An invisible friend? How video technology mediates the participant/researcher relationship in a participatory video study

1. Rebecca Whiting (Birkbeck, University of London)
EP/K025201/1

2. Digital Brain Switch project

4. Participant sample
Social
Entrepreneurs (SE)
University
Students (US)
Office Workers
(OW)

5. Methodology
Briefing
participants on
video study
mostly via Skype
7 day video diary
capturing
switching mostly
with
commentary
De-briefing
participants by
phone about
experience of
taking part
Narrative
interview
incorporating
life history,
review of videos
and reflection

6. Videocam
‘Tamagotchi
virtual pet’
‘invisible line
manager’
‘imaginary
friend’
Researcher
‘I am part of the
team’
Co-
researchers
‘I just thought I’d
show you…’
Future
observers
‘a tool for
reaching you’
Absent
presence
Participant
‘not a
subject’
‘feeling
like a
spy’
‘makes you
reflect’

7. Videocam
ResearcherParticipant

9. Paradox in methodology
 The ‘‘observer’s paradox’’ (Labov, 1972)
 How can we observe what happens when people aren’t
being observed?
 The participation paradox (Brown et al., 2010;
Gibson, 2005)
 How can we address uneven power relations when
participatory methods somehow reinforce them?

10. Frame for reflexive analysis
Explore tensions in intersecting roles in
relational system of researcher-participant-
videocam
Focus on understanding not resolving
paradoxes (how tensions are embraced or
managed)
 Embraces materiality of videocam/data in both
producing and studying the management of
tensions

11. Hyphen Spaces
 Fine’s (1994) concept of opposing poles in research
relationships that are dynamically inter-related and in
tension
 Recognised as locations of potential tensions where
 boundaries between participant and researcher
are blurred
 relationships between them are fluid, dynamic,
and mutually influenced (Cunliffe & Karunanayake,
2013)

12. Working the hyphens
Participation - Observation
Intimacy - Distance

14. Xanthe: Embracing the paradox

15. Elizabeth: Managing the tension
“Another thing I realized is that the
doing of the filming skews the results
a bit, I mean that you have to switch
to start filming. And then it acts as a
prompt so that it influences what
you say and makes you reflect.”
(Elizabeth, OW, debrief)

16. Participation – Observation roles
Xanthe (US) Elizabeth (OW)
Embracing the
paradox
Managing the tension
Videocam Proxy for researchers Prompt (influencing
research)
Researchers Future observers Co-researchers being
critiqued
Participant Active researcher
Digital diarist
Spy (observer of
others)
Participant (doing the
filming, reflecting)
Active researcher

18. Leanne: Managing the tension

19. Simon: Managing the tension

20. Intimacy – Distance roles
Leanne (OW) Simon (SE)
Managing the
tension
Managing the tension
Videocam Witness Filmmaking tool with
a range of affordances
Researchers Commissioning
editors
Audience
Audience
Participant Digital diarist Film maker

22. Video is ideal for examining
tensions/paradoxes
 Makes new subject positions available to participants and
researchers
 Allows capturing, viewing and understanding paradoxical
life as it plays out
 Provides agency for the participants in their hyphen work
(i.e. managing these tensions) through its immediacy and
visual nature while temporarily minimizing our own
agency

23. Benefits for participants
 Enhanced the participants’ opportunity to create
knowledge for themselves through video diary
 Dealing with paradoxical roles in the research facilitated a
transfer of learning from that context to participants’
daily lives
 Participants did not need us to analyse data and report
back for the study to be useful to them
 Their knowledge concerned more individual questions
than our research could ever address

24. Benefits for researcher
 Participants encouraged us to a more reflexive
understanding of our research practices
 e.g. taking account of material agency in our explanations
for the outcomes of our video research
 Gained deeper understanding of particular ambiguities
and tensions within participatory video methods than
their straightforward classification would suggest
 Examining dynamic identities and shifting relations in
video methodology led to better understanding of our
empirical research in transitional roles and permeable
work-life boundaries

25. Whiting, R., Symon, G., Roby, H. & Chamakiotis, P. (2016). Who’s Behind
the Lens? A Reflexive Analysis of Roles in Participatory Video Research.
Organizational Research Methods, doi:10.1177/1094428116669818
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1094428116669818

26. Video summaries of preliminary
findings from DBS Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ima
1HsT8QYA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w
-huJ4Z544

27. References
 Brown, C., C. Costley, et al. (2010). Capturing their dream: Video
diaries and minority consumers. Consumption, Markets & Culture
13(4): 419-436.
 Cunliffe, A., & Karunanayake, G. (2013). Working within hyphen-
spaces in ethnographic research: Implications for research identities
and practice. Organizational Research Methods, 16(3), 364-392.
 Fine, M. (1994). Working the hyphens: Reinventing self and other in
qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin &Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook
of qualitative research (pp. 70-82). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
 Gibson, B. E. (2005). Co-producing Video Diaries: The Presence of
the "Absent" Researcher. International Journal of Qualitative
Methods 4(4): 1-9.
 Labov, W. (1972). Some principles of linguistic methodology.
Language in Society, 1(1), 97-120.