Community Media - Interactive World

Video is now cheap and omni-present What is it? Visual auto-ethnography is a form of participant -authored audio-visual storytelling. Still confused? Think video diary and you're almost there. In recent years the availability of more affordable camcorders has meant that researchers and participants can engage in more effective research. Real examples of practical use of video In recent projects I have used flip cameras with participants from ethnic minority communities who were recording their experience of  adult learning as enrichment. In another project we used more expensive cameras in a health setting in order to examine what the priorities were for service users. The footage has had multiple benefits and we continue to develop the use of visual technologies and methodologies: to empower and support the participation of service users and clients; to provide evidence and documentation of outputs and project delivery; to support the creative personalization...

The advent of affordable technology (cameras and software) together with popular platforms designed to share and to show work (such as YouTube) appeared to promise a golden age for social films and participatory video-making. What went wrong? What happened to all that social energy? Is there hope for the future? All the really interesting films are still out there, but they can take a lot of finding; or perhaps they are just swamped by more commercial forms of "entertainment." If you want to find out about social protests such as the Occupy movements across the world there are thousands of films to watch. But should we be anxious that the mainstream appears to be so frivolous and trivial? Is there an argument that being serious, social and participatory is just not radical; that it's out of fashion? For the sake of debate this blog explores one side of the topic: the failure of social film and participatory video to catch on. In the non-commerci...