This course is concerned with collecting, interpreting, editing, summarizing, and presenting visual and audio media.  Specifically:

• Collecting field data via still images, video, and/or audio
• Interpreting, editing, summarizing findings
• Creating multimedia narratives from these data
• Creating multimedia presentations (not necessarily from field data — e.g., prototype videos — but from the media that you have made and now need to compile into a short, effective presentation)

Visual and other media are central to professional practice and research in many fields. Because we are a media-literate society, with accessible hardware and software plus easy online distribution, it may seem that everyone knows how to make and critique such media. However, our knowledge about how to effectively make, use, and present these media trails far behind our ability to create hours and gigabytes of content. Anyone can make media but how to do it well? And what does it mean to do it well? 

We will address both theoretical and practical issues, drawing on photojournalism, visual narrative, visual anthropology, visual studies, and related areas.

Students will get hands-on experience creating and editing media using readily-available hardware and software.  Hardware may include smartphones, point-and-shoot cameras, and dSLRs.  Software may include entry-level (e.g., iPhoto, iMovie, Audacity), but we’ll also explore more powerful software (Lightroom; Photoshop; Final Cut; Premiere).  The class is not primarily technical.  We’ll focus on content, not tools, but we can’t make media without hardware and software.

We will reflect on media making and use with the help of theoreticians and scholars in relevant areas. We will also consider how accessible media production and presentation are changing professional and research practice.

This course is relevant to students in professional schools, and to doctoral students interested in qualitative research.   It is particularly suitable for people doing field work, using audio, video, and still images to record and summarize their work.  It is also useful for people making prototype videos and other media products.

No prior experience is necessary, but students already grappling with visual (and audio) media will find this course especially useful.  Students who already have experience in these areas should find much in this course that is useful.

The current syllabus is under development. It will be a revision of last year’s, which is here.