October 2024 - Mhor Collective

“I remember this time when…”

There’s something magical about a good story. We treasure our memories and relish the prospect of regaling someone with a tall tale from our past. Equally, when someone kicks off a yarn with a wee glint in their eye, we can’t help but feel immediately invested.

History is the biggest story, of course, but it needn’t all be lords and ladies in their stately homes. Oral history gathers up memories of the everyday experiences that make up a life, finding common threads in life’s great tapestry. As the Oral History Society’s slogan goes, “everybody’s story matters.”

In years past, these recordings needed specialised equipment and training. Now, the power to do this is in people’s pockets, and so for many (though by no means all) the access itself is democratised. But the knowledge isn’t, and that’s where projects like this come in: Oral History in Castlemilk.

At first glance, using a phone as a recorder is quite a limited task. The standard recording apps (as found on Apple or Samsung devices) have a record button and a stop button, with few bells and whistles besides. But they contain a whole suite of transferable skills that can accompany that, from sharing and sending to naming, renaming, storing and shifting files.

One example is the share button. Participants used this to send their recordings to a WhatsApp group and also by email, but in our fortnightly sessions we could build on this to demonstrate that the share button is seeded right throughout every app on their phones. So, in one direction, they might share from their recording app to other destinations like Facebook, and equally they could see that share button in other contexts like finding a funny clip on YouTube and sending it to the WhatsApp group. Using that button is the same skill every time, regardless of the app it’s in, and by showing an initial use case we could demystify it and start to build its use elsewhere.

One day after class, we found a truly gargantuan Devil’s Coach Horse in the corridor and managed to identify it using the beetle’s Wikipedia page (and a helpful Community Woodland Officer). How did we all get to read about it? The share button of course, from the browser into our chat in just a few taps! Life finds a way…

This was about hands-on learning, of course, but the historians brought a real human touch to our sessions. When we presented them with a draft checklist that they could use when making recordings (based on our previous discussions, of course), it included practical things like minimizing background noise and signing the participant agreement. But they added such crucial elements to this: “Before you start, reassure the person that their stories are just as valid as anyone’s.” “Encourage them as they talk, or if they falter.” “Afterwards, tell them how much you appreciate their time and give them a chance to re-record if they would like that.” It’s easy to forget that this is more than a technical exercise, it’s folk history rooted in communities that are held together with such everyday kindness.

But the techy stuff allowed that to happen, and by the same token, exclusion from that techy stuff locks people out of the opportunities, the moments, the stories waiting to be told. And oh, the stories we heard. From scurrilous and unprintable to tear-jerking, the time just flew by.

The bigger story, of course, is the transformation of learners as they reflect anew on the viewpoints they’ve heard and the perspectives they’ve gained about themselves and their abilities, using that knowledge to transform the world about them into a richer, more joyful place.

Looking forward to how this experience can lead on to other things, the ideal would be that the group members asked for more digital skills on the back of our time together – and that’s exactly what’s happened. As their skill set and confidence has grown, they can see the potential that their phones might have for them and have requested extra sessions on things like managing calls and contacts, navigating between apps and menus, the kind of essential smartphone skills that will relate to many aspects of the UK Digital Skills Framework that we haven’t yet covered.

Alongside that, they’ve expressed a really clear wish for oral history in Castlemilk to continue. This is really a measure of the laughter and warmth we’ve felt together in the room, something that’s driven their motivation to learn and develop collectively.

Reflecting on the project as a whole, one fascinating aspect is that if we asked the participants, they’d tell us the digital stuff is a means to an end of capturing their stories, whereas for us as digital inclusion people, it’s the opposite: the medium of oral history is a teaching tool for gathering up a whole basket of transferable digital skills. And that’s ok, in fact it’s great! That cross-pollination of means and ends allows for natural enthusiasm to blossom on both sides as we grow together.

It’s a true win-win, and perhaps the happiest ending of all: a story that hasn’t finished yet.

At Mhor, we’re always thinking about media literacy. Well, that and what’s for dinner. But apart from overcooked pasta, the thing that bugs us is how often the conversation about media literacy is perceived to be separate, or tangential, to digital inclusion.

We don’t agree. As soon as you switch on a new device, critical thinking is needed. What am I agreeing to with all these terms and conditions? Do I really want my location tracked? How much of my information or privacy am I giving away with the various taps, clicks and swipes I’m doing? That’s relevant on day one of acquiring digital skills, which for new learners has to also be day one of media literacy, having the ability (and the time, including that of anyone supporting those learners) to pan out, pause and reflect on what’s happening.

In our digital lives, this patience isn’t encouraged. Think of the brightly coloured “accept cookies” button versus the sad grey menus you’re forced to click through as you opt out. Again.

Or consider the emotive pull of fake news and clickbait, the drive to make you feel before you think, all to drive more activity and feed the holy grail of internet churn: engagement.

And this isn’t tinfoil hat stuff; the internet is a big old data-gathering beastie because that’s where a lot of the money is – a swirling gyre of tracking movement, then selling that information to advertising, which generates ads, which spurs clicks, which creates more behaviour to be logged and sold. It’s what Shoshanna Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism”.

We love that there’s slowly becoming more of a focus on criticality in the online world, such as Ofcom’s Making Sense of Media and its digital emphasis. It’s incredibly valuable to introduce key questions for new learners, say when they’re reading a news article and querying “Who’s presenting this to me? What’s their agenda? How can I gauge its truthfulness?”

I had all this in my head when I attended a recent session by NeoN Digital Arts entitled “We don’t buy Nestle but we still use Google… Help!” They’re part-way through a journey of questioning how, as an organisation, they can live their digital lives more ethically. For me, it opened doors to even bigger questions than the core media literacy stuff – not just “can I trust this web page?” but at a level above that: “how are these platforms and supply chains working? Who truly benefits? And at what cost?” Thinking about the frictionless way that sleek cloud-based digital offerings are proffered to me, there’s maybe an even plainer way to say it: just because I can, does that mean I should?

NeoN commissioned their discovery as an artwork, which you can read all about here, and I’m fascinated to bounce off this to learn:

How we at Mhor can take practical steps to make our digital landscape more ethical, but also, and moreover…
How we can share that learning, that process of discovery far and wide, particularly with new learners as part of the mix of media literacy and critical thinking?

This second element feels like an idea with such legs, and a conversation that should not, in any way, be the sole provision of techy types or concerned professionals. We’re all, whether we like it or not, mired in this digital landscape and the ethics of our choices affect us all. So, let’s democratise that by making these questions part of our everyday, and including everyone in them.

Feels like something… digitally inclusive, eh?