Screening Participatory Videos and Cellphilms (Cellphone + Film Production) in Live-Audience and Online Spaces

Engaging in participatory visual research provides opportunities to share provocative research results with a variety of audiences in order to shift public perception, critique policy, and work toward social change. A range of ethical issues emerge in screening participatory videos and cellphilms (cellphone + film production) in front of live audiences and in online spaces. Through a reflection on two participatory visual research projects working with youth in New Brunswick Canada, we describe the opportunities and challenges to screening and archiving participant-produced videos. We argue that project facilitators have an ethical obligation to participants and audiences in navigating screenings in person and online contexts. It is the facilitators’ obligation to the participants, their works, and our projects to react and respond when audiences laugh derisively, engage in microaggressions, provide hateful comments, and when audiences celebrate the participants’ works in surface level or unserious ways.