[Xmca-l] Re: Youth and Vido Narrative Project

Tue Jan 27 14:21:51 PST 2015

Right now I think it's more about the technique in making online videos rather than the technology (Youtube is just a distribution/comment platform) - there's some more intelligent way to say that but I can think of it .  Basic technology is pervasive - I mean you can do it with your smart phone.  The issue is whether you use expressive narration, music etc. or simply do something straight forward.  Making really good videos is a talent to some extent, but I also think some of the more popular online videos (secretly or not so secretly) use video consultants.  It's just not that easy to do.  A discussion on Youtube videos has spontaneously erupted in one of the classes I teach and people are suggesting much of it is about having your message meet the Zeitgeist of the Youtube audience at the moment: you have thousands of people trying to do that daily and a few break through, not that different than anybody else, there is just no gatekeeper.  I think there would be tremendous differences based on motivation of the individuals making/posting the videos.  Is it a desire for self-expression?  Is it exhibitionism?  Is it a desire to catch on like Pewdiepie  (I have no idea) who a student claims is worth 7 million dollars.  I suppose this is one of the goals of the proposed workshop.  But I do think we spend too much time thinking about applications and not enough about the human to human transactions behind the use of those applications (a lot of philosophical reasons behind that I think - that might fit into other threads going on right now).

Michael
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf of mike cole [mcole@ucsd.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 5:06 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Youth and Vido Narrative Project

Thanks Greg. I will pass along the advice. I was pretty certain that many
people were engaged in similar lines of work
and had worked out appropriatable technological platforms. Guess not. Using
word press as the most advanced medium might be the answer I guess, but
seems sort of suprising.
mike

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Mike,
> Norma Mendoza-Denton (UCLA) is doing some very interesting work studying
> the platform of Youtube and the role of the videos and subsequent comments
> on Latin@ gangsta rap videos and how they construct various kinds of
> publics (and btw, I wouldn't be surprised if Youtube can't do everything
> that Morten would like to do, but maybe not).
>
> Here is a description of a presentation of Norma's work:
>
> http://hrc.anu.edu.au/sites/hrc.anu.edu.au/files/u78/Mendoza-Denton%20flyer.pdf
>
> Perhaps a bit too linguistic-y for this audience's tastes?
> -greg
>
> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 11:24 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
> > Michael's quite reasonable question about the purposes of the folks
> seeking
> > information about cheap/free online facilities that engage
> > youth in video production, exposition, and reflective discussion incited
> me
> > to contact Morten Nissen, for whom the query was sent,
> > and ask if it would be ok for me to post his entire note to me.
> >
> > I think that the project he is undertaking along with Catherine Hassa, a
> > LCHC alumna who comes to the project from a Social Studies of Science
> > perspective, will be of interest to many on xmca, even if youth and new
> > media is not your thing.
> >
> > Morten has a very informative article in Andy's volume on Projects that I
> > think it would be great for XMCAers to discuss. It gave me a lot to think
> > about that has echoes of our discussion of the LSV/ANL discussion, but
> with
> > Morten articulating a critical perspective that puts
> > LSV under the microscope, along with communities of practice.
> >
> > Anyway, here is the message Morten sent me. If its not of interest, BAIL!
> >
> > mike
> >
> > *Fra:* lchcmike@gmail.com [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com] *På vegne af *mike
> > cole
> > *Sendt:* 22. januar 2015 18:31
> > *Til:* Morten Nissen
> > *Emne:* Re: Have you received MCA mail?
> >
> >
> >
> > Nice to chat with you. hope you scored a goal! I will follow up.
> >
> > mike
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 8:59 AM, Morten Nissen <mn@edu.au.dk> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Mike
> >
> > Here’s a little bit on the theme of prototypical narratives. Attached is
> an
> > article to appear in  Dialogic Pedagogy that includes an argument for
> > Prototypical Narratives, but this should be read with my chapter in the
> > Blunden book, for our interest centers on artifacts, too – as you can see
> > also in the description of the PhD course with Emily Martin below.
> >
> > As mentioned, I’ll talk with Cathrine and return about your nice idea of
> a
> > seminar.
> >
> > Warmly,
> >
> > Morten
> >
> >
> > Performing Beyond Representation, or: Prototypical Narratives - the stuff
> > (:artifacts) that dreams (:theories) are made ofPhD course with Emily
> > Martin, Morten Nissen, and Line Lerche Mørck
> >
> >
> >
> > This course takes as its starting point the fact that we, as researchers,
> > increasingly are not only sampling data, but take part in producing
> > narratives as somehow prototypical, often involving ourselves in
> > unconventional ways, and carried by genres and model artifacts that we
> > barely understand or control (e.g. blogs or videos on shifting websites).
> >
> >
> >
> > Why call this prototypical narratives? In the philosophy of language, a
> > prototype is a concrete exemplar that is used to represent a generality.
> In
> > the Science and Technology Studies (STS) tradition, this has been taken
> up
> > with a focus on how the exemplar is produced and handled as artifact in a
> > situated practice, and how its status as prototypical, or potentially
> > standard, is realized and reproduced in concrete networks of practices.
> The
> > narrative approach in the social sciences and humanities has highlighted
> > the sequential and contextual ordering of processes and events as
> > meaningful in existential and practical terms. By its logical form,
> > narrative proposes singular occurrences as meaningful and generally
> > relevant. Taken together, prototypical narratives are narratives that
> > designate certain meaningful processes, events and practices as
> > prototypical by capturing them in text, video, or other media, broadly
> with
> > a view to relevance for guiding and reflecting practice.
> >
> > This fusion of narrativity and STS seems relevant since a) we are
> > increasingly required to provide concrete alternatives to the
> > empiricist-rationalist format of knowledge that is embodied in the
> > infrastructures of standardization through which practices are ruled, b)
> > the cultural genres of narrative performance and production evolve
> rapidly,
> > especially in terms of expanded technologies and challenges to the
> > private/public divisions, and this means that c) anyway we produce and
> use
> > model artifacts that take us well beyond what we can easily  handle
> > (ethically and methodologically) as 'data' in research or 'case
> materials'
> > in teaching.
> >
> >
> >
> > This new situation requires us to reconceptualize classic issues such as
> >
> > ●      *Temporality*: The way we recreate the past to feed hopes for the
> > future is accelerating; historicity is overtaking any foundations;
> >
> > ●      *Reality*: With hyper-reality and reality TV, representation is no
> > longer secondary to its reference; we co-create the events we call in to
> > witness our stories;
> >
> > ●      *Performance*: Could it be that ‘citation’ of (e.g. gender or
> > disease) standards increasingly fuse with producing and transforming
> them?
> >
> > ●      *Subjectivity*: It is increasingly ourselves that we perform and
> > recreate, yet we tell of ourselves in forms that assume other
> objectivities
> > (such as those of drama, TV or art);
> >
> > ●      *Logic*: Beyond the academic text, who knows how research
> questions,
> > arguments or findings might look?
> >
> > We have been pondering these ideas for a while, reflecting on the videos
> > and songs of former gang-members and drug users, ‘curating’ galleries,
> even
> > confessing our past on websites. We are now so privileged as to have
> > persuaded Emily Martin to help us understand it. Emily Martin is
> professor
> > of Anthropology at New York University, famous for feminist and science
> > studies, and deservedly praised for wonderful works such as *Bipolar
> > Expeditions *from 2009.
> >
> >
> >
> > Besides academic presentations, the course will take up singular
> instances
> > of what could be called prototypical narratives from the research
> practices
> > and networks of teachers and students.
> >
> >
> >
> > We suggest a 4 days course in the fall of 2015. The precise time will be
> > settled later.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > *Morten Nissen*
> >
> > PhD, Dr. Psych.
> >
> > Professor
> >
> > *Department of Education*
> >
> > Aarhus University
> > Tuborgvej 164
> >
> > 2400 Copenhagen NV
> >
> >
> >
> > Tlf: +45 30282418
> > www.edu.au.dk/
> >
> > --
> > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science as an
> object
> > that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>

--
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science as an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.