POV: Point of View... Consumers and Ethnographers in Perspective...

This film, presented at the 2009 ACR film festival, is based on a female ethnographers research exploring young Scottish men's consumption practices. It shows how applications of mobile phones helped overcome some of the challenges the ethnographer faced in the field to generate data in a less obtrusive way. It also describes consumers own use of mobile phones to record their experiences, legitimising and authenticating their masculinity. This emphasised the importance of consumer experiences for constructing gender identities through culturally situated consumption. We suggest that the role of mobile phones advances the researchers capability for reflexivity and creates a richer understanding of consumers points of view.

The applications of a mobile phone may also be of help for other ethnographers, especially videographers. It opens further possibilities for exchanging film and photographic data with informants, linking data to social networking sites and also has the potential for filming full videographies.

Wendy Hein, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom*
Annmarie Ryan, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Robert Corrigan, Limerick Institute of Technology, Republic of Ireland

Category:

Education

Tags:

• acr
• consumer videography
• Wendy Hein
• Annmarie Ryan
• Robert Corrigan