Editorial: critical perspectives on digital spaces in educational research

Globally, the digital is encroaching, reformulating, and recreating spaces in contemporary society (Kalantzis-Cope & Gherab-Martin, 2010). This is so in South Africa with the various applications of the digital having their roots in different places and spaces. Historically, we can look back to the development of portable video technology in the late 1960s in Canada. Organised through the National Film Board of Canada, a group of filmmakers initiated a new approach to documentary film production, engaging communities themselves in the process of (Rusted, 2010). The Fogo method, as it came to be called (named after Fogo Island, Newfoundland, where it was first used), was part of the Challenge for Change/ Societe nouvelle program. It brought together government, filmmakers, activists, and communities to address poverty through documentary film production and distribution (Baker, Waugh & Winton, 2010). It is worth noting that the Fogo method of participatory video was transported to South Africa in the late 1970s (Cain, 2009). This work became a significant part of anti-apartheid activism, especially in the Eastern and Western Cape (pers. comm. Lou Haysom). As Cain (2003) writes in her doctoral study of participatory video that focuses on housing, water, and sanitation in communities in Eastern Cape:Challenge for Change delegates came to South Africa in the late 1970s and met with anti-apartheid community activists and leaders to promote their approach to filmmaking. As recounted by Maingard, this visit had a significant impact on the development of South African documentary filmmaking (1998, p. 35) and resulted in Canadian funds being given to initiate the Community Video Resource Association (CVRA) at the University of Cape Town, which later became independent and was re-named Community Video Education Trust (CVET), still in operation today. (103)Four decades later, new media technology has become more accessible, more personal, and more connected through digital communication networks (Graham, Laurier, O'Brien & Rouncefield, 2011) and social media, with mobile technology playing a key role, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. As Buckingham and Willett (2009) observe in their work which carefully traces the evolution of video culture taking into account the various iterations of the camcorder, these developments have important implications especially for those studying youth culture and working with young people, and in the context of a DIY (do it yourself) media culture. But, as the various contributors to this issue of Perspectives in Education highlight, these developments have important implications for educational research such as bridging the digital divide, particularly in lower and middle income countries where access to digital resources and services, and human capacity to take advantage of them, are scarce (World Bank, 2013). Additionally, we need to consider the role that formal and informal education (with teachers, young people, and communities) needs to play in a digital age. Such participatory visual methods and tools as photovoice, digital storytelling, participatory video and cellphilming, digital animation, and digital archiving have the potential to alter how we conduct research, with whom, for what purposes, and for which outcomes.This Special Issue focuses on the possibilities and challenges that this technology is bringing to researchers to engage teachers, learners, community members, departments of education, and governments in educational research. The fundamental question asked in the issue is this: How can the digital spaces afforded by new media technology and social media be used to address issues in educational research? The issue seeks to facilitate dialogue among researchers who explore digital spaces so as to gain deeper and more critical insight into the possibilities of taking up research in such spaces. It looks at how digital spaces afforded by new media technology and social media contribute to addressing issues in education. …

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