The Potential of Digital Storytelling as an Ethnographic Research Technique in Social Sciences

The dominant epistemology of science in “trying to know” by certain question patterns and certain techniques is that, while it regards a number of fields and experiences as insignificant and far from being scientific, it does not have need to know them as well. As Law stated in his book After Method: Mess in Social Research , there is:

This argument holds that it is not possible to proceed with a science that assumes objectivity purified from value, surrenders its scientific manners to researches at the rate of their being repeatable by others, deems uniqueness worthless and is in pursuit of universal realities. Therefore, there are valuable objections not only towards the positivistic understanding of science, but also towards the positivistic viewpoint of social sciences. One of the strongest critiques comes from Cultural Studies which finds it valuable to be curious about, to discuss and ask questions about daily life, race, popular culture, and gender and women’s studies. These approaches further define the boundaries of science with one of feminism’s most important discourses: “The personal is political” (Hanisch, 1970), Which opens personal experiences and private issues to discussion in the context of political analysis. It can be said that all these new research fields stemmed from the need to ask new questions. It seems to me that the need of science for new perspectives, vision and a different mode of knowledge can possibly be met by the answers generated from these objections that I mentioned above. With the increase and diversification of the issues that we can investigate in social sciences, it has become more important to discuss the adequacy of current research techniques. Even though ethnographic techniques allow us to ask questions about the experiences, perceptions and the meaning systems of subjects, these techniques need to be criticised in terms of three aspects:

The first question is one of the vital issues about ethnographic research techniques, because this is the point where we can see the shadow of positivist understanding of science having fallen upon ethnographic techniques. According to the positivistic viewpoint, a research is a structure that comprises separable stages. In other words, there are questions that can be asked to build up the research object (as the first stage), there are some techniques to collect data (as the second stage), there are some criteria to interpret the data (as the third stage). Research is the sum of these separable stages. Unfortunately, it is possible to see that ethnographic researches have almost the same separable stages. In this separable structure, the researcher and the subjects come together just at the second stage, while the data is being collected. But the researcher is alone at the other two stages, when the research object is built up and the data is interpreted. According to this separable structure, a researcher is a person able to know which questions she/he will ask and to interpret the responses. This structure has defined the hierarchical positions of the researcher and the subjects in the beginning of the research and this approach, as Wolf has stated, “entails and encourages distance and non-involvement between the researcher and researched and assumes that the researcher may objectively see, judge and interpret the life and meanings of his/her subjects” (1996: 4). An approach of conducting science with a dominant understanding of hierarchy, which is established on the duality of the researcher/researched, deserves some criticisms.

When we (all participants and facilitators of the workshop) discussed the hierarchical positions of the researcher and the subjects, in the digital storytelling workshop entitled When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women , it turned out that we had designed our field research along this separable structure. So, there was a problem. Because in our field research, all of us, as both facilitators and participants of the workshop, had experienced similar difficulties in trying to interpret the data; in other words, in trying to tell the stories of the subjects in the context of the collected data. For example, Feride, one of the participants of the workshop told her story, as follows:

I experienced a similar difficulty. The subjects had remained in the field and I had to interpret the data alone. My field research took five months in Gaziantep and we spent a lot of time with the subjects. Yet, after the fieldwork, when I turned back home and began to interpret the data, I realised that there was something that I could not understand clearly enough. I felt as Feride did. There are a lot of experiences like these. For a dialogic research process that enables subjects to participate in the research from beginning to end, we need to design the research as an integrated process rather than separable. Therefore, with such an integrated process, the researcher may not feel alone while interpreting the data; as well, the contribution of the subjects to the research may be increased.

To include the subjects in the process of interpreting data, as Atay (1995) has explained in his article on the dialogical research process, reduces the power of the researcher’s initiative in interpreting and publishing the data. This point brings us to the second question: Are these techniques sufficient in effacement of the hierarchical power relationship between the researcher and the subjects?

The power relationship between researcher and subjects constitutes one of the most sensitive discussion topics concerning method and techniques. Such a relationship is grounded in a dualistic viewpoint and as Hekman has stated dualisms always imply hierarchies and hierarchies always imply control (Bleier, 1984: 164; Haraways, 1978: 36; cited in Hekman, 1990: 121). The ability to decide to begin and end the research, which is under the initiative of the researcher, constructs a relationship based on hierarchy. This relationship is of great importance as it has a determining effect on the research process. Wolf points out 3 interrelated dimensions of power:

What is the meaning of “the hierarchical power relationship between the researcher and the subjects”? In the context of this article’s discussion, it would be better to define where the power relationship is, rather than what it is. Thus, I would like to mention the last two dimensions that Wolf points out.

During field research, an in-depth interview technique gives the power to ask questions almost solely to the researcher. In other words, the precedence to ask questions frequently causes the researcher to establish power over the subjects. On the other hand, this situation of the researcher may cause them to be perceived as an authority on the issue by the subjects. “In cases where the participants perceive the researcher as an authority or an expert, they can hesitate to explain their views or thoughts with the fear of giving inaccurate, incomplete and insufficient information” (Kümbetoğlu, 2011: 487).

Translation: Hatice Şule Oğuz.

Such a perception, as Kümbetoğlu has stated, may have an effect of increasing the distance between the researcher and the subjects. Therefore it would be better to support the research with a participant observation technique. But the data that are produced by participant observation and in-depth interview techniques may be incompatible. The former depends mainly on the perceptions of the researcher, and the latter may lead the subjects to feel uncomfortable when telling their stories. In some examples, especially in research with groups that can be defined as disadvantaged in different ways, like prostitutes, disabled people, criminals, refugees, etc., perceiving the researcher as an authority can lead to the rejection of interviews. I faced a similar situation in the fieldwork for my dissertation. Some asylum seekers refused to do an interview with me. The subjects who refused to be interviewed gave as a reason that I came from Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. When I said, “I come from Ankara”, it was reminiscent of the State as the biggest authority. This single sentence created a definable power relationship between the subjects and me. The hierarchical relationship between us was obviously there even if I absolutely did not desire it to be. They assumed that I was a part of the biggest authority on the migrant issue, in other words, a part of the State.

Another aspect of the power relationship emerges when the data are interpreted. With current techniques of the ethnographic research, such as participant observation, informal interview and in-depth interview, a researcher can collect voice data by voice recorder, visual data by taking photos, and videos and script data of her/his observations by keeping a field diary. All these records build up the main parts of a story; but not the story itself. They reflect the perceptions and inferences of the researcher about the story. It is certain that all these perceptions and inferences rest on a scientific basis, yet the problem is, who interprets the data; both the researcher and the subjects or just the researcher her/himself?

This question is important because, as Kümbetoğlu has stated, “[p]eople, always, remember and quote their narrations with many other things going on together. How a researcher conceptualises this complicated social reality and depicts the world of the participant, is directly related with the theoretical orientation of the researcher” (Kümbetoğlu, 2011: 485).

Translation: Hatice Şule Oğuz.

The researcher redirects not only the data but also the subjects and the process of the field research. In the context of this assertion, I would like to discuss the third question concerning the sufficiency of the current ethnographic research techniques to represent the experiences, perceptions and meaning systems of the subjects.

Redirection is one of the central matters that has a significant effect in how a researcher represents the voices of the subjects. In the social sciences, the preferred technique for including the voice of the person under research is the in-depth interview. As Patton has stated, the in-depth interview technique provides the researcher with an opportunity to come into other people’s lives and understand their viewpoint. In order to understand how people arrange the world and how people give meaning to what is happening in the world we have to ask questions (1987: 109). However, even though it has been designed as semi-structured, the in-depth interview technique cannot escape from the redirection of the researcher as it starts out with the questions. Because of this redirection, the subjects may try to understand the expectations of the researcher, rather than telling of their own experiences. In my field research on asylum seekers’ daily lives, some of the subjects told me that they were worried about the questions; they were afraid they might not know the answers.

To summarise, the researcher’s redirection may affect not only the interpretation but also the production process of the data. Therefore, with current ethnographic research techniques, we can only talk about a representation of what the researcher understands about the experiences and meaning systems of the subjects. To reduce the power and redirection of the researcher, and to establish a mutual trust relationship, we can conduct dialogical research. At this point, it is reasonable to ask whether conducting a dialogical research process depends on the competence of the researcher, or the ethnographic research techniques. Certainly both of them are important, but it seems that to conduct dialogical research with current ethnographic research techniques depends more on the competence of the researcher than on the techniques.

In this article it is not claimed that it is possible to construct dialogical ethnographic research process just by using the digital storytelling workshop form. But I do claim that this form can contribute to the construction of a dialogical ethnographic research process.

Now, then, I want to discuss what the digital storytelling workshop form is; and then why I offer this form as an ethnographic research technique.

“Digital storytelling is a workshop-based practice in which people are taught to use digital media to create short audio-video stories, usually about their own lives. The idea is that this puts universal human delight in narrative and self-expression into the hands of everyone” (Hartley and McWilliam, 2009: 3). Digital storytelling does not require professional technical competence in order that the digital storyteller to be able to produce her or his own story. During a workshop, participants and facilitators use certain software for voice recording, visual material editing and combining voice and visuals to form a story. These “technical and media artefacts are relatively easy to access; anybody can become the author of a digital story and distribute it over the internet” (Helff and Julie, 2009: 134).

In their stories, participants use visuals (photography from their albums, drawings, videos or any visual that they produce or find) and self-expression skills to tell of their unique experiences. So, it can be said that the stories of the participants include ethnographic data. For example, in the stories of the workshop entitled When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women , it turned out that we had to face fears in the field due to being women. It was not one of the topics of the workshop; it appeared in our stories spontaneously. We realised it after we saw each other’s stories. This is not the only reason to offer the use of the digital storytelling workshop as an ethnographic research technique. The workshop process itself can also be used as a technique of ethnographic research.

We (the facilitator team) conducted this workshop as an ethnographic research that focused on understanding the field research experience of the participants, who met the digital storytelling workshop form for the first time but have had field research experience. In other words, young academic women participated in this workshop as subjects who told of their own field research experiences. Hence, the facilitators were researchers and the participants were the subjects, at the same time.

A digital storytelling workshop consists of six co-creating stages, which Şimşek explains as follows:

In digital storytelling workshops, beginning with a story circle produced around a concept, rather than beginning with direct or indirect questions, minimises the redirection and eliminates the power of the researcher as much as possible. Before discussing how this is managed, it will be better to define what the story circle is:

At the story circle stage, the question that the facilitators ask the participants – “[w]hat is the story you want to tell?” (Lambert, 2013: 54) – may reduce the power of the researcher and strengthen the participation of the participants in the research process. In other words, using digital storytelling workshops as a research technique may allow appropriation of the research process by both the researcher and the subjects. But it is certain that this is not the first time that such open-ended questions are used. For example, in oral history studies, semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups also apply open-ended questions. However, the dialogue between the researcher and the subjects that depend on questions and answers does not change; in other words, it is evident who asks and who responds to the questions. On the other hand, in the story circle stage of the digital story workshop, after the first question the dialogue turns into an everyday conversation. At this point, it is necessary to emphasise that one of the physical structure features of the story circle is that “the participants and facilitators sit in a circle.

This sitting position gives the first message about the non-hierarchical nature of the digital storytelling workshop” (Şimşek, 2012: 62), and all the participants have an equal right to speak. Such a relationship may eliminate the researcher/researched duality and define everyone in the workshop as subjects who produce the knowledge together. The researcher also shares her/his own story with the other participants as everyone in the story circle creates her/his own digital story by cooperating with the other participants during the workshop process. At this point, it is clear that “[t]he Digital Storytelling workshops are dialogic rather than being didactic” (Şimşek, 2012: 53). So that, in defining the relationship between facilitators (/researchers) and participants (/subjects), it is more realistic to talk about interaction rather than redirection.

Dialogue provides one of the strongest aspects of digital storytelling workshops as an ethnographic research technique, owing to the fact that it can overcome the difficulty of establishing mutual trust between the researcher and the subjects. From the very start, for the researcher to be telling, sharing and producing his/her own story under the same roof and conditions as the subjects of the research, renders the digital storytelling workshop as a more promising research technique than other techniques in enabling the trust relationship which is desired to be created. Nevertheless, such a cooperative production process allows the researcher and the subjects to experience something about the research, together. And such an experience may also help to establish a trust relationship. The trust relationship was one of the big topics of the workshop, entitled When I was in the Field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women . Some of the participants expressed their thoughts about this issue by referring to their own experiences of field research and the workshop, as follows:

Cooperating in producing knowledge significantly diminishes ethical concerns. But, because the benefit gained from the research is unilateral, it creates another ethical problem for which a solution must be found. We have to discuss the solutions self-reflectively. In the beginning we have to ask some questions of ourselves, as Selek has stated:

The digital storytelling workshop form can contribute to overcoming this problem by including the participants in the construction process of the research object, starting from the story circle stage. Thus, subjects (both participants and facilitators) can share the initiative on what is to be emphasised regarding the research issue. In addition, for the participants to have completed digital stories of their own and to hold the rights of use and to move at the end of the workshop, increases the visibility of participants in the research, thus to a great extent saving the benefit gained from being unilateral.

Using ethnographic research techniques such as participating, observation, informal and in-depth interviews can supply only a representation or translation of the subjects’ voices. Writing up someone’s experiences and meanings inevitably causes this representation/ translation. However, at the same time it diminishes the voice – and also visibility – of the subjects of the field within the research. But, if we can include the voice of the subjects, in other words, if we can directly use the stories of the participants in the research, this allows the subjects to represent themselves. At this juncture, one of the strongest aspects of digital storytelling emerges: the opportunity for the participants to tell of their unique experience using their own voices, instead of going through a researcher’s representation. As distinct from ethnographic research techniques such as participating observation and in depth interview techniques, “[i]n digital stories, voice not only tells a vital narrative but it also captures the essence of the narrator, their unique character, and their connection to the lived experience” (Lambert, 2013: 63).

The opportunity of self-representation that is provided by the digital storytelling workshop becomes important especially for disadvantaged groups, such as LGBT, minorities, refugees, poor, prostitutes etc., who do not have the opportunity to represent themselves in the mainstream media, where they may be exposed to discrimination or have prejudices expressed against them. Self-representation is not the only reason for increased visibility; the other is the circulation capability of digital stories through a variety of media. “In addition to face-to-face in-group and public screenings, the circulation of digital stories through a website dedicated to Digital Storytelling projects, or through social networks such as Facebook and YouTube, can be an effective way of sharing digital stories with wider audiences” (Şimşek, 2012: 203). Contrary to research held with current ethnographic techniques, which keep the experiences of the subjects in dissertations, articles or books, this sharing capability of digital storytelling increases the visibility of the unique stories of the subjects.

As a result, it can be claimed that the digital storytelling workshop – as an additional ethnographic research technique – possesses a strong potential that may help to strengthen some of the weaknesses of ethnographic research. When we gathered in the workshop, entitled When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women to discuss this potential, two issues were especially emphasised:

On the other hand, it has been emphasised that there were some difficulties that must be overcome. First of all, all participants asked the same question: While working with groups which we can define as disadvantaged such as migrants, prostitutes or minorities, although rendering their experiences visible through their own voices is a potential that the digital storytelling workshop should take into consideration, can this also turn into a problem (handicap) while working with participants who are illiterate or who have never used a computer before? If I were to provide an answer depending on our workshop experiences that we have gained under similar conditions, I can state that many difficulties that the story production process may involve can be overcome through the interactive and sharing relationship established in the workshops between the facilitators and participants.

For the workshops that we have conducted within Hacettepe University Faculty of Communication, Digital Storytelling Workshop, see: http://vimeo.com/dijitalhikayeler.

The other problem expressed by the participants was related to the financing of the research. In order for a researcher to be able to evaluate the potential of the digital storytelling workshop as a research technique, she/he should be provided with the necessary technical equipment as well as the necessary training for being a workshop facilitator. However, one of the participants, Nihal, had a suggestion to overcome this problem:

To summarise, there are some difficulties in putting the potential of digital storytelling workshops into practice, but also it can be regarded as an ethnographic research technique in social sciences in which the components of the digital stories and the workshop processes – that I mentioned above – are taken into consideration. Yet, the digital storytelling workshop form is certainly not a magic wand; putting this potential into practice depends on how the researcher and the subjects experience the workshop process.