Video-diary like auto-ethnography. A model for field research on the forms of self-documentation through audiovisual hand-held devices

The essay aims to illustrate the results of an exploratory research conducted to understand if the production of a video-diary is a suitable method for an autoethnographic research. In particular, the inquiry has monitored, with a qualitative method, the self-representation practices of four subjects (2 men and 2 women) during the creation of a video-diary, mainly made through hand-held audiovisual devices. From a methodological point of view, the different steps of the research need to adopt a trans-disciplinary approach, integrating a visual-ethnographic perspective with the theory of film and audiovisual media, as well as a philosophical account on self-representation. How is a diary practice conducted through a hand-held audiovisual device different from previous forms of self-narration with other media? Can we talk about forms of socio-cultural grounding that emerge from processes of self-writing through images? Pushed by the new rising drives of immediacy, objectivity, and authenticity, thanks to the digital technologies, the author of a video-diary seem have definitely left on the background the diary writing as a tool of introspective exercise and reworking of the past. In this sense, the video-diary has been fully appreciated for the chance granted of shooting a moment in its realization, as something that signifies inside the space and temporal perimeter in which is happening.