Reading YouTube for Social Work by Janice Tara La Rose A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Tara La Rose 2013 Janice Tara La Rose Reading YouTube for Social Work Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto 2013 Thesis Abstract Digital media storytelling and the creation of narrative texts using digital technology is an emerging social process that is being utilized by social workers as a means of engaging in critical reflection. As an emerging practice, little is known about the contributions that these texts make to critical social work knowledge; to this end this thesis considers social worker’s use of digital media storytelling as a tool for resisting and remembering and as a tool for critical reflection about their changing field. Six digital media stories are considered in this thesis. The texts are deconstructed using multi-modal analysis informed by internet/digital media research scholarship. The layers produced through this deconstruction are crystalized using critical discourse, narrative and metaphor analysis in order to develop a complex understanding of the multi-modal and multi-vocal meaning making processes inherent in these stories. The analysis reveals the way in which discourses and themes present in the contemporary context of social work practice such as neo-liberalism, managerialism and professionalization, are brought to life in the narratives produced by the social workers, who each tell their stories using different genres, from unique points of view, based on their individual subjective positions. The findings point to the significance of digital media storytelling as an important resources for knowledge production and knowledge ii dissemination. The analysis further points to the significance of connections between and among these texts as demonstrating the tensions and contradictions that are produced through the workers’ attempts to bring to life the social justice values, goals and objectives of social work to which they are committed in a social climate that is increasingly hostile to such approaches to human service work. iii Acknowledgements In the words of Peter Maurin: Social Workers and Workers The training of social workers enables them to help people to adjust themselves to the existing environment. The training of social workers does not enable them to help people to change the environment. Social workers must become social minded before they can be critics of the existing environment and free creative agents of the new environment. In the Houses of Hospitality social workers can acquire the art of human contacts and the social- mindedness or understanding of social forces, which will make them critical of the existing environment and free creative agents of a new environment. Scholars and Bourgeois The scholar has told the bourgeois that a worker is a man for all that. But the bourgeois has told the scholar that a worker is a commodity for all that. Because the scholar has vision, the bourgeois calls him a visionary. So the bourgeois laughs at the scholar’s vision and the worker is left without vision. And the worker left by the scholar without vision talks about liquidating both the bourgeois and the scholar. The scholars must tell the workers what is wrong with the things as they are. The scholars must tell the workers how a path can be made from the things as they are to the things as they should be. The scholars must collaborate with the workers in making a path from the things as they are to the things as they should be. The scholars must become workers so the workers may be scholars. iv With Thanks… I wish to thank my family for the support and patience that they showed to me. Thanks to my Mother Maureen La Rose, who allowed me to live at home and disrupt her regular life and to clutter the house with piles of paper and books. Thanks to her for listening to my complaining and anxieties and for (generally) ignoring these in a completely supportive way. Thanks to my sister Yvonne La Rose, who served as the copy editor for the final draft of the thesis; she did a lot of work to make the thesis as close to ‘perfect’ as possible – but it will never be perfect. I wish to thank my committee: Nancy Jackson who was with me from the brilliant beginning to the bitter end. Donna Baines, her good humour is a welcome approach to the “realities” of social work and doctoral work. Peter Sawchuk who gives very detailed feedback and who made the project better as a result. Dorothy Kidd, who served as a patient external. Jamie Magnusson who was the “internal external”. I would also like to thank earlier committee members Tara Goldstein and Eric Shragge who gave their time and energies to an earlier version of this project. Thank you to kindred spirits who showed me kindness in important moments: George Bielmeire, Angela Miles, Barbara Heron, Maurice Poon, Wilburn Hayden and Renita Wong. …and to Kate Bride who told me that people write a thesis because they have something to say. Before this conversation I thought people wrote a thesis because someone told them they had something to say. I missed your funeral because I was writing a thesis. RIP Kate… I would also like to thank Albina Veltman who served as both innamorata and proof reader in the final moments of this thing... v Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 MAKING A CASE FOR STORIES 3 OVERVIEW OF THESIS 10 CHAPTER 2: CRITICAL SOCIAL WORK THEORY AND PRACTICE 17 EPISTEMOLOGY AND DIGITAL MEDIA STORIES 18 CRITICAL SOCIAL WORK 19 RESISTING, REMEMBERING, FORGETTING AND REFLECTING 21 KNOWING AND PROFESSIONALISM IN SOCIAL WORK 38 MANY WAYS OF KNOWING IN SOCIAL WORK 43 CHAPTER 3: DIGITAL MEDIA STORIES FOR SOCIAL WORK 50 STORYMAKING PROCESSES 54 ORGANIC DIGITAL STORYTELLING 57 DIGITAL WAYS AS POSTMODERNISM 62 DIGITAL STORIES AS COMMUNICATIVE ARTIFACTS 64 WHAT IS YOUTUBE? 72 DIGITAL STORIES AND TECHNOLOGICAL POSSIBILITIES 74 THE RELEVANCE OF POST-STRUCTURAL THINKING /ANALYSIS 77 CHAPTER 4: METHODS 81 CRYSTALLIZATION 82 CRITICAL REFLECTION, REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND REFLEXIVITY AS RESEARCH 84 DECONSTRUCTION 89 MULTI-MODAL ANALYSIS 91 NARRATIVES AND DIGITAL STORYTELLING 98 REPRESENTATION AND METAPHORS 101 READING AND MISREADING GENRE 105 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 107 SELECTION OF TEXTS TO ANALYZE 108 CHAPTER 5: WORLD SOCIAL WORK 115 PHASE ANALYSIS 115 AFFILIATION 116 PROFESSIONALIZATION AND SOCIAL WORK 119 SITUATED KNOWLEDGE AND AMBIGUITY 122 MULTI-MODAL ANALYSIS 123 vi DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 126 INTERTEXUAL CONNECTIONS 136 CHAPTER 6: THE DISCRETE CHARM OF THE (BOURGEOISIE) SOCIAL WORKER 138 ANALYSIS OF THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL 141 INTERTEXTUALITY 142 BOURGEOIS[IE] SUBJECTIVITIES 144 PROFESSIONALIZATION 145 MULTI-MODAL ANALYSIS 147 CHAPTER 7: SONG ABOUT A CHILD WELFARE AGENCY 159 PHASE ANALYSIS 162 PHASE ONE 163 PHASE TWO: INTRODUCTION 165 PHASE TWO: SONG 167 PHASE TWO: REFLECTION/CONCLUSION 170 SOCIAL WORK DISCOURSES 171 INTERTEXUAL ANALYSIS 176 TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL WORK 180 LINKING AND ANALYSIS 190 GENRE ANALYSIS 192 VISUAL ANALYSIS 193 INTER-RACIAL/INTER-CULTURAL ADOPTION 206 AUDIENCE COMMENTS 212 CHAPTER 9: BOBBIE THE SOCIAL WORK SLAYER 222 VISUAL ANALYSIS 223 TWO SPIRIT PEOPLE 233 FIRST NATIONS HUMOUR 234 CONVERGENCE AND IDENTITY 239 INTERTEXTUALITY 241 QUEERNESS 245 THE METAPHOR OF ZOMBIE SOCIAL WORKERS 248 CHAPTER 10: SOCIAL WORKER OVERLOAD 254 VISUAL ANALYSIS 256 INTERTEXTUAL ANALYSIS 262 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 263 GENRE ANALYSIS 274 vii CHAPTER 11: CONCLUSION 282 CRYSTALLIZATION 283 DECONSTRUCTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE TEXTS 284 MEDIATING AND MEDIATIZING SOCIAL WORK 288 SOCIAL CHANGE THROUGH PRODUCTION AND REPRESENTATION 293 CONNECTIONS THROUGH DIGITAL TEXTS 295 GENRE AND MEANING MAKING 296 DISCOURSE 298 FROM INDIVIDUAL STORIES TO COLLABORATIVE UNDERSTANDINGS 301 IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 306 REFERENCES 310 viii Chapter One: Introduction Donna Baines (2007), critical social work scholar describes social work as a deeply “contested site” (pg. 20). Baines’ statement taps into one of the enduring struggles among social workers, that is, the struggle over the representation of our work and thus how our occupation is defined and governed. It is a long saga, stretching across continents and generations. It is a story of resisting and remembering extending over more than 150 years (Baines, 2011b, pg. 8-9; Hick, 2001; Hiersteiner & Peterson, 1999; Holosko, 2003; Lundy, 2004; Jennissen & Lundy, 2011). The enduring nature of this struggle tells its own story about the importance of resisting and remembering in the making of social work. This remembering emphasizes practices of social change and collaborative relationships with clients; this resisting stands against a unitary understanding of expertise, the pathologization of client experiences and a professional identity that separates workers from clients. Together these acts of struggle tell a story about who we are, who we hope to be and our hopes for the expression of these selves in our practice. Bearing all this in mind, my thesis brings together two contemporary threads in this long history of struggle. One of these threads, which forms the background and analytic context of this thesis, is the tradition of social change oriented social work, or ‘critical social work practices’ as they are sometimes described (Baines, 2011b). The origins of these practices trace their roots back to progressive, radical movements in social work including traditions of feminist practice dating back to the Settlement House movements (Baines, 2011b pg. 8; Hiersteiner & Peterson, 1999; Lundy, 2004; Jennissen & Lundy, 2011). 1 The second thread, which is the focus of my research, is a new phenomenon that does not yet have a name. It is the recent explosion on YouTube of dozens of ‘videos’ about social work that, I will argue, constitute a new domain of remembering and resisting that may also be linked to social change traditions in social work and which, by its emergent nature, constitutes a new era in social workers’ struggle.