Research Methods: Photojournal
Photojournaling is a creative and interactive research method that involves participants photographing their day in order to collect information. This method immediately made me think of how second-nature photojournaling already is because of social media. We’re always collecting small snaps to document what we’re up to, the beautiful, silly, or even mundane moments of life are constantly curated on our Instagram Stories or saved to our camera rolls to look back on. Hey, do you remember that app that blew up around 2016, 1 Second Everyday? Everyone I knew was obsessed with collecting their daily snippets to weave the story of a year gone by.
I had never heard of this in relation to research, but when I read about Photojournaling, I was fascinated. It took the concept of a Diary Study and expanded upon the idea in order to dig deeper and give participants and researchers a way to contextualize and explore their individual and connected findings. In UX Methods: A Quick Guide to User Experience Research Methods, Pannafino and McNeil describe an example scenario where someone documents what they eat in a day, collecting snaps of their meals to turn into interview questions. The interviewer must find a story in the images and investigate why the person did what they did, what their intentions were, possible patterns, and discuss those questions in-depth later with that person. If done correctly, the insights gained can be incredibly useful and enlightening.
A study published in South African Journal of Higher Education titled, “The usefulness of reflexive photography for qualitative research: a case study in higher education,” followed 8 male teachers white teachers instructed to take photographs for a week reflecting their profession. This first aspect was strange to me at first glance considering the deeply historical and intercultural implications of being a white person in South Africa. But as I read, I came to understand that the researcher, Salomé Schulze, selected this exact group because they are 1. within her own cultural group, which establishes a level of trust and 2. how South Africa is still heavily segregated as the remaining white population are descendants of settlers due its history of colonization and apartheid, with its small white population still occupying its elite 5% (Justice Malala, The Guardian, 2019). The study took place in 2010, only 16 years after the declared end of apartheid. The only reason I have spent so much time on this topic (beside the fact that I minored in Post-Colonial Studies) is that this aspect of that particular study revealed the difficulty of this method when it comes to research. The conductor must not only select subjects that fit the mold of their own study, but the subjects must also trust the conductor enough to essentially provide them with a diary.
Moving on, When the photos were finally collected and the interviews were conducted, we were able to witness an illustrated vignette of theses professors’ lives, paired with quotes detailing the highlights and pitfalls of their profession such as,
“This is my own research that I am busy with. I enjoy it tremendously . . . the interviews. . . very interesting. It is satisfying. It is very exhausting, but I love talking to people about their perceptions of the changes in South Africa.’ – A senior lecture”
“The clock system gives me the freedom . . . say suddenly I have to do something urgently . . . go to the doctor or the pharmacy or someone calls and asks me to do something. I have freedom of time. I think this is one of the wonderful perks here. – A senior lecturer”
“Top of the list of negative issues is my salary. I think I am worth more. That’s why I photographed my purse. The salary thing is a problem . . . the ceiling that I have reached. . . it makes me very negative.’ – A senior lecturer”
Schulze used the Photojournaling method to measure these educators satisfaction in their jobs. I have included a table of her findings below.
Another Photojournal case study set at Canada’s Ontario Region at Innovation, Science and Economic Development set out to specifically cause disruption in the workplace in order to create a better, more stimulating work environment. The findings of this study were positive and achieved their goal of creating channel in the workplace through disruption.
“Using photo-journals, the team at Innovation, Science and Economic Development of Canada's Ontario Regional Office constructed poster models of their current work environment, detailing facilities, technology, and collaboration needs. Building on common themes, models of a new aspirational space were created by combining images from multiple sources. These maquettes were shared with the regional office team for comment and revision before the end of Fiscal 2016.”
Resources:
Minister of Innovation Science and Economic Development. (2017, September 18). Government of Canada. Government of Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. Retrieved February 26, 2023, from https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/design-experimentation-centre-expertise/en/capacity-building/photo-journaling-disruption-case-study
Pannafino, James, and Patrick McNeil. 2017. UX Methods: A Quick Guide to User Experience Research Methods. CDUXP LLC.
Schulze, S. (2010). The usefulness of reflexive photography for qualitative research: A case study in higher education. South African Journal of Higher Education, 21(5). https://doi.org/10.4314/sajhe.v21i5.50292
Guardian News and Media. (2019, October 21). Why are South African cities still so segregated 25 years after apartheid? | justice Malala. The Guardian. Retrieved February 28, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/21/why-are-south-african-cities-still-segregated-after-apartheid