A Commonplace Art? Understanding Amateur Media Production

  • David Buckingham
Chapter

Abstract

Despite the growing popularity of amateur video-making, documented in Chapter 1, it has been generally neglected by academic researchers. While the widespread availability of video cameras is a relatively recent development, popular photography and amateur film-making have a much longer history; yet these too have largely fallen below the academic radar. This chapter considers previous work on these topics, and seeks to identify some of the broader questions at stake in understanding such popular representational practices. In the process, it looks beyond these visual media to other forms of artistic endeavour, as well as considering more general issues to do with amateurism, leisure, creativity and learning.

Keywords

Popular Musician Amateur Production Digital Storytelling Home Video Amateur Film 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Auchard, E. (2007) ‘Participation on Web 2.0 sites remains weak’. Reuters. 17 April 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1743638820070418 accessed 3 December 2007.
  2. Bakardjieva, M. (2006) ‘Domestication running wild: from the moral economy of a household to the mores of a culture’. In T. Berker, M. Hartmann, Y. Punie and K. Ward (eds) Domestication of Media and Technology. pp. 62–79. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
  3. Banaji, S., Burn, A. with Buckingham D., (2006) The Rhetorics of Creativity: A Review of the Literature. London: Arts Council of England.Google Scholar
  4. Barthes, R. (1984) Camera Lucida. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
  5. Becker, H. (1982) Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  6. Berker, T., Hartmann, M., Punie, Y. and Ward, K. (eds) (2006) Domestication of Media and Technology. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
  7. Berliner, P. (1994) Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Bourdieu, P., Boltanski, L., Castel, R., Chamboredon, J.-C. and Schnapper, D. (1990) Photography: A Middle-Brow Art. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
  9. Buckingham, D. (1993) ‘Re-reading audiences’. In D. Buckingham (ed.) Reading Audiences: Young People and the Media. pp. 202–18. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
  10. Buckingham, D. and Bragg, S. (2004) Young People, Sex and the Media: The Facts of Life? London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
  11. Buckingham, D. and Sefton-Green, J. (2003) ‘Gotta catch ‘em all: structure, agency and pedagogy in children’s media culture’. Media, Culture and Society. 25(3): 379–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Burgess, J. (2006) ‘Hearing ordinary voices: Cultural Studies, vernacular creativity and digital storytelling’. Continuum: Journal of Media and Culture Studies. 20(2): 201–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Burgess, J. (2007) Vernacular Creativity and New Media. PhD Thesis. Queensland University of Technology.Google Scholar
  14. Chalfen, R. (1987) Snapshot Versions of Life. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press.Google Scholar
  15. Citron, M. (1998) Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
  16. Clark, J. (2007) Big Dreams, Small Screens: Online Video for Public Knowledge and Action. Washington, D.C.: Center for Social Media, American University.Google Scholar
  17. Craft, A. (2000) Teaching Creativity: Philosophy and Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  18. Dovey, J. (2000) Freakshow: First Person Media and Factual Television. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
  19. Finnegan, R. (1989) The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  20. Finnegan, R. (1997) ‘Music, performance and enactment’. In H. Mackay (ed.) Consumption and Everyday Life. pp. 113–58. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  21. Foucault, M. (1979) The History of Sexuality, Volume1. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
  22. Gamson, J. (1999) Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
  23. Gee, J. P. (2004) Situated Learning and Literacy: A Critique of Traditional Schooling. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  24. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
  25. Green, L. (2002) How Popular Musicians Learn. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
  26. Haddon, L. (2004) Information and Communication Technologies in Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
  27. Hirsch, M. (1997) Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  28. Holland, P. (1991) ‘History, memory and the family album’. In J. Spence and P. Holland (eds) Family Snaps: The Meanings of Domestic Photography. pp. 1–14. London: Virago.Google Scholar
  29. Humm, P. (1998) ‘Real TV: camcorders, access and authenticity’. In C. Geraghty and D. Lusted (eds) The Television Studies Book. pp. 228–37. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
  30. Jameson, F. (1991) ‘Video: surrealism without the unconscious’. In Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. pp. 67–96. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
  31. Jenkins, H. (1992) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  32. Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
  33. Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A. J. and Weigel, M. (2007) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. MacArthur Foundation, http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org accessed 27 November 2007.Google Scholar
  34. Keen, A. (2007) The Cult of the Amateur. London: Nicholas Brealey.Google Scholar
  35. Kuhn, A. (1995) Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. London: Verso.Google Scholar
  36. Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Leadbeater, C. (2000) Living on Thin Air: The New Economy. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
  38. Leadbeater, C. and Miller, P. (2004) The Pro-Am Revolution. London: Demos.Google Scholar
  39. Lull, J. (1990) Inside Family Viewing. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  40. Martin, R. (1991) ‘Unwind the ties that bind’. In J. Spence and P. Holland (eds) Family Snaps: The Meanings of Domestic Photography. pp. 209–21. London: Virago.Google Scholar
  41. McLaughlin, T. (1996) Street Smarts and Critical Theory: Listening to the Vernacular. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
  42. Moran, J. (2002) There’s No Place Like Home Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
  43. Morley, D. (1986) Family Television. London: Comedia.Google Scholar
  44. Negus, K. and Pickering, M. (2004) Creativity, Communication and Cultural Value. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  45. Norris Nicholson, H. (1997) ‘In amateur hands: framing time and space in home-movies’. History Workshop Journal. 43: 198–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  46. Norris Nicholson, H. (2001) ‘Seeing how it was? Childhood geographies and memories in home movies’. Area. 33(2): 128–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. Norris Nicholson, H. (2004) ‘At home and abroad with cine-enthusiasts: regional amateur film-making and visualizing the Mediterranean ca. 1928–1962’. GeoJournal. 49(4): 323–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  48. Norris Nicholson, H. (2006) ‘Through the Balkan States: Home movies as travel texts and tourism histories in the Mediterranean, c. 1923–39’. Tourist Studies. 6(1): 13–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  49. Ouellette, L. (1995) ‘Camcorder dos and don’ts: popular discourses on amateur video and participatory television’. The Velvet Light Trap. 36: 33–44.Google Scholar
  50. Rose, G. (2003) Family photographs and domestic spacings: a case study. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 28(1): 5–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  51. Silverstone, R. and Hirsch, E. (eds) (1992) Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  52. Slater, D. (1991) ‘Consuming Kodak’. In J. Spence and P. Holland (eds) Family Snaps: The Meanings of Domestic Photography. pp. 49–59. London: Virago.Google Scholar
  53. Slater, D. (1995) Domestic photography and digital culture. In M. Lister (ed.) The Photographic Image in Digital Culture. pp. 129–46. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  54. Sontag, S. (1977) On Photography. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.Google Scholar
  55. Spence, J. (1986) Putting Myself in the Picture. London: Camden Press.Google Scholar
  56. Spence, J. (1991) ‘Shame-work: thoughts on family snaps and fractured identities’. In J. Spence and P. Holland (eds) Family Snaps: The Meanings of Domestic Photography. pp. 226–36. London: Virago.Google Scholar
  57. Stebbins, R. (1992) Amateurs, Professionals and Serious Leisure. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.Google Scholar
  58. Stebbins, R. (2004) Between Work and Leisure. New Brunswick. NI: Transaction.Google Scholar
  59. Stebbins, R. (2007) Serious Leisure. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Google Scholar
  60. Steedman, C. (1986) Landscape for a Good Woman. London: Virago.Google Scholar
  61. Stone, M. and Streible, D. (eds) (2003) Small-Gauge and Amateur Film. Special Issue of Film History: An International Journal. 15(2).Google Scholar
  62. van Dijck, J. (2005) ‘Capturing the family: home video in the age of digital reproduction’. In P. Pisters and W. Straat (eds) Shooting the Family: Transnational Media and Intercultural Values. pp. 25–40. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
  63. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  64. Williams, R. (1961) The Long Revolution. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
  65. Willis, P. (1990) Common Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Google Scholar
  66. Zimmerman, P. (1995) Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© David Buckingham 2009

Authors and Affiliations

  • David Buckingham

There are no affiliations available

Personalised recommendations