My supervisor Prof. Teal Triggs invited me to deliver a presentation on my research methods; which I did this past Wednesday to MA Design Writing Criticism students at the London College of Communication. Other presenters were Dr. Claire McAndrew, Dr. Yoko Akama, and Sheila Pontis. The presentations were a great way to share some of [...]
November 16, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: Claire McAndrew, Communication Design, Cultural Probes, Explorations, Interview Toolkits, Joanna Choukeir, LCC, Lebanon, Link Tracing, London College of Communication, MA Design Writing Criticism, Methods, National Social Marketing Centre, PhD, Presentation, Rant Box, Scoping, Sheila Pontis, Teal Triggs, Touring Café Caravan, Traveling Digital Surveys, University of the Arts London, Uscreates, Video Diaries, Yoko Akama, Young Adults . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 1 Comment
Introduction
‘Explorations’ is a fieldwork method that was completed in Lebanon in July 2009. The aim of ‘Explorations’ was to scope out initial empirical insight into the barriers of social integration in Lebanon, in relation to those stated by Safia Saadeh: Socio-political rigidity, geographical segregation, emphasis on differences rather than similarities, social institutions and social [...]
October 28, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: Analysis, Barriers, Beirut, Christian, Cultural Probes, Culture, districts, Druze, Explorations, Geography, Greek Orthodox, integration, Joanna Choukeir, Keserwan, Language, LCC, Lebanon, London College of Communication, Maronite, Muslim, Nabatiyeh, Nationalism, Participants, PhD, Politics, Religion, Safia Saadeh, Sect, segmentation, segregation, Shia, Shouf, Social Group, Social Integration, Social Structure, Sunni, Tripoli, University of the Arts London, Zahleh . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 2 Comments
‘Explorations’ proved to be an efficient empirical method for the case study at this stage of the research. The richness of the findings that were extracted from only 18 ‘Explorations’ kits was surprising, and the response rate was 100%, with almost all the tasks completed within each kit.
These successes were due to a number of [...]
October 28, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs, Practice Review . Tags: Communication Design, Cultural Probes, Empirical, Explorations, Joanna Choukeir, LCC, Lebanon, London College of Communication, PhD, primary, research, review, reviewing, thesis, University of the Arts London . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: Leave a Comment
At Uscreates, we’ve been using Wordle as a tool to analyse both websites and content, and it’s been proving very useful. What Wordle does is create a hierarchical visualisation of a website or any piece of text by making the words with the highest occurrence largest, and those with the fewest smallest. Simple.
I decided to [...]
October 21, 2009
Categories: My Struggles, My Triumphs . Tags: Joanna Choukeir, Lebanon, PhD, LCC, thesis, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, Communication Design, Analysis, camp, Explorations, Uscreates, Wordle, Literature review, Participants, Methods, Different, Dialogue, Social, People, Visual, Probe, Communication, Design . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: Leave a Comment
Last week, I attended the 3-day 1st International Visual Methods Conference at the University of Leeds. The conference brought together over 250 academics and professionals from social and visual research and practice fields, and involved over 150 presentations.
Some presentations covered visual methods as a means of collecting insight on the field, such as disposable cameras, [...]
September 26, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: ////o/, 1st International Visual Methods Conference, Analysis, Claudia Mitchell, Communication Design, Conference, Cultural Probes, Gillian Rose, Joanna Choukeir, LCC, London College of Communication, MA, multidisciplinary, Naji Zahar, PhD, Presentation, Sarah Pink, University of Leeds, University of the Arts London, Visual Methods, Visual Politics, www.111101.net . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 1 Comment
4.2.1.0 (What’s this number?)
Going through the responses of 18 participants who completed ‘Explorations’ entails over 1080 unique pieces of information (in textual, illustrative, photographic and audio forms). Although I do not aim to analyse this information using any quantitative methods, I still need to make that large amount of information manageable to be able to [...]
September 10, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: Analysis, Collaborative Design, Communication Design, Cultural Probes, Database, Explorations, Interactive, Joanna Choukeir, LCC, Lebanon, London College of Communication, Matrix, PhD, thesis, University of the Arts London, Youth Groups . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 2 Comments
4.2.1.0 (What’s this number?)
I travelled back to Lebanon in July to undertake PhD-related fieldwork. It’s been a week since I am back in London, and I will be going through a synthesis phase, absorbing, deciphering and analysing the large amount of information collected over my trip. Part of my fieldwork has been the Cultural Probes [...]
August 6, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: Communication Design, Joanna Choukeir, LCC, Lebanon, London College of Communication, PhD, Social Integration, Social Structure, thesis, University of the Arts London, Youth Groups . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 1 Comment
4.2.1.0 (What’s this number?)
This is a podcast and slideshow from my presentation today at RNUAL 3, University of the Arts London. I’m very grateful for the enthusiasm the audience showed for this piece of research, and a big thanks to Sheila for the late night rehearsals!
June 30, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: Joanna Choukeir, Lebanon, PhD, LCC, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, Social Integration, Communication Design, FDCD, Forum for Development Culture and Dialogue, Presentation, RNUAL 3, Cultural Probes, Forum for Development Culture and . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 9 Comments
2.1.2.1 (What’s this number?)
Although I categorised this post under My Triumphs, the credit should go to my dear friend, David Habchy who recommended ////o/ (www.111101.net) to me.
I believe many researchers who are pursuing their research abroad on the context of Lebanon, would probably agree that it is challenging to find references on Lebanon in universities [...]
May 10, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: Joanna Choukeir, PhD, LCC, thesis, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, 111101, ////o/, www.111101.net, Naji Zahar, Project . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 3 Comments
I got the hint – from my supervisors and many PhD guide books – that it can never be too early to write a thesis outline, even though I am only 6 months into a 6 year research.
The challenging aspect of attempting to write a PhD thesis chapter outline this early is that none of [...]
March 22, 2009
Categories: My Triumphs . Tags: Joanna Choukeir, LCC, London College of Communication, PhD, thesis, University of the Arts London . Author: Joanna Choukeir . Comments: 2 Comments