Action camera

The action camera has been said to offer insight into the world as it appears to the research subject (Lahlou, 2011). It also gives the participants some control over what is being

presented (Kinsley et al., 2016; Blikstad-Balas & Sørvik, 2015). The usage of action cameras in research is discussed in-depth in Article 3 (Lofthus & Frers 2020). Kinsley et al. (2016) used action cameras to understand how students orient themselves in a library by accessing classroom to understand how the teacher appeared to the student and closely examined

collaborative work (Kindt, 2011). Blikstad-Balas and Sørvik (2015) chose to equip a group of students with head-mounted cameras to

actual reading and writing and

-Balas & Sørvik, 2015, p. 142). This is a relevant aspect for me to choose a similar approach to the actions and interactions, as it records the interactions of a group with digital tools as cultural artifacts that together form the digital literacy practice.

Letting one subject carry or wear the recording equipment is one way to access the details and embodied aspects of the activity (Lahlou 2011). Lahlou (2011) also referred to the manipulation zone (p. 615), which is the area right in front of the subjects that is difficult for others to get access to but is where most of what the subject is doing is happening (Blikstad-Balas & Sørvik, 2015). Using this as a rationale for choosing this type of camera could arguably mean that I chose one student in each group as the main subject of study. However, the generated data also shows the interaction in the group close to the student wearing the camera and thus gives access to these interactions. As mentioned, a video camera is not a neutral tool that does not affect data generation. There are also limitations to the action camera. I agree with Blikstad-Balas and Sørvik (2015), who argued that the action camera is not more intrusive than other cameras, but that it does have ways of affecting the data, as discussed in Article 3, where we look at the different ways the camera affects the interactions (Lofthus & Frers, 2020).

Since this study is situated in a specific field, digital literacies studies, I also want to place myself extensively on how video-based approaches have been used in this field. This also serves to make my contribution to the field more visible.

generating data and the data that will be available. This has been discussed in the first article of this study. One of the main challenges addressed when using video in research is the

on the subjects in the study, making the empirical data le one perhaps strives for.

Blikstad-Balas (2017) and Heath et al. (2010) agreed that the camera effect or reactivity is there and that it affects the situations being studied. Many researchers have experienced that the effect of the camera also seems to be less evident after the participants become used to the cameras (Aarsand and Forsberg, 2010).

Again, the effect of the camera is, to some extent, present, and rather than trying to remove this effect, it can be useful to see it as a part of the context in focus (Heath et al., 2010). As Goldman (2006) stated, «It seems obvious but necessary to state that we should not decide to not use video because our actions might be affected by the presence of the camera, but rather to accept the performative actions we demonstrate whenever we are being

-Balas (2017) also stated that video recordings provide a chance to investigate the effect of the camera on the subjects. This was done by Aarsand & Forsberg (2010), and the effect of the action camera and what it clarifies has been investigated in the 3rd article in this study (Lofthus & Frers, 2020). In the article, we saw, contrary to the studies showing that the camera effect became less evident, that the students took the camera they were wearing or that someone in the group was wearing as a part of their interaction. It could be that, in our case, the camera was not worn long enough to lose its effect on the subjects, but as discussed in the article, the camera never beca

a true first-person perspective. Therefore, it is always a hybrid in which the researcher is, to some extent, present.

This does not make the camera affect something I wanted to remove from the

equation; rather, it is something I closely examined and allowed to be an important part of the context that forms the social practice in focus.

When using action cameras, easily identified faces and places can be recorded,

providing a grounding for ethical risks (Mok et al., 2015). In the two different contexts of this study, these ethical risks differ. In the classroom, all students were given informed consent to participate in the study. In the excursion, the researcher and the teacher did not control who was in the camera similarly. The students were also given informed consent in this context, but as the fieldwork took place outside the classroom, and the students were walking around a large area wearing the camera, people, or objects they might film were out of the

careful thought in advance, considering that other people in the museum were not given informed consent but might have been filmed. With this in mind, it may have been better to be in a limited museum area and to inform other visitors about this. Doing so might have changed the context and

affected the results. Although students were told not to film people who were not part of the research project, this was not maintained satisfyingly. As Mok et al. (2015) stated, wearable cameras challenge traditional ethical guidelines regarding informed consent, anonymity and confidentiality, data protection, and privacy. Existing guidelines state that when taking pictures or filming people in public spaces, it is not necessary to obtain informed consent unless they can be recognized when the data material is published (Kelly et al., 2013). This was considered in the presentation of the data material.

Kelly et al. (2013) discussed problems concerning the use of wearable cameras that take photos in the context of health studies. Many of their points are also relevant when studying students wearing action cameras, such as inappropriate or unwanted images. The person wearing the camera may forget that it is on, and thus, the camera can film actions that were not meant for the researcher to see; this is seen in Article 3, where one student looked another way when he was typing his password. This can be avoided by giving the participants a chance to watch the recordings. This was not done in this study because the generated data did not appear to be of such a nature that could make such a measure necessary.