Studies of Video Practices

Video at Work

Mathias Broth, Eric Laurier, Lorenza Mondada

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317916482
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Film & Video
• Index: Social Sciences

The last two decades have seen a rapid increase in the production and consumption of video by both professionals and amateurs. The near ubiquity of devices with video cameras and the rise of sites like YouTube have lead to the growth and transformation of the practices of producing, circulating, and viewing video, whether it be in households, workplaces, or research laboratories.

This volume builds a foundation for studies of activities based in and around video production and consumption. It contributes to the interdisciplinary field of visual methodology, investigating how video functions as a resource for a variety of actors and professions.

Part I
Shooting

1
Shooting as a Research Activity

The Embodied Production of Video Data

Lorenza Mondada (University of Basel)

1. Introduction

Video recordings are being increasingly and extensively exploited for research within various disciplines of the social sciences (for an historical sketch, see Mondada, in press a). However, their use is far from homogeneous. Video is used either as raw scientific data or as edited film for popularizing and presenting scientific results. In the former case, which is considered here, it can record semiexperimental tasks given to the participants. It can also record interviews and other elicited discourses, as well as naturalistic recordings of social actions and events (De Stefani, 2007; Erickson, 1982; Goldman, Pea, Barron, & Derry, 2007; Knoblauch, Schnettler, Raab, & Soeffner, 2006; Knoblauch, Baer, Laurier, Petschke, & Schnettler, 2006, 2008; Ruby, 2000). In all these cases, video data are produced in heterogeneous ways, implementing different analytical mentalities and epistemological positions.

In this chapter, I focus on a specific use of video for gathering data, characteristic of ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA). The specificity of this use consists of documenting naturally occurring social interactions (Mondada, 2006, 2012a): EMCA is interested in the endogenous organization of social activities in their ordinary settings; it considers social interaction as collectively organized by coparticipants, in a locally situated way, achieved incrementally through its temporal and sequential unfolding, achieved moreover by mobilizing a large range of vocal, verbal, visual, and embodied resources, which are publicly displayed and monitored in situ. The analysis of these features insists on their indexicality, contingency, and dynamic emergence, all of which have consequences for the way in which data are collected. The importance of audio and video recordings within EMCA emerges from these analytical demands: EMCA insists upon the study of naturally occurring activities as they ordinarily unfold in social settings and consequently on the necessity of recording actual situated activities for a detailed analysis of their relevant endogenous order.

Within EMCA, as elsewhere, video for research is discussed either in methodological texts, generally in prescriptive and normative ways (in terms of do’s and don’ts) (Goodwin, 1993; Heath & Hindmarsh, 2002; Heath, Hindmarsh. & Luff, 2010), or in sections presenting the data studied, generally in a post hoc short reconstruction or an ethnographic storytelling of what has been made (as well as in the metadata describing the corpus). Thus, the production of video data has been predominantly treated as a resource for research and seldom as a topic of research. Even if some chapters integrate the camera movements in the analysis of social action (Broth & Lundström, 2013; Mondada, in press b; Büscher, 2005) or deal with the effect of the camera and cameraperson on the recorded settings (Heath, 1986; Laurier & Philo, 2006; Lomax & Casey, 1998), they rely on the reconstruction of how video has been shot, based on the actual video data, and not on a direct documentation of the shot. So the way in which video data are actually produced through the situated and embodied practices of the researcher remains an unstudied topic. While the use of video data in research is increasingly exponentially, the video documentation of the video practices that generate that data is almost inexistent.

This chapter aims at opening up the black box of research video practices and at offering a first account of some fundamental systematic procedures through which meaningful and scientifically usable data are manufactured in a locally situated way. It shows that filming relies on a protoanalytic gaze and constitutes a case of “professional vision” (Goodwin, 1994), as well as an embodied exercise of inquiry within a “praxeology of seeing with a camera” (Macbeth, 1999: 152; cf. Büscher, 2005; Mondada, 2006), orienting in real time to the locally emergent, relevant organizational features of social action. In this sense, the chapter aims both at treating video scientific practices as another social practices for study and at analyzing them in order to make a specific contribution to the social studies of science (Lynch, 1993).

2. Documenting Mobile Camerawork

To uncover the fundamental aspects of the “grammar” of video-making practices, this chapter explores an exemplary use of the camera: filming social action with a mobile camera. Although traditionally most of the work done in EMCA with video data has been realized with fixed cameras, the use of mobile cameras is more revealing of the challenges of documenting in vivo naturally occurring social activities.

The use of fixed cameras—most often placed on tripods or other clamps— has been privileged within EMCA for two reasons. On the one hand, it is the best way to record static activities, such as family dinners or work meetings, which have been largely favoured over mobile activities. On the other hand, it is also a solution for carefully choosing a global frame that consistently captures the entire participation framework, avoiding irrelevant camera panning and zooming, which run the risk of missing or excluding relevant details. Fixed cameras rely on a preliminary protoanalysis of the activity to be documented, often produced during ethnographic fieldwork, aimed at choosing the moment and perspective to be recorded. This protoanalysis concerns the participants, the interactional space, and the temporal boundaries of the event to be recorded—the aim being to preserve the participation framework, the relevant ecology of action, and the entire duration of the event (Heath, Hindmarsh, & Luff, 2010; Mondada, 2006, 2012a). This protoanalysis is then implemented in the choice of the number of cameras and microphones to use, their location and direction, the camera angles, field size and focus, and so on. Turning fixed camera use into a topic of research (although not the focus here) is possible, such as by video-recording discussions about the video device to adopt, its installation, the negotiations with the participants concerning the best location of the cameras, and other activities.

The use of mobile cameras is almost inescapable for recording mobile actions (for instance. walking across large environments) and has been increasingly discussed within the “mobile turn” of EMCA and the social sciences (Büscher, Urry, & Witchger, 2010; Haddington, Mondada, & Nevile, 2013; McIlvenny, Broth, & Haddington, 2009). This way of filming, as noted earlier, relies on a protoanalysis of what is happening—which has to be implemented immediately by the embodied movements of the cameraperson. Contrary to staged scenes—for example, in the movie industry where they have been carefully planned and prepared and can be played again if the shot is not good enough—naturalistic activities happen only once and can be documented only in real time, through camerawork relying on improvisation. This implies a constant adjustment to the movements of the participants and, more particularly, an online analysis of the changing participation framework, the dynamic interactional space, the sequential organization of embodied actions, and the observability of their relevant multimodal details. Thus, the mobile camera constantly both anticipates and follows key sequential features of the interaction being recorded.

This chapter studies the use of the mobile camera in a corpus of guided visits: it considers this activity type as a mobile event that raises, in exemplary ways, practical problems for the researcher documenting it.

3. Manoeuvring a Mobile Camera in Guided Visits

Guided visits are a perspicuous setting (Garfinkel & Wieder, 1992) for the study of mobility in social interaction involving the entire body in motion. Guided visits (Birkner & Stukenbrock, 2010; Broth & Lundström, 2013; De Stefani, 2010; Mondada, 2012b, 2012c) involve participants walking together from one point to the other, thus being an exemplary kind of situation for the study of mobile interactions. They involve the guide pointing out details of the environment to the participants, making it an exemplary type of activity for the study of instructed perception and join...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introducing Video at Work
• PART I Shooting
• PART II Showing
• PART III Assembling
• Contributors
• Index