0.
guide 1.
introduction 2.
method as field of discussion
3. practice
4. theory
5. conclusion and further discussions
| 1.
introduction |
1 .1 studying digital media. Digitalisation, complexity and methodological reflexivity |
| 1.1.1 Interdisciplinarity |
1.1.2 Research focus and questions |
The suggested correlation between digital media and interdisciplinary education and research is not discussed or advocated further in this thesis on a general level, as I consider this perspective to be a progressively established view, and even institutionalised in some educational contexts combining a diversity of disciplines with digital media studies [8. examples]. Though interdisciplinarity may be accepted as a central element of the field of digital media studies, methodological questions about the intersection of practice and theory and the aims and outcomes of including practical work have yet to be fully addressed in much of the research literature related to digital media situated in the humanities. My thesis strives to conceptually get at the interdisciplinarity that blends theory with practice, to link theory and practice, not as distinct and divergent domains (e.g. “know-how” vs. “know-why”, “implicit” and “explicit” knowing [9. the origin of this conceptual distinction]), but as epistemologically interdependent in the emergent field of digital media studies. This attempt is operationalised in two fairly broad research questions that will direct my thesis: How may practice-based methods inform studies of digital media? How may the interplay between practice and theory be conceptualised? Secondary to these research questions, however inevitably interlinked with these, a third research question arises when practice-based methods are being performed: How may practice-based studies be communicated? This question will be answered implicitly by the manner in which this thesis is presented as a webtext to be read on-line. At this introductory stage, practice-based method corresponds to a learning- and research design with three, partly overlapping features [10. on “learning- and research”]. These include practice, triangulation of research methods and the double structure of practice and reflection. Typically, practice-based learning- and research-projects include both a piece of work as well as a written thesis (both “learning” and “research” is employed here to emphasise how practice-based method, explored here through experience and references of more specific media education and media research-literature, is elaborated as one integrated approach to academic studies in this thesis, potentially fruitful to both contexts of media studies – both media education and media research). An interdisciplinary approach to academic studies such as practice-based method, in some sense combining the methods and theoretical frame works of practitioner and researcher, can be seen as methodological triangulation in order to strengthen a research project by developing multiple, yet converging lines of inquiry. The multiple lines of inquiry employed in this thesis are my own practical experience with digital media in a collaborative performance production, recorded material from production and final performances and theoretical perspectives related to multimedia performance art, digital media, the intersection of digital media studies and practice-based method, and humanistic academic writings on digital media research communication. In addition to these media-realated perspectives, I have includet notions of learning derived from cultural historical activity theory as this theoretical framework offers an underlying, basic theory of how conscious learning emerges from activity, and not as a precursor to it. Cultural historical activity theory offers in addition a framework of interacting activity systems that may help me to conceptually get at the driving factors of the collaborative process and learning-activity Extended. Because of the extensive number of applied theoretical perspectives, I have chosen not to involve explicitly other fields of relevance to the discussion on practice-based method and digital media studies such as design studies and computer science. The field of research - method, combined with the multiple lines of inquiry, opens up an ambitious reflexive project. I want to reflect on practice-based method while and through executing such method, or “Reflection on reflection on action and practice (i.e., critical reflection on one”s reflecting)”, in Sechner & Chapman´s terms, writing within the frames of practice-based research in art and design. In “The practical implications of applying a theory of practice based research: a case study” Scrivener & Chapman suggests that the doing of practice-based research is accompanied by a significant component of methodological development:” (…) frameworks and methods are created and tested through the doing of practice based research” (Scrivener & Chapman 2004). The dynamic, and to some extent dependence, between performing practice based method and methodological development have shaped this thesis into a text in which practice-based method is both the field of inquiry and the research design. The thesis is structured in five main chapters: 1. Introduction, 2. Perspectives on Method 3. Practice, 4. Theory, 5. Conclusion and further discussions. Juxtaposing the clear separation between practice and theory implied by this structure, there is no separate empirical chapter, no single theory chapter, nor an analysis chapter. Even the fairly descriptive chapter 3. Practice, framing the project Extended contains theoretical considerations and analysis. I consider such a structure an inevitable consequence of the two-folded purpose of this thesis, where the referred “reflection on one”s reflecting” and ongoing reflexivity become evident. The aim of this thesis is to reflect on practice-based method as an academic response to digital media, not to analyse digital media in Extended as such. Digital features of Extended, considered central to the field of digital media, will be referred to, but as illustrations of a exploratory process. |
1.1.3 Thesis outline |
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Practice-based Method. Exploring Digital Media through
the Dynamics of Practice, Theory, and Collaborative, Multimedia Performance
Hovedoppgave i mediavitenskap for cand.filol
graden, Universitetet i Oslo, Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon, Mai
2006, Idunn Sem
