Finding Common Ground: The Mediation of Foster Youths' Video Production

• In Event: Video Production as Democracy Education

Abstract

According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway (2013) there are over 400,000 children in foster care in the United States. These children have been removed from the custody of their parents or guardians by the juvenile court as a result of severe abuse, neglect, abandonment or family conflict. Aligning with the scarce, victimizing media coverage (Reid, Giles & Abrams, 2004) and summative quantitative research that has been conducted on this population (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014), foster youth often feel as though no one listens to them and the adults who decide their fate do not know them as anything other than a number (Reardon & Noblet, 2009). It is therefore imperative to look at how these students can mediate their experiences through video production to create cultural artifacts that can help them take an agentive stance and reposition themselves in society (Cole, 1996; Hull & Katz, 2006).

This presentation will cover a teacher researcher case study I conducted in the summer of 2014 that focuses on a group of foster youth enrolled in a month long media course as they produce a video addressing their perceived needs for change within the foster care system. The course under study was situated within a larger program aimed at helping foster youth that was supported by private and state organizations with adults who were affiliated with the foster care system. Over the progression of the course there was a rising concern that students were making products undermining and attacking the roles of adults working in foster care so program staff began to interject in the development of the students’ media messages.

Drawing on the theoretical framings of sociocultural theory, social semiotics, media literacy, and critical theory, I investigated how the students communicated about a particular foster care issue in relation to the adult stakeholder mediations by collecting and analyzing data from recorded class discussions, interviews, student artifacts, and reflective journal entries. The findings indicate that as adult mediation focusing on audience awareness and positive framing heightened, the student’s perceptions about their original issue and video shifted from a righteously negative, self-centered stance to one highly conscious of audience and imbued with positivity.

The adult concerns and youth expressions illustrated in the study provide insight into obstacles faced by those involved with child welfare. While the students desired to be heard, the adults worried about how others would perceive the youth produced messages. So although the adults had an invested interest in the students, their heightened awareness of the larger context kept them from always putting the students concerns at the forefront. Expanding this to a wider context, adults working with any at-risk youth population can help such youth formulate their concerns into artifacts that can potentially influence others, but the adults need to be continually cognizant of their influence on the production process because these youth deserve to maintain their beliefs drawn from their lived experiences in order to position themselves as agents of change.

Author

• Kelsey Greene, Columbia College Chicago