My world through my camera phone describes a project about a group of teenagers from San Francisco and Pretoria who used camera phones to document aspects of their lives, post the material online and to engage each other around that. Every week I would meet with the group in San Francisco to discuss that week’s tasks, which were related to capturing and conveying aspects of their individual culture: their family roots, the food they eat, the music they like, their community, etc. While much more research is needed, the project demonstrated that mobile phones and blogging, supported by in-person group discussions, are useful tools to foster cross-cultural awareness.
The project began to answer questions such as:
- How do youth socially and communicatively interact with their mobile phones?
- How can mobile phones be used to document their lives?
- And in a world of global communications, can this mobile device be a conduit for increased cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity?
Image taken with a camera phone by Ben Dunning, 14 (CC)
Steven Vosloo 