Project leader: David Gauntlett
This study builds on the project 'Creative Production, Self-expression and Identity', run by Professor David Gauntlett in the first two years of the Mediatized Stories programme (2006-08).
Gauntlett says that he is trying to move beyond academic models which see people as mere 'receivers' of the media. 'The traditional notion of the media "audience" has collapsed, especially for young people, as engagement with popular culture today means creating and sharing media, as well as consuming it,' he argues. 'The old models are now only partially useful. Today's media consumers can also be media producers, sharing images and music that they have created online, making online presentations of self - such as in Facebook or MySpace, collaboratively producing knowledge in wikis, and using various "Web 2.0" tools to communicate, to share information, ideas, and media materials, and to express themselves.'
Gauntlett notes, however, that the project will not simply sign up to new media hype. 'We wouldn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are still media audiences, and young people still want to be engaged and entertained by other people's finely crafted songs and well-told stories, produced by professionals. Not everything has to be interactive. This study is much more about how young people make sense of such a rich mix of diverse media, how they creatively respond to it, and what it means in their lives.'
The study will use innovative research strategies which will ask young people aged 14-16 to build three-dimensional models, using metaphors, to explain how various aspects of TV, music, movies, magazines, games, and interactive media fit into their lives and their understanding of themselves. This work builds upon Gauntlett's project, outlined in his book Creative Explorations (2007), in which adults were asked to build metaphorical models of their identities using Lego. He explains: 'We hope to develop insightful methods, where people are given time to express things that are meaningful to them. Most people don't respond well to a sociologist with a clipboard'.
Links:
Short videos explaining some of this work.
David Gauntletts Artlab site.
Artlab page about the project.
Telling stories in LEGO - en masse
The Mediatized Stories project supported David Gauntlett's Inaugural Lecture at the University of Westminster so that all 230 attendees could take part in a short Lego exercise in which they created their own visions of 'a better world'. The lecture was entitled 'Participation Culture, Creativity, and Social Change' and was presented on 12 November 2008. Information at http://www.12november.org.uk
You can view a 10-minute summary presentation of the lecture
The event is also discussed in the SocialReporter blog, with short video.
For Gauntett's publications and presentations in relation to Mediatized Stories: