Book-chapter on the Media Map-Method published

Media Pedagogy Research Workshop: Projects – Theories – Methods

In my field research on The mobile phone in urban Kenyan everyday-life, I have developed a qualitative media research method that was used to collect empirical data from the field. A fully developed article on how the MediaMap exactly works as well as its theoretical and methodological framing has now been published as a book chapter:

Waltinger, Michael (2017): Die MediaMap – Eine explorative Forschungsmethode zur Entwicklung einer kontextualisierten Mediennutzungsperspektive. [The Media Map – An explorative method for researching media usage in context.] In: Knaus, Thomas (ed.): Forschungswerkstatt Medienpädagogik. Projekt – Theorie – Methode [Media Pedagogy Research Workshop: Projects – Theories – Methods.] . München: kopaed, pp. 253 – 286.

There is also an accompaniying micro-website on the MediaMap, containing a short description of the method as well as images of the development of the method, the research-setup and some examples of MediaMaps as produced by participants in my field research in Nairobi (Kenya): www.thinkbeyondborders.org/mediamap.

Field Research_basics seminar at Linnæus University (Växjö)

Linnéuniversitetet

Today, I had the great pleasure of holding a research seminar (högre seminarium) on the “Basics of Field Research” at the wonderful Linnæus University (Linnéuniversitetet), one of Sweden’s newest and very well equipped and beautiful higher education institutions (founded from a merger of the Kalmar and Växjö universities in 2010).

It was a great and inspiring seminar with fruitful discussion that I have enjoyed very much. I would like to also take this opportunity to once again thank the University for the invitation. I will gladly come back anytime.

The University is located in Växjö, which in itself is a very picturesque university town in Småland, Southern Sweden. Although todays seminar was not on the Sociology of Technology or Media Education, an engraving on one of the cities pavements reminds us:

“Vi sällskapa
för mycket
med maskinerna
och för lite med oss själva”
(Elisabeth Bergstrand-Poulsen)

Free translation:

We hang out
too much
with machines
and too little with ourselves.

sällskapa med maskinerna

Presentation of the MediaMap-research method on the 32nd GMK-Forum on “Communication Culture” in Cologne

KOMED_CologneKOMED-building in Cologne, Germany

I just got back from the really exciting and fruitful 32nd Forum on Communication Culture in Cologne (November 20th – 22nd 2015), which was on Communication cultures in digital worlds: concepts and strategies in media pedagogy and media education. The forum was hosted by the Society for Media Pedagogy and Communication Culture (GMK – Gesellschaft für Medienpädagogik und Kommunikationskultur).

Having been invited by Prof. Dr. Thomas Knaus (Scientific Director to the Frankfurt Research Center for Media Technology [FTzM]) to participate within his research workshop “Creative methods of researching digital communication cultures”, I had the great opportunity to discuss the “MediaMap”-research method that I developed in my ethnographic field research on the meanings of mobile phones in everyday life in urban Kenya (Nairobi).

A brief on the MediaMap-research method

The MediaMap

  • is an exploration of a qualitative media research-method that has developed from my ethnographic field research on the meanings of mobile phones in everyday life in urban Kenya (Nairobi)
  • it is a semi-structured, interactive combination of both an interview- and a mapping-method
  • it transcends the mere verbal level of interview-methods by adding a visual and a tactile layer
  • it aims for developing a holistic and contextualized understanding of media appropriation and media ecologies in their embedding in peoples everyday lives.

Below is a photograph of an example of a MediaMap as produced by a participant in my field research in Nairobi (Kenya):

example of a media map
© Michael Waltinger, 2014

A fully developed article on how the MediaMap exactly works as well as its theoretical and methodological framing will be published towards the end of 2016. If you are interested in the method or have any questions in the meantime, you are more than welcome to get in touch anytime.