Capturing new community: a case study in digital filmmaking as ethnography
Underwood, IV, George Milton
:
2007-09-19
Abstract
This thesis examines the case of New Community Church, a digital film made by
the author, from the perspective of ethnographic research. The case study shows how
ethnographic process involves movement from a formative theory about a subject, into
the field to collect anecdotal research data, about that subject, and finally to a grounded
theory based on that data, which is in turn presented to an audience. In the case study it
is shown that the author’s filmmaking process follows all parts of this process, and the
argument is made that the process should thus be considered ethnographic research.