What was out of the frame? A dialogic look at youth media production in a cultural diversity and educational context in Chile

ABSTRACT

This article accounts for an experience of digital storytelling workshops with indigenous adolescents in Chile, and proposes a theoretical and methodological approach to analyze digital creations with a dialogic and ethnographic point of view. Based on this, it discusses the possibilities of digital media production as a strategy for the self-expression of children and adolescents, particularly immersed in unequal and ethnically diverse educational contexts. The specific case of two Mapuche girls reveals complex ways of organizing and positioning their voices, where ‘girl power’ and ‘post-girl power’ discourses are relevant, but not so their ethnicity. The results show that television, with its main audiovisual genres, styles and stereotypes, appears clearly on the teenagers’ creations, while the absence of Mapuche signs along the creation process and also into the digital stories seems to be related with two important features of the Chilean educational system: ethnic inequalities and its fierce attachment to neoliberalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth media production
• digital storytelling
• indigenous
• female youth
• dialogic approach

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank to Matías Valdivia for providing editorial assistance in this article, and his contribution to the analysis of research, Sandra Aguilera for her collaboration in the edition of visual materials, and Lorena Medina for her support during research process. Also, I would like to thank the editors of this special issue for their comments and reviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Andrea Valdivia is a social anthropologist and doctor in Education. Nowadays, works as an assistant professor at the Institute of Communication and Image, in the University of Chile. Among her research interests are young people's media practices, identity and learning. She has published journal articles on topics such as literacy and pedagogic practices, media production, ethnography and intercultural education.

Notes

1. This social network was especially popular among Chilean teenagers before the emergence of Facebook and the smartphone technologies.

2. Their real names have been changed to protect their identity.

3. In almost every story created in the workshop, the music and the soundtrack played an essential role of self-identification. By their selection of songs these young boys and girls show and make clear their tastes and preferences, even though it may not have direct relation with the story or the action.

4. Lorena is María’s character, and Ignacia is Juanita’s character.

5. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s this US series, along with others such as ‘Sabrina, the Teenage Witch’ or ‘Charmed’, were aired by local television (dubbed in Spanish) and cable networks (in some cases with Spanish subtitles).

6. http://www.mega.cl/bkn/.