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18
Methods and Sites
This project has been researched using qualitative, ethnographic methods,
including participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Clifford Geertz
describes the focus of ethnography as the observation and analysis of culture through
“thick description.”29 Thick description seeks to uncover “a stratified hierarchy of
meaningful structures in terms of which [signs] …are produced, perceived, and
interpreted, and without which they would not…in fact exist.30 Thick description
involves more extensive observation that allows the researcher to dig deeper into the
underlying structures of the sign, with the hopes of revealing why the sign is
meaningful, rather than just what the sign is. In this dissertation, I have focused my
thick description on media production done by nine students and two teachers in two
classrooms. However, my description extends beyond the walls of the classroom in
various parts of the chapters that follow to include the context of the home through
observations and interviews with the students’ parents.
In addition to observing and interviewing, I have also used textual analysis
techniques to examine the students’ media productions. Understanding kids’ media
productions as complex and meaningful texts is essential to the arguments made in
this dissertation and is related to larger arguments about the contemporary nature of
participation and the value of children’s culture.
The use of observation, interview, and textual analysis in conjunction
provides description of the production practices and the context of production, as
well as critical analysis of the described practices and policies affecting kids’
Object Description
| Title | Kids as cultural producers: consumption, literacy, and participation |
| Author | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Author email | rherr@usc.edu; bhs@hri.uci.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Communication |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-25 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-17 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Banet-Weiser, Sarah |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Gross, Larry Seiter, Ellen |
| Abstract | This dissertation looks closely at the practice of digital media production within a group of special education students and their teachers. Using ethnographic methods of extended participant observation and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents, along with textual analysis of students' media projects, this work examines the types of learning that emerge from making media at school and the ways in which that learning relates to media and technology use in everyday life. Over the course of one school year (2005-2006), the students who are the focus of this dissertation undertook eight different multimedia production projects, ranging from designing PowerPoint presentations to digital video production and stop-motion animation. Through media production, the students found opportunities to practice traditional and digital literacy skills as well as to explore issues of identity and self-expression.; This dissertation provides empirical support for recommendations made by several media literacy scholars to include media production as part of critical media literacy curricula and contributes a unique case study -- one situated in special education -- to a growing body of work on digital literacy. Three interdisciplinary themes--consumption, literacy, and participation -- are used to organize the description and analysis of the students' media production activities. These themes connect the specific production that took place in the classroom to larger discourses about youth, media, technology, education, and access, working to complicate existing constructions of young people as either helpless victims of manipulative media or naturally savvy media and technology users. Instead, this research emphasizes that the relationships kids have with media and technology are complex, dynamic, intrinsically linked to their identities as consumers and participants in society. Media literacy is thus theorized as a tool for understanding and controlling consumption, participation, and the construction of young people as both current and future citizens. |
| Keyword | media literacy; media production; special education; middle school; digital media |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Coverage date | 2005/2006 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1674 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Stephenson-2393 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Stephenson-2393.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 23 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 18 Methods and Sites This project has been researched using qualitative, ethnographic methods, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Clifford Geertz describes the focus of ethnography as the observation and analysis of culture through “thick description.”29 Thick description seeks to uncover “a stratified hierarchy of meaningful structures in terms of which [signs] …are produced, perceived, and interpreted, and without which they would not…in fact exist.30 Thick description involves more extensive observation that allows the researcher to dig deeper into the underlying structures of the sign, with the hopes of revealing why the sign is meaningful, rather than just what the sign is. In this dissertation, I have focused my thick description on media production done by nine students and two teachers in two classrooms. However, my description extends beyond the walls of the classroom in various parts of the chapters that follow to include the context of the home through observations and interviews with the students’ parents. In addition to observing and interviewing, I have also used textual analysis techniques to examine the students’ media productions. Understanding kids’ media productions as complex and meaningful texts is essential to the arguments made in this dissertation and is related to larger arguments about the contemporary nature of participation and the value of children’s culture. The use of observation, interview, and textual analysis in conjunction provides description of the production practices and the context of production, as well as critical analysis of the described practices and policies affecting kids’ |
