Enter the world of Danielle Martin - a space bustling with ideas & projects exploring participatory media, youth activism, urban systems, and organizational culture.
Here is the final version of my master thesis submitted on August 11, 2009.
Chapter Pullouts:
1. Abstract & Prologue – Origins of My Question in Young Activist Network (512 KB, PDF)
2. Background – Mapping the Concepts and the Justification (512 KB, PDF)
3. Case Study 1 – YouthBuild, Lawrence (512 KB, PDF)
4. Case Study 2 – Drishya, Bangalore (512 KB, PDF)
6. Analysis – Finding Balance and a Facilitation Strategy (1 MB, PDF)
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]
(Give it a sec to download all the fun media files before you begin by clicking the arrows. OR view it full screen on http://prezi.com).
Also, download the handout/outline.
See copies of diagrams, timeline, charts, etc on Flickr
See higher resolution versions of the embedded videos here:
YouthBuild Lawrence
Keep Lawrence Clean commercial
YouthBuild Lawerence
Making Photo Map
Drishya Bangalore
Transmedia storytelling (puppetry) slideshow
Drishya Bangalore
Top Story (transmedia puppetry performance, June 2008)
Primary Question:
How can participatory media tools be used to build the capacity of community organizations to support member activism and collaboration?
Summary:
Through reflective analysis of four cases, I will document the evolution of my facilitative techniques to integrate new media tools into organizations through the empowerment of their constituency to create their own media. Using an adaptation of the Schein’s organizational cognitive transformation model, I will demonstrate that my facilitation also included a reflective realignment of actions and espoused values back to core shared assumptions about participation. Based on this framework, I will analyze and compare my facilitation approach in each case, focusing on my response to constraining forces and ability to capitalize on opportunities. The purpose of this thesis is to document both how and why I add this new layer to my facilitation: to not only spark participatory media storytelling and member activism but also to guide an organization’s practice to become more member-led.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctcvistaqueen/sets/72157618420417362
Primary Question:
How can participatory media tools be used to build the capacity of organizations to support member activism, collaboration, and leadership?
Analysis:
Through reflective analysis of several personal cases, I will document my efforts as a facilitator to not only use my intervention as a catalyst for the introduction of new media tools but also herald a reflective realignment of espoused values to shared assumptions. This reflection has the potential to guide an organization’s practice toward becoming more member-led. The common denominators in these cases are the espoused values of the organizations and the key players, the steps I took to connect them to the core shared assumptions, AND the methods I then adopted over time to deal with the constraining forces and capitalize on unique opportunities of each situation.
Justification:
The end goal of these facilitative processes is not only a constituency that is empowered to tell and share stories through media, but also to use these skills they learn using participatory media tools to work collaboratively to lead and manage programs.
I create media because not only to express my voice, but also to join communities. The participatory media tools I use, such as online social networks and make-your-own video games, are fueled by the principles of collaboration, personal creation, iteration, accessibility, and sustainability.
When I’m asked to teach other how to use these tools, I try to form collaborative spaces focused on both self-expression and collective gain. In my ideal community, both of these values would be at the center. Upon reflection, I’ve realized that my actions as a creator and facilitator are often compelled by the tension I feel when this ideal isn’t the reality.
After some time working on the ground in non-profit organizations, I’ve realized that youth development organizations especially share the same values and also experience many of the same tensions. The immediate need for stability sometimes makes it hard for an organization to align their shared assumptions and espoused values to actions. The ideals they express become misaligned from everyday practice. Any new tools that align with the values but not the actions can feel threatening or burdensome. So unlike my own experience with new participatory media tools, youth organizations can perceive them as one-off projects that aren’t sustainable or an insurmountable challenge to integrate as an everyday tool.
I began to understand this tension was an opportunity. As a nomadic facilitator, I could bring new technical tools and skills, but also a community building mindset focused on understanding values and ideals. I soon discovered that a real space for knowledge generation grew out of collaborative interactions with my peer practitioners and media experts.
So I approached two particular organizations in Lawrence and Bangalore, looking for not only need and perhaps misalignment, and at least a hope for media as a tool for change. In the context of writing my master thesis, I decided the output of my actions wouldn’t just be media content or new youth social networks, but also a personal articulated set of facilitation methods to negotiate an organization’s cultural tensions and collaborative reassess alignment of actions to shared values.
Presentation of my thesis problem statement as a set of visual diagrams, in writing seminar last week.
[Please send comments!]
Values identify those objects, conditions or characteristics that an organization considers important and uses as guide for action. On the surface, the values that fuel the design and use of participatory media tools are the same as the values stated in most youth development organization’s vision statements. Specifically, these values include collaboration, personal creation, iteration, accessibility, and sustainability.
In both my professional and academic experience, I have observed that the everyday practice of these organizations sometimes don’t reflect these values. In the face of the high levels of uncertainty characterized by marginalized communities and funder requirements, the practice of these organizations can be controlled, top down, and evaluated on quantitative test scores or attendance statistics, and not qualitative review of youth participatory behaviors.
If the everyday practice of the organizations better reflected their stated values, the tools would be much more useful, valuable, and sustainable tool for both the staff and youth. So any facilitation that aims to incorporate of these tool into everyday youth development practice has to also go all the way back to the alignment of values as well as imparting technical skills.
I often struggle with my decision to be a proponent of participatory media in the community-organizing field. There often seems to be bigger fish to fry or easier ways to get stories out there. When I was in Bangalore, I stumbled upon some great research on a UNESCO sponsored community media program called Finding A Voice. Their final project report exactly shared some of my hesitation to focus on training people to make their own media, especially in the face of hunger and economic poverty. Their tack was to admit right from the start that teaching disadvantaged people how to make community radio or video shows wouldn’t immediately get them jobs or put rice in their mouths. But Jo Tacchi and others assert that lack of voice is a dimension of poverty that can’t be easily ignored or fixed with short-term development projects. Then one interesting quote stuck out of a reading I just did for Paul Osterman’s Urban Labor Markets and Employment Policy class: “…it also appears fruitful for research on poverty and inequality to consider the distribution of power in society, and especially, to ask to what extent the interests of the less privileged citizens are articulated and effectively represented in the processes. (Korpi 1980)” If we listen to the predictions of media academics and geeks alike that the Internet is going to become a valid (and maybe the only) civic forum, then I want to help get EVERYBODY up to speed on how to participate in it. If people believe in power of YouTube more than they do in power of their vote, then there’s leverage in having the skills to construct and distribute their own messages in this new medium. Consuming then morphs into production and usage and voice doesn’t get lost in the layers of third-party editing or political representation.
[This is paragraph #1 of a five paragraphs about my thesis assignment for Cherie Abbanat's Advanced Writing Seminar and a response to Alexa’s question: “Do you ever think we're just barking up the wrong tree? That participatory media isn't the thing? That people generally prefer to consume?”]
Barring a snow cancellation, I’m slotted to present my research tonight at the Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group.
My presentation is loosely called “participatory media for youth and community development” because I’m combining my thesis research with the group documentary project we’ve started for MIT@Lawrence and the data collection I’ve been doing for the spring DUSP practicum class, “11.423 Information, Asset-building, and the Immigrant City.”
Instagram Photos Links