activity within the community media sector, and attempting to find models of best practice which can be used as a tool kit for facilitators, companies, funders, and by communities groups themselves.

I am still in the early days of this research, and as it progresses I shall post up new writings as it develops.

The most recent ones are nearer the top.

Media Literacy in Community Contexts (November 2005)
Article written for the Westminster Media Forum Publication, in response to the Media Literacy Seminar (27.10.05) (pdf) click here
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Research Progress Update (May 2005)
Research Question- Aims & Objectives- Background to this Research- Methodology- Theoretical Framework- Taxonomy of Terms- The Houdini approach to research- Reformation of the Media- Identity, Power and Representation- My crossroads(pdf) click here
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Project Evaluation Diagram (April 2005)
This map-diagram attempts to show how many projects are evaluated, whilst highlighting areas of impact which are potentially missed by the majority of evaluation studies.(pdf) click here
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Beyond Project: Community Media and Impact, Effectivity and Sustainability(April 2005)
Paper which explores the definitions of impact, effect and sustainabiliy, and attempts to challenge the “short term” mentality behind the concept of the word ‘project’.(pdf) click here
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Defining Community Media and Achieving Educational Sustainability (January 2005)
Abstract for Euricom Colloquium, Piran, Slovenia, 2005 (pdf), click here
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Negotiating Methods and Theories – Part 1 (January 2005)
Article, (pdf), click here
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Key Questions to ask about the Community Media Sector (March 2004)
Initial themes, ideas and questions to ask Notes, (pdf), click here
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Hierarchies within Moving Image Industries (April 2004)
Image, (gif), click here
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Argument: The Community Media Sector is not the amateur cousin to Broadcast (April 2004)
Paper, (pdf), click here
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Exploration of Community Media Research Questions (November 2004)
Article, (pdf), click here
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Definition of Community Media (December 2004)
Paper, (pdf), click here
see also;

Community Media Structure Map (May 2004)
Image, (pdf), click here

Copyright Shawn Naphtali-Sobers