VIA's visual voices: the awareness of a dedicated audience for voices in patient video narratives

Abstract

First the authors examine the concept of ‘voice’ in one model of participant media research (PMR) giving special attention to parallel variables of hearing, begging questions about the ‘listening’ component of any communication process. Second, they describe the use of a research programme entitled Video Intervention/Prevention Assessment (VIA) and a series of ongoing video narrative projects with chronically ill young people at Children's Hospital Boston. Young people were asked to show how they see their own illness-centred lives by using videocam technology. Third, ‘visual voices’ as found on the videotape results are examined through Thompson's five kinds of voice used by participants living with spina bifida, cystic fibrosis and, in one case, obesity. We conclude that knowledge and anticipation of what we have termed ‘a dedicated audience’ is one of the primary variables in the elicitation of voice and the overall value of participant media research. … [one] main characteristic of illness narratives is that they formulate and express a central aspect of being ill in modern society, namely the difficulty of giving voice to both suffering and to the lifeworld context of illness. (Hyden 1997, 64)