The value of sharing stories
The budget cuts are soon to be confirmed.
But a leaked report today suggests £4.2 bn will be cut from Higher Education of which teaching will be hit by 79%. I am feeling genuinely shocked by this. With fees set to rise to £10,000+ a year, what kind of message is this sending to the next generation of school leavers?
The BBC have presented a collection of stories from citizens up and down the UK being asked what should be saved from the budget axe, and surprise surprise, people chose the welfare area that they would most directly benefit from; a gentleman approaching retirement was concerned about pensions and welfare for the elderly, a full-time stay at home Mum wanted her pocket protected instead of the money she currently get “going to someone else”, a lady using accessibility technology mentioning disabled funding. And of course they are all right to voice their concern and I agree that all of these areas warrant state-sponsored welfare.
My research has shown in observations so far that when you bring heterogeneous groups of people together and ask them to share considered stories, and give them the opportunity to discuss fractured perceptions of social realities, you can generate really positive dialogue. The CDS and many other organisations have been doing this for years, not least of which the BBC in their Capture Wales project. So why focus on an individualistic narrative? Surely that is going to perpetuate tunnel vision for citizens as we are plunging head first into uncharted territory of a public funding crisis.
This dog-eat-dog scenario unfolding is not going to be countered by Cameron’s “Big Society” if the value of education is stripped away, and I mean at every single level. A 93 year old should be able to access learning events as much as an 18 year old should be able to study to degree level without being saddled with such stomach-churning debts. Big Society can’t function if people lose the will to care.
Right back to my sociology chapter, now late, but having my head in this theory is really a life changing experience and making me feel increasingly more angry with certain political approaches….
Ada Lovelace Day 2010
24th March is set aside to celebrate the role of women in IT and general geekdom. As the years go by, maybe because I’m looking in different ways, it seems that the divide is narrowing. Perhaps it’s just that I’m now working in organisations much more gender balanced; for the first 7 years of my working life I was used to being one of only a few women in the IT and New Media industries. I remember finding out that I was being paid £5k per annum less than a male peer in one company. We joined the same week and had left university the same year with similar experience. I was furious.
These days I’m surrounded by teachers, lecturers and academics and plenty of female peers and role models. Our new Vice Chancellor is Susan Price, and both of my Directors of Study have been women.
Which leads me to reflect on the impact that two women have had on my current thinking. Professor Janet Finlay, my first DoS before she left the faculty, has played a part in my life-changing direction quite apart from offering sound advice on the direction of my research. When I was a Masters student at Huddersfield, I walked past her door everyday to get to the Multimedia Lab, and so when I subscribed to the British HCI group quarterley (Interfaces) 3 years later as a professional, her editorship always held my attention. When she put a call out for a haptic-interface PhD position at Leeds Met a couple of years later, I forwarded it to my husband who subsequently gained a doctorate under Janet’s directorship. Through his journey, I was inspired to study my own doctorate and Janet became my DoS. Janet continues to open doors to opportunities and I’m so grateful that our paths crossed all those years ago.
There are many women who work in IT who I respect greatly, but there is one conversation I had in 2007 which allowed me to catch up on 30-odd years of naivety in the space of a couple of hours. Having been given the opportunity to join a PRaDSA workshop (still very grateful to Steve) I met Paula Graham from Fossbox. Paula works tirelessly to enable community access to technology, a job in itself worthy of a mention. But it was particularly her resilience and determination to be true to herself I admire the most. I had a very sheltered life in comparison, and Paula’s stories of everyday life astounded me.
I’m a little less naive these days and have become more familiar with feminist literature and I find it very comforting. I wonder what kind of a feminist Ada Lovelace would have been….
Blogging, baking and an 80,000 word-sized hill to climb
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”
My conceptual understanding of the world is changing; sometimes I feel I’m breaking down walled boundaries brick by brick and sometimes I feel the embrace of a new understanding coursing through me in a moment. This must be fairly normal for a PhD student, especially one without an undergraduate background in philosophy.
I’m writing this blog in a beautiful, aged library, surrounded by books and scholars quietly interacting with their thoughts through words. The carved, wooden beams remind me of the church where I was married, and the sense of occupying a church-like space does not only come from the hundreds of books devoted to theology all around; it is a space designed to praise the written word.
This library is situated in a residential place of study, and I feel so fortunate to be spending some time here. Three of us from our original writing group of four have come for five days to share writing practice and discuss our research. We each plan to write our theses this year, and are all facing ascent of a very large hill. Of course, when we talk, it is clear that we know so much of what we now need to articulate. But place an 80,000 word requirement in anyone’s hands and so many distractions and excuses suddenly fill the foreground. My baking skills are really improving, for example.
Today is Ash Wednesday. I am wearing the remains of a cross of ash on my forehead from the service in the chapel this morning. I have been starting my day with a service every morning, and, for me, it is the most gentle way to prepare myself for a full day of thinking, questioning and positioning. It has been so rewarding to spend 20 minutes reflecting on my place in the world, remembering those who are less fortunate and making an inward promise to live within ethical and moral boundaries. As today marks the beginning of lent, it has been all the more important to allocate that time.
The visiting resident vicar here, Caroline, bought ashes from her home parish in Gippsland, Victoria, an area that my husband and I remember fondly from our travels in Australia. The ashes, rather poignantly, were taken from some burnt ruins from the horrendous bush fires last year.
Looking south from Wilson's Prom, Gippsland. I think the most reflection-inspiring view I have ever gazed out over.
So whilst I have now successfully deflected an hour of thesis writing this morning, I feel I have in a small way articulated the significance of viewing life through a post-structuralist lens.
Walking to School
Here are 6 good reasons for walking to school taken from walktoschool.org.uk
It’s healthy and it’s green:
1. Walking to school is a great way for children to increase their levels of exercise. According to the NHS 9/10 children could grow up with life threatening diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease partly because they aren’t getting enough exercise.
2. Up to 72% of children aren’t meeting the recommended 60 minutes of exercise per day; walking to school is a great way to help get those minutes up!
3. Walking to school creates an opportunity to socialise and enjoy the local environment and 9 out of 10 teachers think that a walk to school makes children brighter, more alert and ready for the first class of the day.
On our way to school
5. Increased rates of walking to school decrease the likelihood of accidents as well as reducing levels of pollution round the school gate.
6. 1 in 5 cars in the morning rush hour is on the school run. If we encourage walking that journey, we will make a huge impact on congestion in our towns and cities.
We live 1.9 miles away from school, and so far have managed to walk most days, and sometimes home again, since we started this new year. So on some days, I’m walking nearly 8 miles. It’s a really great feeling, although it does eat into my working time. But I’m determined to carry on, as not only is it helping the boys with their concentration levels, it’s helping me too!
Influence and persuasion in storytelling through music
The method of digital storytelling that has shaped my PhD more than any other, is that of the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS). As you will see for yourself if you click on the link, personal digital stories created at CDS workshops include some form of music as part of the soundtrack. The form the music takes and the prominence in the movie is very individual to each story, but it usually always serves to heighten the emotional essence of the journey that the storyteller is taking us on. I often find I get completely lost in these stories, and have reflected on how much it is the music that’s been responsible for captivating me so deeply.
In the fourth part of the recent BBC documentary “The British Family“, I was very aware of an emotional mood to social arguments being reinforced by changing music. Now I am a big fan of the BBC and implicitly trust any documentary with their badge to convey well-balanced arguments. I also realise that it is bad practice to trust without question. And as Kirsty Young was taking us through a shift in paradigm regarding the place of children in the family in wider British society, I was very aware of a dark, melancholic and slightly discordant soundtrack giving way to something altogether more feel-good; Coldplay if memory serves correctly. As a viewer, I became caught up in the emotional sense that the place of children is so much “better” and “happier” these days*. It also became immediately apparent how the use of music in this case helped me to gloss over issues I might have with this notion and simply accept it.
As a researcher/ interested citizen of the world, of course, I can choose to read more widely about such issues, but what about the proportion of the population who don’t or can’t get onto Google after watching documentaries, or have limited access to verifiable literature? It’s just made me think about how music can heighten influence and persuasion in mass messages, as well as through campaign material that includes digital stories.
I’m not remotely suggesting that information delivered in The British Family documentary is at all misleading, instead I happened to watch it after I had been thinking about the role of music in Digital Storytelling methods. But in cases where we receive information that induces cognitive dissonance, i.e. where two or more pieces of information do not fit together, how do humans resolve this dissonance in decision-making? Festinger developed Cognitive Dissonance Theory in 1957, a well-studied theory in Social Psychology (Hogg & Vaughan, 1998). Hogg & Vaughan describe that “people will try to reduce dissonance by changing one or more of the inconsistent cognitions, by looking for additional evidence to bolster one side or the other” (p180). I wonder if the emotion associated with a musical soundtrack might act as such evidence in a decision-making process.
For several reasons, I have omitted adding a musical accompaniment to the audio tracks in my PhD case studies (primarily time and access to suitable copyright-free tracks). Actually, I think arguments from the participants have been well developed through scripting and reviewing, and fellow participants have shown to change opinions based on new perspectives in some cases, all without additional mood-enhancing music. I wonder now how much stronger an impact these stories might have had as they begin to travel further and reach more people had they incorporated music. I guess that would be another PhD….
Notes:
*I largely agree with the notion that society should be happier and will profit from children taking a far more central role in our family lives. However, placing their needs above my own is discordant with my desire to continue building a career in academia, and as a mother I struggle with this, as previous posts have discussed.
The British Family series is available on iPlayer until the 9th of March 2010. I really enjoyed watching all four episodes.
Reference:
Hogg, M. and Vaughan G. M., 1998 Social Psychology 2nd edition. Hemel Hemstead: Prentice Hall Europe
Empowerment of women at what cost?
I’ve never really taken much interest in feminist literature, mainly because I have always been very comfortable with my expectations from life and support of my family and friends. I’m very lucky that I have grown up in a liberal society and group of people where being female and having expectations beyond raising a family is just not an issue. Following in both of my Grandmothers’ footsteps; becoming full-time housewife once married, was never on my horizon.
At the CIRN Prato conference last month, Leopoldina Fortunati gave a keynote talk “De-constructing the notion of empowering”. She spoke, in part, of how the choices that women are able to freely make today about personal careers can deeply affect a mother’s relationship with her children. Of course, there is discourse in everything. And I can completely see, now that I am a mother, how aspiring towards a career can actually be a bad thing, when there is no willing partner to be available out of school hours. Because being a parent is a 24-7 job, you are never really off-duty. Even during school hours, there has to be an action plan for illness, or closure. Certainly wrap-around childcare is top of the list of priorities, and to pay for this service privately isn’t always economically viable.
As a student, the role of child carer falls to me, as with many mothers. Certainly the overwhelming majority of parents at school pick-up time are women. And I have even changed my mode of study to part-time for Thomas’ last year before starting school so that I can spend more time with him.
The problem comes when I want to travel. We live in North Yorkshire, in the countryside, there isn’t much in the way of f2f digital and social media academic research debate going on nearby. So I invariably need to travel far to get to conferences and seminars, and therefore eat into wrap-around childcare times. The upshot is I don’t go away too often, it’s too complicated to arrange. The onus is always on me to ensure that my absences are thoroughly planned projects.
And then there’s the guilt. Wondering what might go wrong, or not being there for a cuddle at the crucial moment. The effect of an absence does not stop at the moment of return either; I was away for 5 nights at the beginning of November in Prato and Thomas has only just started sleeping through the night again 3 nights ago.
I mentioned this deconstruction of empowerment from a mother’s perspective briefly on facebook after Prato, and had some interesting and lovely replies. I absolutely believe that my children will benefit in the long-run from having a mother who enjoys working and wants to engage with family life in a different way. But the frustration of feeling inadequate in both camps is tearing me apart, particularly as I start to feel some resentment that it is always difficult for me to go away.
On a happier note, I really love this photo. I decided not to work last Saturday afternoon, despite another paper being overdue. We went and chose a real tree this year for the first time in ages. James and I decorated it together. It was a great way to spend half an hour doing something together. Thomas was of course sitting on the floor breaking as many decorations as he could….. but that’s 3 year olds for you.
What is it with 3 year olds?
A 3 year old child does not understand time schedules and does certainly not understand the concept of rushing.
Why is it that when time is tight, they decide to assert their independence with ultimate authority? For example, when it’s time to collect my eldest from school, the youngest decides it’s time to play on the computer and will not, under any circumstances, put his shoes on without brute force. Or at school run time in the morning, he decides he really *needs* a second breakfast.
I’m sure this is all quite normal in the mind of a developing young person, just at the age when they are progressing from the warm embrace of a stay-at-home-mum or a child-minder to the structure of a state-imposed curriculum of a nursery. HOWEVER, for us working mothers, it does not help with the emotional state; feeling that we are really quite relived to be depositing our children into the care of someone else when really our little ones would probably learn just as much about the world if they accompanied us out into the real world of work.
I have to say that over the last week while I’ve been trying to spend time concentrating on paper amendments, my younger son has proved a massive distraction (biology at play no doubt) and made me question all manner of relationships. Where will this test of human spirit end..?
The hope of Copenhagen
Copenhagen is a beautiful city that I first had the chance to visit, and subsequently fell in love with, in Autumn 2008. The Danish spirit seems to be eminently sensible, open-minded and forward facing. My cousin married a Dane and is now happily living in Copenhagen, and I’m quite envious of their social situation as working parents of young children; the state makes their lives considerably easier than our equivalent in the UK.
And the gaze of the world’s media now focusses on Copenhagen with the UN Climate Summit less than 2 weeks away, my thoughts are drifting back towards social activism for the environment. I’ve just very recently been hearing about two very different cases, and in both thinking that digital storytelling would help spread the word. And I know that citizen journalism is not without problems, but what about the voices of the people who are affected in a very real way day to day by policy and decisions…
The first is the protests in 1993 of Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island when the British Columbia Government actioned the ‘Clayoquot Land Use Decision’ to permit mass logging of the temperate rainforest. The story I heard was from someone who was there; Aldo de Moor’s written notes and media collection offer that insight first hand. The Friends of Clayoquot Sound website shows one example of digital activism, and I guess facilitates making informed decisions on the part of the activists much easier. Sadly, the logging continues and battles are still being fought.
The other case I’ve been hearing about is a new, rural community development south of Copenhagen. The collaborative nature of the community and participatory design of a communal centre has been quite inspirational.
Digital storytelling can be such a powerful technique with the right mandate, and these types of project just inspire me to want to head off into the wider world and work. Back in the real world, I am starting to think about what I’d like to do after my PhD is over. Any work I do will undoubtedly remain in the realm of community informatics, but I wonder if environmental issues are going to play a more prominent part.
And now that Barak Obama is set to attend the UN Climate Summit, and both the USA and China are reviewing cuts in emissions, I feel perhaps the future of environmental campaigning might be slightly more positive.
UN Negotiator Dessima Williams reminds us why now is the time to act, and sums it up nicely when she says “We’re all on the road to Copenhagen” in this media clip.
Photo courtesy of Rob Warde, Flickr.com
Using Media for Social Change
Since I last blogged 3 months ago so many things have happened to help set me on a path for future work. I’ve been fortunate enough to have funding to attend attend a conference on Digital Storytelling, hosted by the Center for Digital Storytelling in partnership with the Luso-American foundation in Portugal, and a week long International School for Digital Transformation, also in Portugal. I have also started my community fieldwork case studies and completed my classroom based case studies.
In each of these, I have met some inspiration people who have helped me to see the world in a slightly different way. Rather than gazing with terror at how badly broken our social structures are, I can see the cracks and in some cases how issues are intertwined and form the cracks, but also tiny little bridges starting to appear over them.
This video was just tweeted by one of the inspirational faculty members I met at ISDT09, and it represents one of those bridges. “Playing for Change” shows how music crosses cultural boundaries so beautifully and how technology facilitates such collaborations. And it is a really enjoyable way of spending 5 minutes.
Opportunities to learn abroad
The last 2 weeks have bought absolute mayhem to my working day. In April, I submitted abstract to one conference and one international week-long school. I was informed over the bank holiday weekend that I had been accepted by both. The delight soon gave way to despair when I realised that finding funding to attend both would be a headache in itself; going through the laborious process of applying to the University to get permission to go is stuff that migraines are made of.
This week I have been particularly focusing on the International School on Digital Transformation to be held at the University of Porto, Portugal, as the deadline for payment is next Monday. There was tough competition to be awarded a place, and so there is a waiting list of potential candidates. So understandably, the organisers need to know yesterday who can go and will only accept full payment as confirmation.
So I have requested to put all of next year’s modest PhD budget towards it. The remainder I will have to either fund myself, or hope that the faculty can help. The difference will not be too much to prevent me going, UNLESS the flight nightmare does not improve. It seems that Porto is not on the well-trampled [flight] path for Brits, and Lisbon is a 3 hour train ride south.
Here’s the thing; traveling when you are the primary designated carer of children in a family becomes an issue straight away. Strained agreements to go away does not indicate a lack of support in career-building opportunities, it just always becomes so stressful to leave the children under whatever arrangements and they are usually unsettled for a couple of weeks afterwards.
So every day away is problematic, and therefore my trips have to center around flying on the day I start the conference/workshop and flying back the day I finish. This also constrain the number of airports I can fly from and to as travel time at this end is an issue.
When destinations aren’t well represented with direct flights, I have the added strain of extended travel durations with one or more airport transfers.
I have seen some suggested flights that are 20 hours long (2 transfers) that take in a night stop, and are costed at over £1,200. This is the extreme, but there are plenty of options with 2 stops and priced at £450+. So if I am topping up the cost of the trip, I’m still not 100% sure I’m going to be able to manage it, however much I want to go. hence spending far too much time scouring the net for a reasonable flight combination, whilst chasing the form signing back on campus. I don’t even get to book the flights, the decision is ultimately in the hands of the designated supplier of the University.
I’m just wondering how impolite it would be to phone the International Office back to find out if my application has been signed today. Just bearing in mind Monday’s deadline…
