Shooting a diary, not just a hoop: using video diaries to explore the embodied everyday contexts of a university basketball team

The promise and problems of video diaries: building on current research

“…As they found writing reflective logs easier, while the focus groups provided a definitive anchor for their involvement in the project, the video diaries were relegated in terms of importance. Such findings are at odds with those of Cherrington and Watson (2010), who reported no such difficulties with their student-athlete respondents. A reason for this divergence, however, could lie in latter study's design where students agreed to produce two video entries a day for a period of seven days, whereas our students had no such quantifiable obligations.…”

“…In this respect then, we agree with a more problematic perspective of video diaries than are often presented. However, a point where we differ from Buckingham (2009) and others (e.g., Cherrington and Watson [2010]), relates to the claim that such methods are considered 'powerful' when combined with others. Rather, the students who partook in our work merely relegated video diaries to the least important rung of the methodological ladder in demonstrating much more frequent and considered engagement 21 with the written reflective logs and the focus group interviews (i.e., the other methods used in the wider project).…”

“…For example, In this respect, most of the students commented that they felt both more selfconscious and vulnerable in front of the camera, which inevitable affected the nature of the 'talk' or data produced. Furthermore, and somewhat echoing the work of Cherrington and Watson (2010), some of the students also struggled to 'find things to say', claiming there 'was only so much stuff to talk about'. Subsequently, many of the students even confessed to rehearsing their 'productions', which again somewhat goes against the claim towards improvised, spontaneous data.…”

“…This is because researchers nearly always tend to control the conceptual framing of the work itself (Brown et al, 2008); that is, just because a researcher is not physically present, does not mean that he or she is absent from the scene (Pini, 2001). For instance, Cherrington and Watson (2010) in their study of college basketball players, as opposed to giving participants carte blanche, tried to achieve a balance between guidance and freedom in the production of video diaries. Here, participants were given information about the type of content sought, although 'degrees of flexibility and freedom [were] implicit within these' (p. 270).…”

“…Consequently, although the use of prompts was perceived as contributing to participants' engagement in the research, there was a crucial consideration regarding how the structure (or lack of it) could affect the degree to which the students' experiences were being represented. With the aim of achieving a balance between guidance and freedom in the production of video diaries (Cherrington & Watson, 2010), structural triggers were subsequently provided on a sporadic basis through online platforms (i.e., Blackboard; Facebook) and emails. Such The detail here stimulated the engagement with, and generation of, the diaries.…”