Videovoice

What is Videovoice?
Videovoice is a community-based participatory research methodology used primarily in the field of public health. Through this method, researchers give participants digital video cameras and assist them in making documentary film(s).

The videovoice methodology generally includes 4 steps. The first step is to form a collaborative partnership between community participants, academic researchers, and filmmakers. Second, participants are given basic instruction on documentary film ethics and skills. Third, the partners engage in a community-building process that results in collective envisioning, filming, editing, and dissemination of films. Fourth, the partners strategically use the film as an advocacy tool.

What is the objective of Videovoice?
By providing people in the community with digital video cameras, videovoice methodology facilitates:

-Research and documentation on a community's strengths and challenges,

-Discussion of issues of importance in groups to promote critical consciousness and empowerment,

-Communication across communities and with policy-makers and decision-makers, institutional leaders, and program planners, and

-Mobilization and action on social justice issues.

What are the theoretical underpinnings of Videovoice?
Videovoice methodology gets its theoretical and practical underpinnings from Paulo Freire’s empowerment education for critical consciousness, community-based participatory research (CBPR), the photovoice method, and Participatory Video.

Research into the strengths, limitations, opportunities, and threats of utilizing the videovoice methodology is currently in its beginning stages. To date, there has only been one article published in a peer-reviewed journal on using participatory film techniques in public health practice. This article, titled A Bridge Between Communities: Video-making using principles of community-based participatory research by author Vivian Chavez in 2004.

Currently the methodology is being further developed by public health institutions around the Unites States, including the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health and the VideoVoice Collective.

What is the logic model behind the impact of Videovoice?
Theoretically, the logic model of videovoice begins with (1) obtaining easy-to-use video equipment and (2) building a community-academic-film partnership. These inputs are then needed to complete the following activities: (3) creating video and ethics workshop curriculum, (4) holding workshops with community partners, and (5) engaging partners in a specific videovoice filmmaking technique. These activities, in turn, lead to the following immediate outcome: (6) engaging partners in strategic communication of films & advocacy. These communication outcomes split into two categories, including (7a) sharing films with other communities and (7i) sharing films with policymakers and legislators. Immediate outcomes then lead to the following intermediate outcomes: (7b) improved understanding of community issues among people from other communities and (7ii) improved understanding of community issues among policymakers. These intermediate outcomes then lead to the the long-term outcome of (7c) broader community mobilization for policy advocacy, then inspiring (8) more leadership among policymakers on community issues and, thus, (9) changes in government and institutional policies. The final impact, then, is (10) improved community health, wellbeing, and equity.

For a graphic depiction of this logic model, click:.