Amateur filmmakers called to help with major national research
Amateur filmmakers are being called on to participate in a major national investigation of how they use camcorders in their everyday lives. The project, run by the Institute of Education's Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, aims to find out what gets amateur filmmakers going and why they come up with the stuff they do.
(Media-Newswire.com) - “Camcorder technology offers unrivalled potential for individual self-expression and self-display,” says the centre’s director, David Buckingham, and may well be every bit as revolutionary as the development of the printing press.”
He adds: “But will the camcorder generation turn out to be good, bad, ugly or just banal – endlessly sharing movies of one another’s pets, gurgling babies and even socks in close up*? For us the challenge is to map the extent of the revolution and gauge its social impact.”
The three-year project is already taking Professor Buckingham’s team into some extremely varied waters. “Some usage is a source of entertainment, other forms are far murkier, many are just bizarre,” says senior researcher Rebekah Willett. “On the positive side, we have the birth of concerned citizen journalists and documentary makers. But there is also plenty of evidence of people in their tens of thousands using such sites as YouTube to share their dubious home-made political, sexual and voyeuristic material.”
In addition to mapping the wide-ranging impact video-making is having on our society, the Camcorder Culture research project will explore certain other key issues including:
Are we entering an age in which if an event is not on video, it didn’t happen? Does a desire to gain popularity by videoing other’s pain or embarrassment indicate that our reactions to the world are becoming dulled? Or are video technologies allowing us to be more creative than ever, more questioning, and more powerful in ways that will enrich our democracy and enhance our engagement with the world? “At the moment the court is very much out on people’s digital filmmaking and sharing,” adds Professor Buckingham. “And the mainstream media still have to grasp its implications for them as the capacity for news-making shifts to the new generation of guerrilla film-makers and documentary makers and vloggers.” Local Amateur filmmakers whatever their subject matters or enthusiasms are invited to complete the Camcorder Culture on-line questionnaire at: www.camcordersurvey.co.uk
* Place ‘socks’ in the YouTube search engine and a huge variety of films concerning footware emerges - a whole sub-culture of filmmakers fascinated with what they wear on their feet.
Notes for editors
Further information from Helen Green, press officer, +44 ( 0 )20 7612 6459, h.green@ioe.ac.uk
The Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media ( CSCYM ) is a research centre based at the Institute of Education, University of London. One of its key aims is to conduct leading-edge work investigating the media and its impact on society. A principal focus is on young people and their part, both as media consumers and producers. Among recent projects was an investigation of parents and young people’s responses to sex in film and on TV, the value to children of studying and making video games, and the empowering impact of video-making on recently arrived young refugees. http://www.childrenyouthandmediacentre.co.uk.
The Research Project: Camcorder Cultures: Media Technologies and Everyday Creativity has been up and running for a year and has an end date of August 31, 2008 It has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, an independent non-departmental public body, established by Royal Charter and accountable to Parliament through the DTI’s Office of Science and Innovation.
The Institute of Education is a college of the University of London, specialising in teaching, research and consultancy in education and related areas of social science and professional practice.
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