Verde Smoke

The advantages of participation, collaboration, and iteration shape the functionality of media tools like blogs, social networks, and user-created media sharing sites. At first glance, these tools should easily align with the stated values of many community and youth development organizations perched on edge of the digital divide in both the U.S. and abroad. The most critical growing disparity, thus, is not only access to these tools but also their integration into local programs that aim to empower individuals and build collective power.

By adapting Edgar Schein’s model of organizational culture, the author built a new methodology to investigate if facilitating the use of participatory media tools can also include a reflective realignment of program and curricular actions to core individual beliefs and organizational values.

Through reflective analysis of the author’s own practice, this thesis documents the evolution of a facilitation strategy to use participatory media training as a point of entry into community organizations. It argues that through collaborative and iterative reflection, an outside facilitator can: (1) foster individual voice and participation, (2) create critical moments to articulate and decipher an organization’s culture, and (3) challenge, and therefore transform, how an organization learns and adapts.

To develop this framework, this thesis relies on two core cases in Lawrence, MA and Bangalore, India, focusing on critical moments on a narrative timeline and analysis of like patterns of action. The outcome of this investigation is a discussion of how and why community practitioners should add this new dimension to their facilitation, to not only spark media storytelling and member activism but also to improve an organization’s internal practices.

Title: Participatory Media and Collaborative Facilitation:
Developing Tools for Aligning Values to Practice in Organizations

by Danielle Marie Martin

Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on August 13, 2009 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning

[full e-copy of the now completed thesis coming as soon as I can figure out how to compress the 208 page document with photos and diagrams down to a manageable size and chapter pullouts]