Amy was right. This section is very applicable to me. What was interesting to me, however, was that there was much less written concerning the “how to” of these specific methods as there was of other methods previously. There were the same considerations, such as the need to watch out for identities, but otherwise, much of it was an illustration of things that have been done and thus an “idea generator” for things that could be done by a researcher. At least, that was my take on it.
With that in mind, as I read I was tremendously influenced about the different possibilities of how to approach some research topics that have been of interest to me. “What people do, how they behave and structure their daily lives, and even how humans are affected by certain ideological stances can all be observed in traces people either intentionally or inadvertently leave behind” (268). I am tremendously interested in media and its connection to this very concept. For instance, the extended discussion of violence through media was not only a reminder of what work has already been done in this field, but I loved this specific concept that Berg brought up: “Television certainly offers an inexpensive education in a variety of violent techniques, but so too can video rental stores” (280). First of all, I like his terminology “an inexpensive education” in relationship to media because that is a particular interest of mine. I also liked the thought of looking at video rental stores and getting an idea of what media is popularly consumed through video rental store documentation. I had never thought about that but it makes far too much common sense to be ignored.
I was also interested in the extended use of photovoice to the photo-interview. The concept of learning about someone through their relaxed discussion of photos was a relatively new idea to me but one that would be fun to do. Lastly, the discussion about blogs was one that could be a lot of fun (albeit tedious at times) to go through the blogs on www.blogger.com alone and learn about what people talk about and use their blogs for would be enlightening to the relatively newer social media. I don’t have any overwhelming “question” to answer with that kind of research, but it would be tremendously fascinating nonetheless.
3 comments:
I, like you, found the discussion of media violence and its education of our society, though I’ll admit it’s probably because the topic interests me sociologically more than anything. That being said, it is interesting to think that what we leave behind is a reflection of us as people and as a society. Isn’t it interesting that we often revert to the media as the representation of a time period or a culture, especially since the development of film. I mean, what teacher hasn’t pulled out a media clip in order to illustrate an unfamiliar setting for his/her students? For some reason, we implicitly trust these artifacts. Is it because we can hear or see something that is now far removed from ourselves? I don’t know. And for me, this begs the question, “What are they going to use in 50 years as a representation of life in 2009?” I certainly hope it’s not Jennifer’s Body, though now that I think about it, that may be a pretty good representation…
I went back and looked for the phrase "an inexpensive education" after your mentioning because it intrigued me as well. I hadn't thought much about the concepts you are commenting on in reference to the reading previous to reading your response, but the responsibility that you are suggesting as media educators and creators is thought provoking. It takes me back to day one of media arts studies. What are we learning from the media we take in?
"boring reading" notwithstanding, I do love the idea of trying to construct a society's values by examining the traces they leave behind. I had a student make a documentary about cleaning out her grandfather's car (and, now that I think about it, there's another car-cleaning documentary on fit for the kingdom...), and it's interesting to see what sorts of information you can glean about your ancestors (or yourself!) by seeing what artifacts you leave behind.
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