Audio journaling for self-reflection and assessment among teens in participatory media programs

Abstract

We examine the use of "Audio Journaling" as a multi-faceted practice and participatory research method to engage young participants in forms of creative expression, self and peer-based reflection, and participatory assessment. We share our experiences from incorporating this approach in three different participatory media programs conducted with adolescents in Gaza, Jerusalem, and New York City since 2011. In prior work, audio diaries have been used as reflective probes with young adults for conducting social research, and with the visually impaired to elicit rich contextual experiences informing HCI design. Our findings illustrate how audio journaling can be used with adolescents in participatory media programs to capture spontaneous and introspective experience-focused accounts with emotional resonance, while revealing the process of sense-making in a lightweight and unobtrusive manner. We believe these practices can enhance participatory learning, co-creation, and peer-based evaluation of program outcomes.

Full text

Audio Journaling for Self-Reflection and Assessment
among Teens in Participatory Media Programs
Nitin Sawhney
School of Media Studies
The New School
79 Fifth Ave, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10003
nitin@newschool.edu
Cleve Graver
Dept. of Counseling Psychology
Fordham University
113 W. 60th Street
New York, NY 10023
cgraver@fordham.edu
Emily Breitkopf
Gender and Health Lab
The New School
80 Fifth Ave, 7th floor
New York, NY 10011
breie023@newschool.edu
ABSTRACT
We examine the use of “Audio Journaling” as a multi-faceted
practice and participatory research method to engage young
participants in forms of creative expression, self and peer-
based reflection, and participatory assessment. We share our
experiences from incorporating this approach in three
different participatory media programs conducted with
adolescents in Gaza, Jerusalem, and New York City since
2011. In prior work, audio diaries have been used as
reflective probes with young adults for conducting social
research, and with the visually impaired to elicit rich
contextual experiences informing HCI design. Our findings
illustrate how audio journaling can be used with adolescents
in participatory media programs to capture spontaneous and
introspective experience-focused accounts with emotional
resonance, while revealing the process of sense-making in a
lightweight and unobtrusive manner. We believe these
practices can enhance participatory learning, co-creation,
and peer-based evaluation of program outcomes.
Author Keywords
Audio journaling; diary studies; digital media learning;
participatory research; qualitative methods; assessment.
ACM Classification Keywords
CCS → Human-centered computing → Human computer
interaction (HCI) → HCI design and evaluation methods
INTRODUCTION
This paper is motivated by a desire to examine new
methodological approaches that engage adolescents in
conducting forms of self-expression, critical reflection, peer-
based learning, and participatory assessment. Most digital
media and learning programs seek to undertake various
forms of “evaluation” with young participants to assess the
efficacy of the “interventions” and learn how they may be
improved. These assessments are expected by funders and
institutions supporting such programs, to understand how
they benefit participants within their social or educational
settings. However, program staff and evaluation specialists
encounter many challenges in designing, implementing, and
documenting the creative, pedagogical, and interpersonal
effects experienced by young people involved. Participants
themselves generally find the so called “evaluations” time-
consuming and disruptive to the natural flow of their
everyday activities, learning process, and creative work; they
are understandably leery of being observed and their
performance evaluated. Rarely are such evaluations devised
to engage the participants themselves in a process of self-
reflection and peer-based inquiry, as equal stakeholders in
the process. While surveys, interviews and focus groups are
commonly used, the process can be rather exhaustive and
demanding of the limited resources and expertise available.
In these contexts, the outcomes are difficult to measure or act
on directly to improve the programs while they are still being
conducted, rather than examined only retrospectively.
Participatory Action Research (PAR) embodies a crucial
means of ensuring that participants are stakeholders in the
process of research [1]; PAR may guide how participants
engage more critically in research questions, reflect, and act
on the outcomes emerging from their own participation over
time. Peer research conducted with and by youth is an
important approach for facilitating participatory inquiry,
whereby the inclusion of young people as co-researchers
may allow them to leverage their own cultural and “sub-
cultural capital” to recruit and establish rapport with other
young participants [2]. Undertaking PAR-based assessment
is fairly challenging due to the limited duration and time
available in such programs, the open-ended process of
inquiry, its lack of familiarity among program staff, and an
inability to easily analyze and document emerging outcomes.
However, we believe the ethos of peer-based learning,
reflection and action embodied within PAR offers a more
engaging, ethical, and efficacious orientation within which
to devise new forms of participatory assessment, particularly
in the context of creative digital media and informal learning
environments involving children and adolescents.
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https://doi.org/10.1145/3202185.3202752

In this paper, we describe lessons learned from pilot research
projects to conduct peer-based narrative and reflective
assessment using a mixed-methods approach in the context
of participatory youth media programs conducted with teens;
these were designed by our research team at The New School
and conducted in partnership with community-based
organizations in Gaza, Jerusalem, and New York City since
2011. We examine the overall methodologies developed,
while citing the challenges involved in implementing them.
We focus on Audio Journaling as an exploratory method, and
the distinct nature of outcomes it yielded from participants.
We discuss how audio journaling offers a rich medium of
expression articulated by children and adolescents, and a
more transparent and lightweight approach for participants,
teachers, and staff to easily incorporate into their programs.
The paper is primarily meant to draw methodological
insights from three inter-related case studies using audio
journaling, rather than present detailed assessment outcomes.
DIARIES AS A RESEARCH METHOD
Use of Diaries for Research in the Social Sciences
Qualitative research in the social sciences has sometimes
included the use of written diaries as part of participant-
contributed data collected over time, in conjunction with data
gathered from participant observation, semi-structured
interviews, and focus groups. Diaries can be both structured
and unstructured, whereby researchers provide instructional
guidance and directed questions for participants to respond
to on a regular basis or allow them to capture a free-flowing
record of their experiences, activities, and emotions relating
to a topic of inquiry. The results can be examined
retrospectively or used as an opportunity for joint analysis
and follow-up interviews between the researcher and diarist
on a regular basis [3]. Solicited diaries provide information
from key informants that may not emerge as easily using
other methods, including rich intimate accounts of personal
experiences, temporally ordered and real-time data revealing
events unfolding over time, and opportunities for reflective
introspection. Unstructured diaries may offer highly
contextualized experiences, often unanticipated by
researchers. Retrospective reporting (e.g. solicited through
follow-up interviews) can miss crucial events experienced by
participants which researchers may be unaware of, while the
accounts provided by participants after the passage of time
may be affected adversely by their current circumstances or
flawed recollection [4]. Diaries as a method have been
popular in fields such as sociology, social geography and
medicine with diverse studies conducted to examine sexual
behavior and violence related to HIV/AIDS [5, 6, 7], chronic
illness and health experiences [8, 9], and domestic labor and
workload during motherhood [10, 11]. However, the success
of such diary-based methods relies on the motivation and
commitment of participants involved while recruitment,
compliance, and timely sharing of outcomes with researchers
can be quite challenging. Using such written diaries regularly
over an extended period is demanding on participants; it
inevitably affects their daily routines and most likely also
their lived experience of the very events they are chronicling.
Some participants may find the notion of writing about
themselves awkward and uncomfortable, while others may
simply lack the literacy or linguistic proficiency to contribute
a rich narrative of their experience in writing. Researchers
must design the diary protocol carefully as part of their wider
toolkit of qualitative methods based on their research
questions, while providing guidance to initiate first-time
participants, non-prescriptive questions to avoid biasing
responses, conduct regular check-ins to monitor usage, and
provide support to alleviate any potentially harmful or
stressful episodes emerging in the process [4].
Audio Diaries and Journaling
In recent work, audio diaries have emerged as an extension
of the diary method, though they represent more than a
change of format to address issues of literacy [12] or time
demands imposed upon participants. Audio diaries offer a
highly convenient means to capture real-time experiences
and provide a rich record of conversational narratives [13],
often with greater emotional resonance unfiltered by the act
of processing and writing (or re-writing) conventional diary
entries. Researchers remark on the ways in which audio
diaries capture non-linear narratives while being constructed,
as a “discursive think-aloud process” offering deep and
unintended “insights into an individuals’ sense-making
activity” [14]. Recent literature has delved into the benefits
and challenges of using audio diaries to capture participants’
lived experiences whether it be breastfeeding among new
mothers [15], formation of professional identity among
medical students through longitudinal narrative research
[14], and understanding sleep experiences among adults
[16], children and teenagers [17].
Audio diaries were used to conduct research with visually
impaired young people (aged 16-25) in the north of England,
examining their experiences of transition to adulthood [18].
The longitudinal study, conducted in the second stage of a
multi-stage mixed methods project, used audio diaries as a
follow-up tool to provide more in-depth data, 4-6 months
after the initial narrative interviews with 26 participants.
Each participant received an audio diary kit in the mail,
consisting of a microcassette recorder (with Braille labels),
an audio diary guide with brief instructions and questions in
Braille or large print, an ethical statement from the
researcher, and a pre-paid envelope to return the materials to
the researcher. The questions for the audio diary were meant
to work in parallel with the narrative interview which
focused on their “fateful moments”, capturing how their
stories of transition to adulthood changed over time. The
questions included ice-breakers like “finish these three
sentences” and “tell me about” questions to provoke open-
ended responses. While it took many months to receive the
audio diaries, active follow-up ensured an 80% response rate.
The transcripts of the audio diaries tended to be longer and
more detailed than some written responses received over
email. The results were analyzed alongside prior narrative
interviews providing a better perspective on the active

experience of events among participants, while the tone of
voice and patterns of speaking provided richer context and
meaning to the stories. Hence, the audio diaries offered more
intimate, non-oral, and experience-focused accounts.
As noted in prior sleep research [16], while written diaries
yielded factual elements, audio diaries included detailed
narrative episodes giving insights into the intimate lives of
participants along with their conflicting emotions, against a
backdrop of their social circumstances. Researchers noted
that audio diaries were an ideal fit for data gathering from
young people (especially the visually impaired) as they are
highly technologically competent and motivated to use
mobile devices for capturing and browsing media; the
novelty of using audio to privately record experiences
allowed it to be a more engaging activity and aided better
compliance (vs. written diaries). However, the “success of
the audio diaries seemed to hinge on the audience aspect, and
the rapport built up with the participants during the initial
interview.” [18] The particular forms of knowledge,
perspectives, and intimate accounts shared by young people
in these diaries depended on their perception of who would
be listening to them. Hence, the researcher has a crucial
responsibility to carefully build trust, confidence, and
sensitivity with participants as a knowledgeable and
supportive listener for these youth narratives. In prior work,
it has been shown that diarists write or speak with a particular
audience in mind, shaping their performance of self [19];
hence researchers must navigate their own privilege,
positionality, and the influence of power relations emerging
in these contexts to critically interpret the narrative content
produced by young people in such diaries.
While the terms “diary” and “journal” are often used
synonymously, a diary is almost always written from a
personal perspective and a private chronologically ordered
record of one’s daily activities. Journals usually capture
significant experiences, along with thoughts, emotions and
reflections. They need not be chronologically ordered and
may be topical in nature; finally, journals are not always
private accounts but often shared more publicly. In our work
we use the term “Audio Journaling” as a multi-faceted
practice and participatory research method encompassing
audio diaries, individual and peer-based practices such as
autobiographical, self-reflective and narrative storytelling,
place-based observational and conversational recording, as
well as approaches to organize, review and analyze content.
Activities can range from solicited to impromptu journaling
activities over time. The key is to facilitate greater agency
among participants to adopt audio journaling as a regular
practice for self-reflection and narrative inquiry, aspects of
which they may choose to share with others as needed.
Diaries and Probes in HCI Research
Media elicitation has been used in diary studies [20] to
quickly capture a participant observers’ perspective of events
as they are occurring; these include digital images, recorded
audio clips, and physical objects that are “likely to evoke
different reconstructions and attitudes towards an event”,
serving as “situated annotations” of captured events to
improve recall or allow unobtrusive and often clandestine
audio-based recordings. Cultural Probes [21] are similar to
diary studies in that they allow participant-centric elicitation
of unexpected or imaginative social and cultural experiences,
through low-tech kits including disposable cameras,
postcards, diaries, and single-use digital audio devices like
the Dream Recorder. Technology Probes [22] build on this
approach to deploy a set of simple creative tools in a real use
context, through an open-ended and adaptive manner, to
derive ideas for novel technologies from users over time.
Unlike media diaries, they are not designed to capture
everyday interactions. Audio diaries were used to elicit
feedback for participatory design and prototyping with
visually impaired users [23]. Participants were asked to
conduct similar tasks in their homes or workplaces using
their current accessibility technology, while sharing their
reflections with the design team prior to each prototyping
session. These audio diaries “expanded the space of
reflection on designs to reach beyond the bounds of
participatory sessions themselves” and gave designers
“access to actual in-situ experiences”, capturing the
participants’ speech-based interactions and commentary
explaining their rationale and usability issues encountered.
Researchers have also explored the role of sound as a
“medium for social reminiscing” by having families record
sonic souvenirs (audio-only mementos) of their holidays and
discussing them upon return [24]. Researchers found that
while both sounds and pictures “triggered collaborative
reminiscing”, the sounds offered more “varied, familial, and
creative” experiences and exploration among participants.
We examine the use of audio journaling with young
participants as a creative probe eliciting reflections from
digital images, hand-drawn sketches, and physical artifacts;
we found these better suited to our resource-constrained field
settings, easily and reliably deployed, and quickly adopted
by adolescents, without significantly distracting them from
their learning and co-production activities. Allowing most
participants to take audio recorders home during the
workshops, the journaling expanded the space of reflection
into their domestic settings. As many participants used the
audio recorders during their soundwalks in urban
neighborhoods, their on-site journaling also captured these
soundscapes along with their spontaneous commentaries.
EXPERIENCES FROM PARTICIPATORY YOUTH MEDIA
PROGRAMS IN GAZA AND JERUSALEM
Since 2011 we have conducted participatory media programs
and pilot research examining the experiences, struggles, and
identity constructions of Palestinian children and adolescents
living under conditions of conflict in Jerusalem, West Bank,
and the Gaza Strip. While previous studies have researched
psychosocial stress and trauma among young people in the
context of protracted conflict and violence, rarely have they
considered the potential positive outcomes of adaptation and
resilience. Sociologists and psychosocial researchers have

begun to examine these concerns through longitudinal
studies conducted in areas of conflict such as Bosnia,
Palestine, Sierra Leone, and Uganda [25, 26]. Their studies
point to the use of culturally-appropriate framing and
localized mixed methods as well as positive indicators of
resilience and pro-social attitudes emerging among affected
youth under certain conditions of community engagement,
narrative, and civic agency.
The role of narrating was examined among adolescents in
highly contentious situations after the war in the Balkans, as
self-expressions of identity and critical understanding of
their socio-political environment [27]. Storytelling was used
as a cultural probe to understand social-relations, emerging
ideologies, situational coherence in crisis, and as
opportunities for imagination and transformation of one’s
circumstances. The study conducted workshops and writing
exercises with 108 youth across four locations to elicit
hypothetical narratives that were subsequently analyzed
linguistically. The results revealed the emergence of
coherent and moral narratives with a “relatively universal
script of inclusive and collective human action to overcome
obstacles”. Most adolescents used the relative freedom of
fiction writing (and fictional characters) to handle intense
emotions surrounding war and conflict as experienced by
them and their communities, which could not easily be
expressed in direct interviews or autobiographical accounts.
Since 2006 a nonprofit initiative, Voices Beyond Walls, has
conducted digital storytelling and participatory media
programs in Palestinian refugee camps in East Jerusalem,
West Bank, and Gaza. While many pedagogical lessons have
emerged from these experiences [28], critical research is
needed to probe the value of participatory engagement in
creative media expression to support resilience, pro-social
attitudes, and civic action. Participatory content analysis was
used for reflective peer review of visual narratives
collaboratively produced by participants [29]. We illustrate
here how audio journaling offers a lightweight and
expressive means for self-reflection and assessment with
adolescents in pilot research studies conducted as part of
such participatory media programs in Gaza and Jerusalem.
Program Design and Capacity Building
The first pilot research project was conducted at the U.N.
Woman’s Center in the Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza
City in July 2011 with 20-25 Palestinian adolescents (aged
12-16), including their caretakers and teachers. A similar
project was conducted in January 2014 as part of a
participatory media workshops with two gender-separated
cohorts of 12-15 Palestinian adolescents each (aged 13-17)
at the Burj Al Laq Laq community center in the Old City of
Jerusalem. Both projects used a mixed-methods approach
drawing insights from questionnaires, creative probes about
family and self, focus group discussions, semi-structured
interviews, and narrative exercises conducted (in Arabic)
with participants to learn about their interests, backgrounds,
and life experiences; thereafter photography-based portraits,
neighborhood photo/mapping activities, and video-based
storytelling activities were conducted to engage the young
participants in creative media-based expression, followed by
focus-group debriefings at the end of the week-long
workshops. We share our experiences and some outcomes
from the narrative audio journaling aspects of the project.
A crucial aspect of these projects was the involvement and
capacity-building for the local staff and young researchers
based in these communities. Both in Gaza and Jerusalem we
conducted comprehensive 3-day training workshops with 12-
15 young adults (aged 18-25), with backgrounds in youth
counseling, child development, and clinical psychology.
Taking an orientation towards Participatory Action Research
(PAR), we developed the research goals, methods, and
analytic approaches in conjunction with the young
Palestinian researchers whom we considered domain experts
and joint stakeholders in the research. This not only aided in
much needed capacity-building in qualitative research
methods with the team (who were mostly trained in
quantitative and clinical methods), but also leveraging their
own childhood experiences growing up in similar socio-
political conditions and neighborhoods as the adolescents we
wished to engage. Consequently, the young researchers were
able to use their “sub-cultural capital” to forge meaningful
relationships with the teenagers in the workshops during the
process. In particular, they were able to better facilitate
participants’ use of audio journaling to capture seemingly
authentic and intimate narratives, while jointly reviewing
and analyzing their meanings. The young researchers
carefully navigated their “insider status” with the teenagers
to establish a familiar “big brother/sister” mentoring
relationship as captive listeners, but also better recognized
the “performance of selfhood”, social and cultural constructs
expressed by participants.
Audio Journaling
Audio journaling was incorporated in many key aspects of
the participatory media workshops (using several hand-held
H2 Zoom digital audio recorders). The workshops began
with ice breakers and focus-group de-briefings (audio
recorded with consent) among all participants about the
goals, activities, and outcomes expected during the program.
Thereafter, the young researchers were assigned to lead
small groups of 3-5 participants in audio-recorded activities,
including hand-drawn representations of the self, family and
neighborhood, illustrations of a day in their life, and creative
photo portraits of one another. Researchers also asked
participants to lead their own audio interviews in pairs,
asking each other to reflect on what the drawings revealed to
them, while listening in and facilitating their discussions.
With this warm-up exercise, as participants became more
comfortable using audio recorders, the researchers asked
them to undertake narrative audio journaling activities
whereby participants recited short stories to one another
about significant events in their lives over the past year, and
why they felt they were memorable. Audio journaling hence
offered more detailed profiles of most participants over time.

On subsequent days, researchers asked participants to lead
neighborhood walks to share meaningful places and routes
traversed in their everyday lives, while photographing them
and audio recording their own reflections. These narrative
audio activities complemented the digital storytelling
activities conducted, helping generate characters and scripts
for autobiographical stories or fictional scenarios they
recreated in their short films or video postcards (which they
later shared with youth in similar media workshops held in
New York City). Collectively, their audio journaling,
photography, and digital storytelling provided a rich source
of narrative and audiovisual content used by the team to
analyze complex issues of adolescent identity, self-esteem,
gender norms, domestic life, and socio-political struggles
whether it be living in the impoverished Jabaliya refugee
camp in Gaza or the contested Old City of Jerusalem.
With 25-30 young participants engaged in activities over the
week-long workshops, conducted for 5-7 hours each day, an
overwhelming amount of materials was generated, including
many hours of audio recordings. These written materials
were carefully archived and organized at the end of each day
by researchers and regularly discussed in de-briefing
sessions held after the workshops. The data was used to draw
out individual and collective themes, patterns, and
psychosocial constructs that the teenage participants
perceived, and how it shaped their sense of self, belonging,
and agency despite the daily struggles, injustice, and
violence they regularly experienced. While only a small
portion of the data collected has been translated and
transcribed from Arabic, we share some findings primarily
drawn from a selection of the audio journaling activities. Key
segments were selected in discussion with our translators and
co-researchers to identify the most salient themes and issues.
Some analytical categories were established in pre-workshop
sessions with co-researchers, while others emerged later.
Given the small sample size of participants, these findings
are not meant to be representative but rather highlight their
individualized concerns and emerging expressions, which
were not easily elicited in questionnaires and interviews.
Outcomes from Gaza Workshops
In the Gaza workshops, when asked to audio record a
significant moment in their lives over the past year, most
children and adolescents mentioned narratives that included
adverse effects experienced during the war (in January
2009), the personal loss of a family member or challenging
events occurring in school. Many mentioned the regular
electric power cuts experienced in the Gaza Strip each day;
peer journaling between two young participants provides
additional nuance about why this may have been disturbing.
Boy A: “I am disturbed when the electricity is shut off... because
this is unacceptable.”
Boy B: “What disturbs you?”
Boy A: “When the electricity is shut off, they turn on the
generators, and that disturbs me. It hurts my head.”
In this segment their tone of voice becomes more subdued,
and less enthusiastic than in the prior discussion. Later on, as
the boys appear to discuss an everyday scenario through
storytelling, even the mundane reveals something unusual
for childhood experience in Gaza.
Boy B: “Can you tell me a true story from your life?”
Boy A: “Yes, of course, this is possible. One time my friends
and I decided to go to the beach. We put together our money
and we bought fruit, lunch and mixed nuts. We went to the
beach from 7:00 in the morning until 9:00 in the evening and
we did not encounter any problems. And we swam and we were
happy, and we did not face any problems.”
Success and achievement comes out in the boy’s voice; a
happy day, without problems; that’s the day the boy chose to
describe after only being asked to tell a true story from his
life. While their tone becomes eager in this segment, it’s
interesting to note the emphasis on not facing any problems,
repeated twice. The passage only highlights how a normal
day by the seaside in Gaza (a very dangerous area) is
considered extraordinary for these adolescents. Several
participants discussed turmoil in the local political situation,
which they were highly aware of through the media.
Interestingly, the research team found that adolescents who
reported watching TV and using social media regularly, and
had more opportunities to socialize with friends outside
school seemed more optimistic about their future, as
expressed in the positive themes in their storytelling. Some
children clearly used media-based engagement as a means
for coping and making sense of their own everyday reality;
this emerged from focus groups we conducted with the
mothers of participants. Many of them also appeared to adopt
prosocial attitudes, support networks, and forms of agency
and solidarity through their interactions with peers in their
neighborhoods and online networks. This may have allowed
them to alleviate some of the stressors experienced in daily
life and the political injustices that they perceived.
In the peer-based storytelling component of the assessment,
participants recorded each other reciting a fictional story (1-
3 minutes long) which they had prepared in writing earlier.
One set of stories tended to evoke simplistic and mundane
themes recurring across them, including the despair of living
in Gaza, a thirst to go to the seaside, and to travel abroad
freely; others emerged as metaphors for the political
infighting and violence of war in Gaza. The intonation in
their voices usually demonstrated an apathy and calm
acceptance of the everyday reality surrounding them. They
were mostly spoken in a monotonous and unexcited manner
Figure 1: Young participants conducting peer-based audio
journaling during media workshops in Jabaliya camp, Gaza

using formal Arabic. As we later realized, these most often
emerged in readings of pre-written stories to older teachers
in a classroom setting. In another set of stories, that were
spoken and recorded primarily among peers, many explored
similar concerns but in slightly more imaginative ways using
magical themes and comic book characters. More
significantly the peer-based conversational mode allowed the
young interviewees to ask probing follow-up questions about
the plot and characters, while the storyteller offered more
enthusiastic and spontaneous responses. The peer-to-peer
dynamic and subcultural access available among young
participants likely evoked a more playful and fluid narrative
delivery, breaking out of the formal scripts expected and
which they may have felt imposed otherwise.
Outcomes from Jerusalem Workshops
Audio journaling in the Jerusalem workshops was designed
to better elicit open and spontaneous responses from
participants about the activities conducted through drawings,
photography, and physical artifacts they brought with them
(e.g. objects of personal significance). The audio recordings
appeared to be more expressive and dynamic informal
exchanges, exhibiting the participants’ train of thought,
sense-making, and an ease of flowing into new topics.
Listeners and translators remarked that they learned more
about these young participants through their recordings (vs.
ones from the Gaza workshops). This was in part affected by
the young researchers who were able to leverage their
subcultural capital to facilitate more natural discussions and
also create a safe space for the participants to share similar
life struggles living in Jerusalem. Consequently, the audio
journals presented seemingly honest and realistic rendering
of personal lived events; there is a spontaneity in recounting
stories of everyday violence, abuse, and detention by police
authorities as experienced by themselves or their siblings.
Still some participants seemed reluctant to elaborate and
express the details of their stories fully, due to an ingrained
fear of being arrested or detained.
Despite the daily hardships they experienced, a recurring
theme was the strong physical and spiritual connection with
Al Aqsa mosque (revered as one of the holiest sites for
Muslims) and the Old City of Jerusalem; one participant
mentions, “I cannot live outside the Old City, it would be like
a fish out of water… even if I went elsewhere I would
return.” Another theme that emerged was the joy of playing
football with friends; however, there were concerns about the
freedom to play given the ever-present restrictions on
movement there. Themes of friendship, familial love, and
solidarity with the community was also strongly expressed.
Audio journaling was used to elicit peer-based discussions
around drawings and photographs taken by participants
symbolizing the Old City during the workshop. In addition,
this method was used during a walk throughout the city, as
participants discussed how it’s geographical, psychological,
and physical contours impacted their lives and sense of
identity. During this portion of the study, participants led
researchers through specific parts of the Old City, some to
their homes or their neighborhoods, to discuss the role of
these physical spaces in their lives. Throughout these audio
journals, participants used specific images of the city as
symbols marking their experiences as Palestinian youth in
Jerusalem. In this excerpt two young participants capture
their discussion of the historic wall protecting the city.
Girl: “What does the Old City wall mean to you?”
Boy: “...it's like the wall around our house.” (chuckles, while
pointing to his drawing)
Girl: “The wall of your house? What does the wall of your house
mean to you?”
Boy: “I mean... like our homeland, our country.”
Girl: “Well, would you like to climb it?”
Boy: “It's forbidden to climb the wall.”
Girl: “Forbidden? Really” (in a tone of disbelief)
Boy: “Yup, if they see us they'll chase us... I mean, the police.
They have guards (positioned) on top. It's for foreigners. You
only see foreigners walking along it.”
Girl: “Do you think you'll cause trouble (if you climb it)?”
Boy: “I mean it's just a wall... but we do climb it. I've climbed
it and sat on it and took pictures on it... did everything on it.”
(speaking defiantly)
Here the segment invokes the deep symbolism of the wall
and how it envelopes the Old City to establish a sense of
home for many living there, while participants remain
mindful of its precarious dangers. The sense of comradery
emerging between young participants and researchers,
cultivated an ability to delve into intimate experiences during
the study, enabling participants to draw greater meaning
from their experiences through audio journaling.
PARTICIPATORY ASSESSMENT WITH YOUTH MEDIA
PROGRAMS IN NEW YORK CITY
Many wide-ranging and innovative digital media and
learning programs are being offered to youth in New York
City, in after-school settings or in summer camps. Some are
targeted towards marginalized, underserved or at-risk
adolescents to improve school retention, media literacy and
technological fluency. In 2012, The New School partnered
with the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center and People’s
Production House (PPH) to devise a program engaging teens
in experimental media, digital storytelling, and social action
projects. For this program, we expanded our audio journaling
methodology, combining it with standardized psychological
assessment. This was conducted with a small group of 10-12
adolescents from several public high schools in New York
City, recruited through a systematic selection process.
Design of the Participatory Media Program
The program began with a 6-week workshop hosted at
Eyebeam called “White Noise/Blind Spot”, focusing on
digital self-expression and urban exploration using
experimental media and technology. This was followed-up
with another 6-8 weeks of training and paid externships at
the author’s university on filmmaking and creative
production of collaborative media projects focusing on

neighborhood, political issues, and social justice in the city.
The intensive workshops required participants to meet for 2-
3 hours, twice a week, and conduct fieldwork on weekends.
The goal was not only to improve creative media expression
and technological fluency, but also to foster a sense of
professional responsibility, self-esteem, civic engagement,
and leadership skills among participants. The workshops and
trainings were led by a team of 4-6 educational staff
members from Eyebeam and PPH as well as graduate
research assistants from the author’s university.
The workshops began by having the teenage participants
work in groups to explore urban neighborhoods using digital
photography, sound walks, and audio interviews in the
community. Deepening the act of seeing and listening to their
everyday environments in new ways, was meant to develop
perceptive and artistic skills for critically understanding and
representing neighborhood issues, not unlike young
journalists. The participants would learn to produce brief
audio stories and use photomontage to construct interactive
media installations, digital narratives, and dynamic maps
using a web-based interactive platform called Mozilla
Popcorn, designed for editing, remixing, and sharing media
online. The participants maintained a collective blog about
their work, discussed their interim projects at Eyebeam in
mid-April, and presented their final work at the author’s
university in late-June 2012.
Pilot Research to Assess Emerging Outcomes
An exploratory pilot research study was designed to assess
the outcomes emerging from this program. The goal was to
examine how the trajectory of informal learning, narrative
expression, and self-esteem was fostered in the program,
while supporting increased community engagement and
school retention over time.
The study implemented a rigorous mixed-methods approach
in three main phases: 1) a baseline study using semi-
structured interviews and a pre-workshop online survey
consisting of three self-report questionnaires (using
standardized youth development measures adapted to this
study), 2) ongoing participant observation, audio journaling,
weekly teachers’ survey assessments of participants, and
weekly debriefing sessions conducted among teachers and
participants during the workshops, and 3) a post-program
assessment with all participants which included re-
administering the online survey, conducting closing
interviews, and a focus group discussion held during the final
project screenings.
Baseline Questionnaires and Interviews
After obtaining informed consent, the adolescents involved
in the study were asked to fill out online questionnaires
administered using Survey Monkey and interviewed with
audio recording of their responses. The questionnaires
administered included the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale or
RSE [30], The Life Effectiveness Questionnaire or LEQ [31]
and a newly devised Youth Media Program Evaluation Tool
or YM-PET, which was adapted for this pilot study from the
Youth At Risk Program Evaluation Tool or YAR-PET [32].
The latter was designed as “an administratively efficient and
psychologically valid method for assessing typically targeted
youth development objectives for adventure-based youth at
risk programs.” The underlying style of the items and
measurement scales was derived from the LEQ instrument.
For the purpose of the study, modifications were made in
order to measure the current research study’s goals,
particularly in areas of assessing media skills, mentorship
abilities, and social engagement in community or
neighborhood contexts. The RSE and LEQ were primarily
used to validate the YM-PET and ensure this adapted tool
provided consistent reporting of outcomes.
A semi-structured interview was designed to gain more in-
depth understanding of the participants’ responses within the
study. Open-ended questions were elicited in five main
thematic areas: 1) personality, identity, and social
relationships, 2) perceptions of school and neighborhood, 3)
fluency with technology and media tools, 4) community
engagement, and 5) expectations of the program.
Audio Journaling
As the program began, participants were provided with their
own hand-held audio devices (either Apple iPods or H2
Zoom digital audio recorders) and trained to use them
regularly for a series of audio journaling activities and
creative media projects. At the beginning of the program, the
participants were asked to briefly narrate an imaginative
story within 2-3 minutes, to gain a sense of their creative
expression, self-esteem, and life issues on their minds.
During their explorations in neighborhoods, participants
were encouraged to use the audio recorders to listen
attentively (through headphones) and regularly capture
soundscapes of the environment, which they would later
reflect on. At the end of each week, participants were asked
to independently respond to three short reflective questions
(provided on an index card) in order to assess their progress,
satisfaction, and possible challenges encountered during the
program. Participants would privately record brief responses
(3-5 minutes in duration). The three pre-designated questions
posed each week included:
1. Describe what skills you learned this week and what you
enjoyed the most.
2. What was the most meaningful experience you had this week
and why?
3. Was there anything you did not enjoy doing or what would
you have changed?
While participants were encouraged to take their audio
devices home and use them for audio journaling at any time,
the recordings were collected and archived securely on a
weekly basis. The original recordings were not made
available to any other participants or teachers. After most
interviews were transcribed and online data collated, the
research team began categorizing, coding and analyzing the
study outcomes. In the following sections we summarize
some of the key findings from the audio journaling.

Participant-Centric Journaling Outcomes
We examined audio journaling from participants over 6-
weeks in the first stage of the program; here we follow the
narrative progression and reflections from three participants,
who initially seemed noticeably reserved and introverted.
Participant A begins by mentioning how he already knew
how to use the audio recorder as his father was a pianist and
he would make recordings for him, but he learned how to
improve the gain levels. Early on his most memorable
experiences in the program were soundwalks and learning to
listen to urban soundscapes; even in the same recording he
remarks about this twice. He picked up audio editing tools
easily and found the weekly tutorials boring, but enjoyed
more conceptual activities acting out characters,
photographing the unusual textures and “small things” he
found in the streets, and mounting a camera on his bicycle to
capture first-person video experiences. His gradual
excitement over the course of six weeks was notable, as he
incorporated the “boring skills” he was learning into more
conceptual and artistically engaging projects.
Participant B enjoyed audio recording and soundwalking as
she was learning a musical instrument in school. She delights
at finding new sounds fused with objects in her environment,
saying how “I heard a hose and it had a buzzing sound, and
I didn’t expect that from a hose!”. She later mentions how
this inspired her to record her own voice to narrate inanimate
objects and learn to tell audio-only stories. She mentions that
“I’m not used to hearing myself in recordings, so when I
listened back to myself I wasn’t like afraid to hear myself,
and now every time I listen to my recordings I get used to it”;
she later remarks how this somehow made her less anxious
speaking in public. She reflects on the need for solitude to
“spend time outside and just sitting there and thinking what’s
the point of my story”. The tone of her voice at the end gives
a sense of gratitude, while cherishing being introspective.
Participant C enjoyed listening attentively to the world
around her and letting her senses take over, ironically calling
the soundwalks “an eye-opening experience”. She later
mentions how “it helped me understand more about the
world, and about me I guess”. After one activity where she
had to mimic the movements of people walking outside, she
remarks how it let her “sort of step out of your own
boundaries and I guess project yourself and really explore
who you are”; she later mentions how she was embarrassed
at first to speak up in groups but has started opening up; she
finds the peer critique helpful for her project, even though
she was often “scared, shaking and fidgety” through it. She
often used audio journaling to “think out loud how to
proceed” in her project and set goals to plan ahead.
These brief summaries of audio journaling entries provide a
sense of free-flowing, introspective, and experience-focused
accounts, rather than retrospective descriptions of events or
directed responses to questions. While they are often non-
linear narratives, we hear the young participants constructing
their reflections actively as they think-aloud and make sense
of their own unexpected observations, perceptions, and
emotions while undergoing these experiences. The nature of
these responses provides a valuable opportunity to examine
the active processes driving choices and behaviors at the
heart of participatory media programs. Below we share
additional characteristics observed across wider audio
journaling responses.
Periodic and Temporally Sensitive Responses
It appears that different issues are salient for youth at
different times in the program. What seems very important
one day may hardly cross their mind the next. This is an
important issue when assessing and improving a program;
adolescents may not always recall an issue when one asks
them about it. The more opportunities we provided
participants to offer feedback, the more likely they were to
engage more fully in discussing their concerns. One
participant, for instance, commented after four weeks into
the program on an issue he'd had since the start: "one thing…
make the homework details more clear, cause... and that's
been from the beginning, but I didn't mention it before...".
Another noted, after using the video-editing program for
several weeks, that a handout to supplement class lectures on
its use would have been extremely useful.
The periodic nature also allowed researchers and teachers to
track how changes in the program were reflected in the
participant's experiences. Post-program interviews did not
easily delineate real changes from week to week, as
participants were asked to reflect over the entire program. As
expected, the program was not uniformly effective; there
were clearly weeks that participants found certain activities
to be more or less challenging, with differing reactions by
participants about what each found most effective. Ad-hoc
review of weekly audio journals allowed the evaluation team
to discuss how some of these issues could be addressed by
teachers, during regular debriefings.
All participants enjoyed the third week of the workshop
which included on-site activities and a psychologist invited
as an engaging guest speaker; Some responses included
"actually this week I really enjoyed both days...", and "I
really liked that we get to go around the neighborhood, and
sort of, interact with, the places around us". Reactions to the
fifth week of the workshop, which focused on their
individual projects, by comparison were much more varied;
one student said "I know I've edited interviews before, but
personally I don't really like editing interviews...", while
another student spoke about building an overall message in
her audio-based interactive art installation, ending with the
statement "I enjoyed it... I personally enjoyed it."
Assessing Emotions from Vocalizations
Emotions are often less regulated in the teenage experience;
they are thus likely to be conveyed in personal reflections
and add meaning in the context of the program. Moreover,
emotions are more easily expressed vocally, providing rich
information on both implicit and explicit concerns [33].
Often a participant's mood was immediately obvious from

their tone and rate of speech, which provided context for
understanding many “neutral” narrative statements. A phrase
like "I think I need to make a few changes in my script" could
be interpreted in many ways, but when spoken with a light
tone that is neither hurried nor halting, it is more likely a
reflective and goal-oriented statement rather than a negative
or depressed one. Audio journaling provides a steady source
of vocal expression to examine for emotional content. While
assessing the reliability of such content may be less
straightforward than measures such as the Positive Affect
Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) [34], it does not require
frequent administration of questionnaires, which all
participants found distracting and unpleasant.
Self-Corrective Articulation
Written work in journals, blogs and essays offers rich
reflection but may not always provide spontaneous
expression; a participant writing a blog entry may deliberate
his or her thoughts carefully, and choose to refine it several
times before completion. Audio journaling provided an
opportunity to not only hear the participant's response to a
question, but also, in many cases, revealed the implicit
intentions leading to it. The audio journals recorded pauses,
corrections, and iterations of their thoughts, allowing
researchers to notice subtle changes in the ways things were
expressed, even when the overall response did not
significantly differ. For instance, given the question “what is
one thing you learned this week”, participants always
identified something they had learned; however different
participants had more or less difficulty in identifying this
information from their experience every week.
Comparison with Quantitative Data Collected
As mentioned, participants completed three questionnaires at
the beginning of the workshop at Eyebeam and at the end of
their externship. While our sample was too small to make
any strong inferences from data captured, findings do
suggest possibilities worthy of further exploration. For
instance, interpersonal measures on the intake survey suggest
a reasonably high level of social competence, with mean self-
report scores on all interpersonal scales substantially above
average (on an 8-point scale, where 4.5 is the population
mean). This included measures of Social Competence (M =
6.14, SD = 1.08), Communication Skills (M = 6.74, SD =
.89), Leadership Skills (LEQ: M = 6.78, SD = 1.01; YMPET:
M = 6.85, SD = .97), Team Cooperation (M = 7.33, SD =
.50), and Conflict Resolution (M = 6.74, SD = .60). We
believe this may indicate that participants likely to apply to
this type of program self-report higher than average social
competence. Participants seemed aware of building strong
interpersonal connections during the program. One
participant recruited several others for his high school dance
project. Another commented, "The most meaningful
experience I had so far... was meeting a lot of new people".
In considering differences between participants who
completed the program (including the externship) vs. those
that dropped-out after the workshop, preliminary analyses
suggested a key factor was achievement motivation.
Interestingly, participants who dropped out indicated notably
higher levels of achievement motivation (M = 7.80, SD =
.30) compared to those who stayed (M = 6.92, SD = .50).
While further study is required to make firm claims about
this finding, one interpretation consistent with the results is
that participants who stayed in the program were interested
in process, in learning and growing, whereas participants
who dropped out were more interested in completing a final
product. Comments in an audio journal made by a
participant as he entered the externship phase may also
provide a window into why some stayed while others did not:
“Well I understand that we’ve been doing Audacity (audio
editing software) but in my opinion we’ve been doing the
basics so I want to like get into it. And I also want to learn
more about Photoshop, cause like I said we touched on it but
we didn’t really do much”. The focus on learning basic
techniques in the workshop at Eyebeam may have left some
students feeling underwhelmed and lacking confidence in the
value of their completed projects.
Highlighting this fact, the average length of audio-journals
differed substantially between students who remained in the
program (M = 192 secs) and those who dropped out (M =
100 secs); audio-journals for participants who stayed in the
program were, on average, almost twice as long as audio-
journals for those who did not. Findings that dropouts
reported greater achievement motivation may at first glance
appear to be at odds with other findings (e.g., that dropouts
occurred just after focus turned to the final project, or that
participants who dropped out spent less time on audio-
journals). However, by considering that achievement
motivation focuses on attaining excellence, it is possible to
bring these findings together—placing a high value on
excellence might lead participants with low commitment or
engagement to abandon a project rather than do a sub-par job.
It suggests that providing strong incentives to boost
engagement early on in the program and monitoring skill
levels or competency to match training provided to
individual participants, may be crucial for program retention.
Finally, providing enhanced mentoring in the final stages of
a project can be transformational for many of the participants
indicating higher achievement motivation.
Self-esteem scores also decreased a small but consistent
amount between the beginning and end of the program. For
participants who completed the whole program from
beginning to end, self-esteem scores on the Rosenberg Self
Esteem (RSE) scale fell on average 2.25 points (out of 40)
from 34.25 to 32.00 (SD = .5). Comparing participants who
joined late but experienced the end of the program with
dropouts shows a similar pattern, with participants who
completed the program scoring on average 6.2 points less (M
= 29.00) than those who did not (M = 35.20, SD = 1.95).
Although lack of a control group precludes us from firmly
identifying the drop-in self-esteem scores as a result of
program participation, this consistent decline in self-esteem
scores is notable.

While at first glance lowered self-esteem seems like a
negative outcome, that may not be the case. Indeed, much
has been written about the dangers of overly high self-esteem
[35, 36], and it is generally acknowledged that self-esteem
tends not to be beneficial when based on an unrealistic view
of the self. More research is necessary to draw firm
conclusions, but it seems possible that the decrease in self-
esteem scores reflects participants’ more realistic view of
themselves following completion of a difficult and novel
task. The audio journals lend credence to this interpretation,
as their tone and content reveal a narrative of
accomplishment and overcoming challenges to succeed. As
one participant noted in his last audio journal: “It took a lot
of criticism, but it finally became the perfect video, or at least
somewhere close to it. Yeah, so Eyebeam was fun. I really
wouldn’t change a thing.” In the future, the inclusion of
another well-being measure (e.g., self-compassion) may help
clarify the impact of similar programs on self-esteem.
While it’s challenging to draw conclusive outcomes from
data emerging from a small sample, by triangulating it using
participant observations (from mentors and teachers) and the
rich spontaneous and introspective narratives captured
through audio journaling, provides meaningful insights that
can be used to steer the pedagogical process and mentorship
support needed during the workshops, while adopting
improved practices in future programs.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WO RK
Conducting a thorough and rigorous mixed-methods
assessment for such participatory media projects requires a
systematic and labor-intensive process with a great deal of
dedicated resources; this is unlikely to be available for most
after-school programs, however we believe that lightweight
and participatory modes of assessment can be successfully
adopted. In subsequent work, we piloted a newly devised
participatory assessment for a digital storytelling and
participatory media program with adolescents at the Arab
American Family Support Center (AAFSC) in Brooklyn, NY.
The revised approach eliminated all quantitative
questionnaires and interviews, while emphasizing weekly
focus group discussions led and recorded by participants,
audio-journaling using pre-defined and participant-devised
questions each week, and a final focus-group to be led by
participants at the end of the program, in conjunction with
project screenings. This assessment approach was designed
to be more resource-efficient, peer-oriented, youth-led and
aligned naturally with the pedagogical form, creative goals,
and structure of the program. A greater focus on assessment
of the “process” of shared learning, experimentation, and
empowerment, rather than on acquiring skills, technologies,
and finished outcomes simplifies the nature of assessment as
a more participatory and reflective tool.
Through our experiences we found audio-journaling to be a
fairly promising and complementary tool if incorporated as
a regular activity among participants, especially for media-
based programs. Audio journaling can be self-administered,
which offers the possibility of reducing some demand
characteristics for program staff involved, and receiving
more honest or frank responses [37]. It can be conducted as
a private activity, which may increase the validity of
responses to more sensitive topics [38]. Audio journaling
also provides an alternative to written journaling and
questionnaires for populations with limited literacy or
linguistic capacity, including new immigrants, young
children or those with certain disabilities. Among the young
participants in the intensive media workshops, audio
journaling provided a less strenuous and more immediate
alternative to writing-up reflections on paper or in online
blogs. Audio journaling was easily incorporated into the
program structure; participants could capture their
reflections at many opportune moments in the program or at
home and while actively engaging in outdoor experiences.
As with any tool, audio journaling is not effortless to setup
or ideal in every situation. It requires specialized equipment
(such a digital audio recorders or Apple iPods), which also
adds an expense. However, affordable audio recorders are
becoming more widely available and most mobile phones
allow audio capture. Training participants to use the devices
for audio journaling requires some preparation and time. In
many cases the devices may have been acquired as part of
the educational media program itself, whereby participants
are expected to learn to use them for their creative media
projects and interviews; hence they can be leveraged for
participatory assessment. Audio journaling does currently
require time and effort, on part of program staff, to carefully
transfer, organize, transcribe, anonymize and analyze; hence
it may not always be ideal for programs with very limited
resources. However, this can be streamlined with newly
emerging dynamic audio tools and platforms. Overall, we
believe audio journaling is a worthwhile approach that is
relatively easily incorporated into existing media-based
workshops or as part of program assessment methods to
support a rich, engaging, and reflective experience for
participants, educators, and program staff.
In the future, audio journaling can be augmented using
digital tools for capture, annotation, sharing and analysis. In
prior work, mobile interfaces have been devised to capture
audio recordings synchronously with hand-written gestures
on tablets for note-taking and retrieval [39], while prototype
applications have been designed for adolescents to capture,
annotate, and share audio-visual media as story threads on
handheld devices [40]. Sonic Gems have been proposed as
wearable devices to unobtrusively record fragments of
domestic sounds [41]. These can be coupled with embodied
digital mementos like the Family Memory Radio [42] or
mobile tools for audio blogging, sharing, collective
reflection, and participatory analysis among the adolescents
themselves. Designing such ubiquitous audio-based tools in
conjunction with audio-journaling practices, may support a
more cooperative and participatory approach to learning,
creative expression, and assessment among young people.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to acknowledge the support of the U.N. Woman’s
Center in the Jabaliya refugee camp, the Gaza Community
Mental Health Programme (GCMHP), and our Gaza study
coordinators Wasseem El Sarraj and Samah Saleh. We thank
the Child Institute at Al-Quds University, the Burj Al Laq
Laq center in Jerusalem, and our research collaborator
Narmeen Dabbagh. We also wish to acknowledge support of
the Hive NYC Learning Network, Eyebeam Art and
Technology Center, the People’s Production House, and the
Engage Media Lab; in particular we thank the graduate
research assistants from the School of Media Studies and the
Department of Psychology involved in this project at the
author’s university since 2011. A special thanks to Nour
Chamoun and Abe Assouli for assisting with translations.
SELECTION AND PARTICIPATION OF CHILDREN
For the participatory media workshops conducted in Gaza,
25 Palestinian mixed-gender adolescents (aged 12-16) were
recruited. In Jerusalem, two gender-separated cohorts of 15
Palestinian adolescents each (aged 13-17) were recruited.
The participants self-selected into the programs in response
to announcements sent to their families. For the workshops
in New York City, 12 mixed-gender adolescents were
recruited from local public high schools by the Eyebeam Art
and Technology Center. Informed consent was administered
with all participants, caretakers and teachers. All responses
were anonymized and digitally archived securely at the
author’s university. The research protocols were approved by
the Institutional Review Boards (IRB) at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (Gaza) and the author’s university
(Jerusalem and New York City), with oversight from local
children’s mental health institutes.
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