David Gauntlett

Creative and visual methods for exploring identities

There seems to be a growing interest in Europe in the use of visual methodologies within social research – studies in which participants are asked to make creative artefacts within the research process. Although readers of Visual Studies will already be familiar with techniques such as photo‐elicitation, the use of video, drawing, collage, Lego and other methods remains somewhat new. At conferences we find that people are interested to hear about this work, but are also puzzled about various issues, such as how researchers can use and interpret such visual artefacts. After a train journey in which we talked through various aspects of work in this field, we felt it might be of some use to interested researchers and students if we published a dialogue about it.

Young people’s uses and understandings of online social networks in their everyday lives

This article examines young people’s uses and understandings of social networking sites and instant messaging tools within the context of their everyday lives. It draws upon data from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded qualitative study, ‘Young people’s creative understanding of their mediaworlds’ (2008–10), in which young people aged 14–15 from six locations across England created ‘identity boxes’ which were meant to reflect their identities and the place of media in their lives. The results demonstrate that young people considered and negotiated their online practices in relation to three primary areas: ‘Connecting and convenience’, ‘Openness and control’ and ‘Privacy and authenticity’. In doing so the article reveals nuanced insights into young people’s online media use and communication, and contributes empirically to knowledge about young people’s online practices within their everyday lives.

Remote living: Exploring online (and offline) experiences of young people living in rural areas

This article investigates the online and offline experiences of young people living in rural communities. It draws upon data from the AHRC-funded research project, ‘Young people’s creative understanding of their mediaworlds’ (2008–10), in which young people aged 14–15 created ‘identity boxes’ to explore the place of media in their lives. The article demonstrates that many young people in rural areas were disengaged with new media and highlights why, for some individuals, online inclusion increased their feelings of cultural exclusion. The article reveals that many young people in rural areas made use of new media technologies only when they saw them as having a practical value relevant to their lives. The article further demonstrates the use of a creative visual method as a process which elicits reflective comments about a taken-for-granted world, and contributes empirically to knowledge about young people’s uses of new media within their everyday lives.

Creativity, Participation and Connectedness: An Interview with David Gauntlett

Stefan Sonvilla-Weiss invited me to contribute to this book, and suggested an interview. In the spirit of ‘Mashup Culture’, I invited people to send me questions via Twitter and Facebook. (So, it’s not really a mashup, but at least it’s questions coming together from different sources, and from people around the world. So it’s actually another buzzword — crowdsourcing).

The Internet Is Ancient, Small Steps Are Important, and Four Other Theses About Making Things in a Digital World

Human beings have been creative, and made things, for many thousands of years. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the first human tools were made almost two million years ago (Donald, A mind so rare: the evolution of human consciousness. W. W. Norton, New York, 2001). Digital technologies and the internet have not initiated creativity, therefore, but they have certainly given creative practices a boost, by enabling several things to be achieved much more simply and quickly: connections between people, distribution of material, conversations about it, collaborations, and opportunities to build on the work of others.