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Abstract
“Give Me Space!”
Situated Video Production And High School Social Relations
by
Lara Margaret Beaty
Video production programs from three high schools are investigated to
explore how the social and material contexts influence video production
activity. Video cameras are examined as tools that mediate social
relations. The methods include an ethnography of three courses from
each of the three schools and a new use of student-made videos to
display student activity. The schools are referred to as Suburban,
Urban, and Boarding Highs and are diverse in terms of their
populations, program orientations, and resources. Student-school
relationships are defined in terms of program structure, school
environments, and student participation. Substantial and persistent
differences between schools are discussed. The criteria for assessing
development in video communication are proposed and applied to the work
of three groups of students. A range of characteristics are considered
to allow for the diversity of production activity: The clarity of a
message, coherence, agency, technological proficiency, aesthetics, and
self-expression. The relations between these qualities emerged as
meaningful criteria. A new analysis of student-school relationships is
then pursued with an examination of the choices students made during
video production. At a microanalytic level, the choices of location,
placement within those locations, and camera techniques are
investigated, and their implications are discussed in reference to a
selection of projects. Student development is considered in terms of
the student-school relationships as revealed in their video work.
Student-made video projects are found to yield information about
student-school relations that is consistent with observations but more
detailed and student specific. These details and the broader
observations reveal a dynamic and meaningful relationship between
contexts and students at all levels of activity. The implications for
video production courses and education more generally are discussed. A
DVD is included that contains an electronic version of this document in
“html” and “pdf” formats as well as student-made videos in Quicktime
format and still images, which are in color, in Portable Network
Graphics files.
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