Media For Deaf Youth Project By Macquarie University 2008-2009 to 2009

Participatory Media and Deaf People:
Using digital storytelling to identify multimedia use and accessibility
In 2008-2009, some researchers from Macquarie University, in partnership with the Deaf Education Network, are doing research on young Deaf peoples use of new media. We are writing to let you know what we are hoping to do with this piece of research, why we are doing it and what we will do with any information you decide to give us. This should help you decide whether you or your child would like to participate or not.

The aims of the project:
We plan to share the conclusions from this research with the Deaf community and with academics in Deaf studies and media studies in other universities. We hope the project will:
•help us better understand the effective ways of teaching Deaf young people about new media
•help shape government policy on Deaf peoples access to the new media

To achieve this we would like to find out:
•How young Deaf people use new digital media like blogs or Youtube
•If there are any barriers to Deaf people having equal access to these new media
•Can looking at the movies or webpages made by young Deaf people be helpful in understanding how young people use the new media

What we are hoping to do
The first part of our research will come out of a short course on digital media that we will be running at Macquarie University in January. We have invited Deaf young people who are currently at high school if they would like to come along to the course. The course will give young people a chance to work in groups to make movies and design web pages.
We will also be talking to young people about the things they already do with the new media. We will be videoing what happens in the class so we can record what the young people say about the way they use the media, and see how they use computers, video and other media.
After the course is finished we hope to interview the young people who took part. We will them to tell us more about the movies and webpages they made. We will also be asking other people in the Deaf community, including parents and teachers, about the way they think young Deaf people use computers and new media. We hope to video record these interviews so we have a record of what people say for our research.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Deaf
• Youth
• Multimedia