Community video in Bentilee: an action-research project

Jardine, Robert D

Abstract

The work is presented in three parts which together make up two volumes. The use of videotape recording as a communication and organisation tool in community development is still a relatively new field. A number of projects have been undertaken in Canada, the USA and Britain, but so far little has been done in the way of research, let alone the development of hypotheses and theories. Most of the available literature is anecdotal. Nevertheless, actual practice seems to indicate that desired results can and do occur when the medium is used in certain ways in a community development context. From October 1972 to July 1973, Ray Dunning and I carried out an action-research project involving the use of portable video equipment as part of an ongoing community development programme on a council housing estate in Stoke-on-Trent. In volume I of his thesis, Ray sets out to define the area of investigation which requires some clarification as the terms 'broadcasting', 'cablecasting', 'community television', 'local origination', 'access television' and 'community video' are bandied about by media people and the public alike. Volume II of his thesis is the Project Diary, a day to day account of our fieldwork, which was written and edited jointly. In my own thesis, I take the Project Diary as my starting point (i.e. Part I: the two diaries are identical except for separate introductions). Part II begins with an identification of the research problems posed by a project of this nature, and the first chapter describes the dialectical-phenomenological method of analysis which I have adopted, based on the Interpersonal Perception Method. Chapters Two and Three are detailed analyses of the fieldwork data. Action-research has two aims: to monitor the project and provide feedback for those involved, and to add to the corpus of knowledge for the benefit of others engaged in similar work. These two chapters, then, constitute both an explication of what happened and a demonstration to other practitioners of the application of the research method. Chapter Two deals with the project as a whole and discusses the relationships between ourselves, as researchers, and the community workers and other groups and individuals who participated. Chapter Three analyses the work of a group of residents in terms of the members' implicit and explicit intentions, their views of and actions towards each other and towards significant outsiders, and their achievements. The part which video played is discussed in terms of its mediation of agreement/disagreement, understanding/misunderstanding etc., both within the group and between the group members and outsiders. In Chapter Four I outline some of the implications which the use of video in community development has for cable and broadcast television. This concludes Part II. Part III, which is entitled Do Social Catalysts Exist? is a contribution to the 'theory' of community video. The literature on community development contains many references to the 'catalytic role’ of the community development worker. When video has been used as part of the process, its effect, too, has been described frequently as 'catalytic'. This essay questions the status of the catalyst analogy in applied social science and, by a systematic comparison of the meaning of the term catalysis in natural science with its use by social scientists and others, suggests that social events are radically different from those which occur in the natural sphere; and that, therefore, the term as an analogy is inadequate. A comparison of the meaning of the term in social scientific writings, in an attempt to establish 'social catalysis' as an independent theoretical construct on the grounds of internal consistency, is unsuccessful.

Citation

Jardine, R. D. (1974). Community video in Bentilee: an action-research project. (Thesis). Keele University

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Apr 4, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 4, 2024
• Additional Information: Describes a project undertaken with fellow-researcher R. Dunning, whose M.A. thesis also deals with this project https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/790369/
• Award Date: 1974