After having some time to think about whether or not I wanted to focus on David Lynch as my media niche for the second week in a row, I decided that I still think that I have a lot to learn from how he has really cemented himself as not only a filmmaker, but an artist in general. I’m not sure if I’ll continue to research him or choose another director or genre to focus on, but for now, I’m too intrigued by David Lynch.
To understand the interest behind David Lynch as a niche, I’d have to construct a ‘field site’. The term ‘field site’ refers to the spatial characteristics of a field-based research project, the stage on which the social processes under study take place (Burrell, 2009). Constructing a field site of connections would let me be able to compare, contrast, explore and problematise, so I could begin begin to narrow down my research. The easiest way to go about mapping out the network of my field site would be to create a diagram.
After creating this diagram, I decided the best direction to focus my research on would be Lynch as a director. More specifically, to focus on Lynch’s directed Movies, Televisions episodes, and short films. This includes the content uploaded to his YouTube channel (David Lynch Theater). I chose to focus on him as a director as one, this is what he is most known for, and two, Film and TV is what interests me the most. I feel focusing my research on Film and TV will be helpful as I hope to pursue a career in the industry, and may help me to understand it better. By conducting an ethnographic research, I will hopefully be able to understand the appeal behind his work and his creativity, and not only understand the industry better, but maybe become more creative myself.
In my next blog I will begin to explore problematising this media niche and my approach to it, by outlining the key issues to help give a clearer understanding of the niche. At this moment I’m not sure how I will problematise this niche, so I will have to talk to lecturers and research more to get a better idea of how I might approach this and create a research question I can focus on.
Overall, I hope to create a Digital Artefact that will help me to understand the Film industry better, and extend my research to others also pursuing a career in it.
Burrell, Jenna (2009) ‘The Field Site as a Network: A Strategy for Locating Ethnographic Research’, Field Methods, 21:2, 181-199.
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