Critical Media Methods

1. Critical Media Methods • Seminar 5

2. Today’s Seminar • Review of the lecture • Activity: Taking ‘Good’ Photos • Task brief Critical Media Methods

3. Review of the Lecture Critical Media Methods

4. Review of Lecture • Visual methods are interested in sensorial, emotive and experiential data • Important. But very difficult to capture! • ‘Visual’ is also aspect of mediated culture. Visual methods have good link with M&C. Critical Media Methods

5. Review of Lecture • History of visual methods and shift from cultural object to research: • Early C20th = photo-journalism • Mid C20th = ethnography • 1980s = method in own right • Now = digital era Critical Media Methods

6. Review of Lecture • Photo-documentation, ‘shooting to a script’ • Photo-elicitation, photo + interview • Photo-essay, researcher’s story Critical Media Methods

7. Review of Lecture • Questions? Critical Media Methods

8. Activity 1: Taking Good Photos Critical Media Methods

9. Visual Methods https://vimeo.com/31203628 • Find someone who wants to share • Hook – listen, find emotional point • Clear narrative • Lots of them! • Simple. Critical Media Methods

10. Visual Methods Individually go back to one of the photographs you discussed in the lecture. • What makes this a ‘good’ photo? Is it technique or meaning? • Does the photo have a story? Critical Media Methods

11. Visual Methods Text your chosen photos to each other. Using one of your computers, create a story out of all of your images that shows the links between them (this can be a new story, think here about Prop, Todorov etc). Present your new stories back to the class – what meanings does it have? Critical Media Methods

12. For Next Week Critical Media Methods

13. Weekly Task • Using either photo-documentation, photo-elicitation or photo-essay techniques, explore an area of your own lives where you consider yourselves, as a group, to be an active or devoted audience. Critical Media Methods

14. Weekly Task • To do this, you will need to plan your approach: • Will you interview each other about your photos? • Will you find already available photos, or produce some yourselves? • Will you only use photographs, or will you add maps, drawings etc? • How will you present your ideas? • What technologies will you use – mobile phones, webcams, specialist cameras? Critical Media Methods

15. Weekly Task • In your behind the scenes video, you will need to show the processes that went into conducting your visual methods, as well as the ideas and theories behind them. Justify your approach in relation to the idea of ‘active audience’. Critical Media Methods

16. Weekly Task • As you create your behind the scenes video of using this method, you also need to think/talk about: • - the theory, concepts and ideas behind the method;
- how you have applied the method;
- what you found;
- what you learnt/experienced. • Use this week’s reading to help identify important points for discussion. Critical Media Methods

17. Tutorial Times • You will be handed a piece of paper with your tutorial time for next week. • All tutorials will take place in ET130. • Please make sure that you all arrive together as a group and on time. Critical Media Methods

18. Questions? Critical Media Methods