This submission draws on research and practice completed over a
twelve-year period (2003-2015). It explores changes within the
media economy, considers the historical development of
participatory media and then interrogates practice within it by using
two key periods of action research (Inclusion Through Media, 2004-
2008; Digital Storytelling with older people in their communities
across two major projects – Extending Creative Practice and Silver
Stories, 2009-2015) as fields of enquiry.
Three supporting documents (Building the Knowledge Economy: A
Strategy for the Media and Related Creative Industries in the
Channel Corridor, 2003; Digital Science: A Collaboration between
the Wellcome Trust and Nesta, 2006; The Power of Youth Media to
Change Lives, 2012) set out the changing nature of media from
2003 to 2010. The first adopts a strategic approach to economic
development and, in doing this, shows the particularity of the media
economy. Taken together, the second explores the use of media
within a new market and the third reviews the growth and
importance of youth media. The three reports examine the impact
of digitalization on the media landscape.
This combination of diverse research sources enables the
submission to draw on an evidential richness transcending different
worlds of policy, practice and theory. In doing this it is able to join
dots to provide a clearer picture of voice and representation within
participatory media. The submission argues that the development of
new forms of media activity enabled by digitalization led directly to
new modes of community-based media which, in turn, created
spaces for community based practitioners that emphasized the
importance of the voice of the participant. It uses three concepts of
voice, namely opportunities for new voices to speak and be heard,
an increased mutual awareness flowing from a greater influence
over distribution and exhibition and the potential for new intensities
of listening as a means to interrogate the notion that digitalization
has increased the range and number of voices across the media.
The thesis argues that these changes have shifted the dynamics of
participatory media away from a model dependent on the patronage
of broadcasters to a more varied landscape with lower costs and a
greater range of funding opportunities. This has led directly to an
increase in the amount and range of media. New forms of media,
such as Digital Storytelling, have acquired an international standing.
The thesis considers the extent to which these changes have
created a space for the voices of participants to be expressed and
heard. It goes on to argue that the representative components of
these new forms of media are partly illusory as the participant voice is frequently distorted and curtailed by the need to meet an explicit
requirement set by the funding agencies, the longer term needs of
the producer or by the inability of the work to reach and engage an
audience. Examples to illustrate these points are taken from Digital
Storytelling work completed over the past six years.
Date of Award | Jun 2016 |
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Original language | English |
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Awarding Institution | |
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Voice and representation in participatory media
Dunford, M. (Author). Jun 2016
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis