Cellphilm As A Participatory Visual Method

What’s a Cellphilm? explores cellphone video production for its contributions to participatory visual research. There is a rich history of integrating participants’ videos into community-based research and activism. However, a reliance on camcorders and digital cameras has come under criticism for exacerbating unequal power relations between researchers and their collaborators. Using cellphones in participatory visual research suggests a new way forward by working with accessible, everyday technology and integrating existing media practices. Cellphones are everywhere these days. People use mobile technology to visually document and share their lives. This new era of democratised media practices inspired Jonathan Dockney and Keyan Tomaselli to coin the term cellphilm (cellphone + film). The term signals the coming together of different technologies on one handheld device and the emerging media culture based on people’s use of cellphones to create, share, and watch media. Chapters present practical examples of cellphilm research conducted in Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, the Netherlands and South Africa. Together these contributions consider several important methodological questions, such as: Is cellphilming a new research method or is it re-packaged participatory video? What theories inform the analysis of cellphilms? What might the significance of frequent advancements in cellphone technology be on cellphilms? How does our existing use of cellphones inform the research process and cellphilm aesthetics? What are the ethical dimensions of cellphilm use, dissemination, and archiving? These questions are taken up from interdisciplinary perspectives by established and new academic contributors from education, Indigenous studies, communication, film and media studies.

This volume celebrates cellphilm as an emerging Participatory Visual Method which effectively and powerfully engenders learning and catalyses social change. The book outlines the method’s theoretical framework, the role of the educator and researcher, and ethical concerns of using this method, and critically explores issues which determine the production and dissemination of creative outputs. The authors demonstrate the emerging methodology of cellphilm and how it can be utilised from both pedagogical and methodological standpoints. Using examples of cellphilms created to understand social issues, this book illustrates how the method enables diverse populations to document their communities and realities using mobile devices. By exploring cellphilm as a growing method in participatory visual research, the work fills an important gap in the fields of critically engaged community-based research, pedagogy and higher education for scholars and community activists.

"This volume celebrates cellphilm as an emerging Participatory Visual Method which effectively and powerfully engenders learning and catalyses social change. The book outlines the method's theoretical framework, the role of the educator and researcher, ethical concerns of using this method, and critically explores issues which determine the production and dissemination of creative outputs. The authors demonstrate the emerging methodology of cellphilm and how it can be utilized from both pedagogical and methodological standpoints. Using examples of cellphilms created to understand social issues, this book illustrates how the method enables diverse populations, and especially with youth, to document their communities and realities using mobile devices. By exploring cellphilm as a growing method in participatory visual research, the work fills an important gap in the fields of critically engaged community-based research, pedagogy and higher education for scholars and community activists"--

This volume celebrates cellphilm as an emerging Participatory Visual Method which effectively and powerfully engenders learning and catalyses social change. The book outlines the method's theoretical framework, the role of the educator and researcher, ethical concerns of using this method, and critically explores issues which determine the production and dissemination of creative outputs. The authors demonstrate the emerging methodology of cellphilm and how it can be utilized from both pedagogical and methodological standpoints. Using examples of cellphilms created to understand social issues, this book illustrates how the method enables diverse populations, and especially with youth, to document their communities and realities using mobile devices. By exploring cellphilm as a growing method in participatory visual research, the work fills an important gap in the fields of critically engaged community based research, pedagogy and higher education for scholars and community activists.

This book demonstrates how data from participatory visual methods can take people and communities beyond ideological engagement, initiating new conversations and changing perspectives, policy debates, and policy development. These methods include, for example, photo-voice, participatory video, drawing/mapping, and digital storytelling. Organised around a series of tools that have been used across health, education, environmental, and sociological research, Participatory Visual Methodologies illustrates how to maintain participant engagement in decision-making, navigate critical issues around ethics, track policies, and maximize the potential of longitudinal studies. Tools discussed include: Pedagogical screenings Digital dialogue devices Upcycling and ‘speaking back’ interventions Participant-led policy briefs An authoritative and accessible guide to how participatory visual methods and arts-based methods can influence social change, this book will help any postgraduate researcher looking to contribute to policy dialogue.

The Oxford Handbook of Methods for Public Scholarship presents the first comprehensive overview of research methods and practices for engaging in public scholarship. Public scholarship, which has been on the rise over the past 25 years, produces knowledge that is available outside of the academy, is useful to relevant stakeholders, and addresses publicly identified needs. By involving stakeholders in the entire process, and making the findings accessible, public scholars contribute to a crucial democratization of research. The Oxford Handbook of Methods for Public Scholarship features a wealth of highly respected interdisciplinary contributors, as well as emerging scholars, and chapters include robust examples from real world research in varied fields and cultures. The volume features ample discussion of working with non-academic stakeholders, coverage of traditional and emergent methods including those that draw from the arts, the internet, social media, and digital technologies, and coverage of key issues such as writing, publicity, and funding.

Sonic Engagement examines the relationship between community engaged participatory arts and the cultural turn towards audio, sound, and listening that has been referred to as the 'sonic turn'. This edited collection investigates the use of sound and audio production in community engaged participatory arts practice and research. The popularity of podcast and audio drama, combined with the accessibility and portability of affordable field recording and home studio equipment, makes audio a compelling mode of participatory creative practice. This book maps existing projects occurring globally through a series of case study chapters that exemplify community engaged creative audio practice. The studies focus on audio and sound-based arts practices that are undertaken by artists and arts-led researchers in collaboration with (and from within) communities and groups. These practices include—applied audio drama, community engaged podcasting, sound and verbatim theatre, participatory sound art, community-led acoustic ecology, sound and media walks, digital storytelling, oral history and reminiscence, and radio drama in health and community development. The contributors interrogate the practical, political, and aesthetic potentialities of using sound and audio in community engaged arts practice, as well as its tensions and possibilities as an arts-led participatory research methodology. This book provides the first extensive analysis of what sound and audio brings to participatory, interdisciplinary, arts-led approaches, representing a vital resource for community arts, performance practice, and research in the digital age.

This collection presents stories from the field that were gathered from researchers using a breadth of visual methods. Visual methods refer to the use of still or moving images either as forms of data, to explore research topics and explorations of artistic practice. In addition to well-established visual methods, such as photo-voice and photo-elicitation, the possibilities for visual methods are flourishing through the proliferation of visual culture and developments in digital technologies. Methodological and ethical issues are emerging as visual methods are adapted and applied to answer new kinds of research questions, and in varied settings and populations. Authors offer practical and thoughtful discussions of emerging methodological and ethical dilemmas they encountered in innovative projects that used visual methods either in combination with other methods or as a stand-alone method. The discussions will be of interest to those seeking to understand the value, and potential ethical risks, of visual methodologies for social research.