Toward ‘more Participatory' Participatory Video: A Thematic Review of Literature

Dramatically increased accessibility to recording technologies and participatory nature of today's information environment certainly have emancipatory potentials. Perhaps, we live in an era that Dziga Vertov once dreamed of: mass authorship of filmmaking reveals the injustice and inequality of the world. However, in reality, we are witnessing political turmoil characterized by partisan division and a surge of populism. Against such a backdrop, we need to rethink the ways to unleash the critical potential of participatory media and reenvision how it can facilitate people's civic engagements for social transformation. By positing that very act of defining participation as a political struggle, this paper thematically reviews literature and examine how diverse forms of participation manifests through different designs of participatory video projects. Along the journey, I interrogate the premises of participatory video, explore the diversity of the approach, and identify the challenges and dilemmas for making participatory video 'more participatory.'