Prof. Edward K. Kirumira

Team Composition:

• Prof. Ishita Saeko (Prof. of Sociology – Graduate School of Literature & Human Sciences, Osaka City University)
• Prof. Noriko Tahara (Prof. of Sociology – Shitennoji University (International Buddhist University)
• Prof. Edward K. Kirumira (Prof. of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Makerere University)
• Mr. Hirofumi Iwatani (Research Fellow, National Museum of Ethnology, Research Centre for Cultural Resources)

Accompanied by:

• Prof. Yozo Takino (Prof. of School of Psychology, Osaka Kyoiku University)
• Ms Chez Sung Mi (PhD student in Media Studies, Paris)
• ?? the full names and affiliation of the second Korean lady

The research trip mainly covered visits to the Albert Khan Museum, the INA (Institut National de l’audiovisuel) and the Inathéque de France in the François-Mitterand de la Bibliothéque de France. The team also took advantage of our stay in Paris to visit other places including the Pompidou Center.

(i)Visit to the Albert Khan Museum (August 31, 2010):

Observation:
The concept of “recreating natural habitats of lives of different cultures in a Museum setting” characterizes the Albert Khan Museum.

A visitor to the Museum is given a vivid impression of the daily living contexts of different peoples of the world without travelling there. It is a good way of making people aware of the different others and, even within their confined (and often unexposed) experiences, be able to begin to appreciate the lives of others. For me the gardens brought back vivid memories of places I have travelled to. The Japanese Gardens were an example in point. Unfortunately we could not visit the visual section of the Museum which had been closed a day before we arrived.

(ii)Visit to INA (Sept. 1, 2010)

The trip involved a guided tour of the facilities at Institut National de l’audiovisuel (INA): including what INA is about, the Institute’s data capture, storage, cataloguing and retrieval systems. Video presentations were made for illustration.

Observation:

• We know that media (both print and electronic) is a powerful communication channel but also a reflection of “what is happening in society”, more or less what art used to do and I believe still does to a significant extent. We have tended to treat media (especially electronic) in a transitive manner. From this perspective it was an experience for me to see, through what INA does, how powerful media sociology can be especially in studies that must be informed from the perspective of retrospective study designs. The moment is captured “as is”, stored, and can be used for content, patterns, and cross-referencing.
• Although it must be a tedious exercise, the practice of having a documentary note for every video clip to help explain or contextualize the clip is very important and, as was mentioned, this does help teachers use the video clips for teaching.
• The visit at INA vividly demonstrated the possibility of capturing events in “motion and visually” for posterity.

The challenge is both technical and sociological:

• Technology is fast moving and so issues of storage formats are (migrating from one form to another implies substantial investment - huge amounts of data captured (more than 1 million hours of TV recording per year!)
• The legal framework providing for access to data sources (TV stations), and access to and utilization of captured data (INA archives) raises ethical and political issues that would vary were such an enterprise were to be carried out in another setting/country
• Interpretation of content

(iii)Visit to François-Mitterand de la Bibliothéque de France - Inathéque de France (Sept. 2, 2010)

Observation:

Going through the corridors of Inathéque de France and seeing researchers working through the repository convinced me that this was a worthy investment. The thoroughness with which data were catalogued in the Library and the ease with which a researcher could navigate the volume of material available was impressive. Researchers could actually create their own database onsite!

I was also impressed by the observations made by the staff at the Consultation Centre that:

• Beyond what INA captures, the INA Consultation Centre also stores data bases of other collectors who either do not have storage space or have stopped data capture and therefore looking for a repository.
• INA could, and does, act as a property rights check since they can easily cross-reference TV programmes

Overall comments:

Very warm reception and very helpful guided tour throughout the trip programme. The trip was very useful to experience firsthand the storage and content analysis recorded material. It was a good preparation for appropriate analytical frames in media sociology. It was a worthwhile field trip. From the Uganda project perspective a bit more on how film is made would have enriched the field trip further.

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