“The Art Lab uses creative and artistic activities as research tools to gain an insight into people’s relationships with contemporary media culture. Instead of just talking to people in interviews or focus groups, these approaches get participants doing things, as a different way of getting inside their relationship to a particular topic.

…The Art Lab studies represent a new type of research in which media consumers’ own creativity, reflexivity and knowingness is harnessed, rather than ignored. In these studies, individuals are asked to produce media or visual material themselves, as a way of exploring their relationship with particular issues or dimensions of media. Examples, which appear in the projects section, include research where children made videos to consider their relationship with the environment; where young men designed covers for imaginary men’s magazines, enabling an exploration of contemporary masculinities; and where people drew pictures of celebrities as part of an examination of their aspirations and identifications with stars.”