Update on dissertation progress #1

This is the first time I’m reporting on my progresses in the preparation of my dissertation and opportunity to share with you the “highs and lows” of doctoral research (as my blog is entitled) from an individual perspective.

It seems like an eternity since I have registered to be a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Geneva. One of the reason for this perception of time-flow has to do with a very busy life, divided between doing research and working 100% jobs that have nothing to do with my dissertation in order to finance it. This means that for the first 3 years, I have worked in a very disjunctive way, often losing the overall sight of my project and focusing on specific aspects of it, sometimes finding myself erring quite far away from the central topic that initially motivated my participation in the doctoral school in Media and Communication Studies founded by my director. It’s only since I have left my last job that I have been able to progressively stich together all these pieces of research and begin to see the outline of my project really taking shape. I have had to read a lot in order to make the connections between these scattered pieces of theories, methodologies and general knowledge about the evolution of media, their uses, as well as the development of narrative forms better suited to constantly renewed audiences, and the significance of these changes within a larger sociocultural frame (that of globalization and the increasing domination of digitalization) .

I must say that these additional readings first increased my sense of confusion to such a point that it literally paralysed my capacity to write anything, even reviews of these books on this blog as I had initially planed when I opened it last year. Indeed, to do a review, you must at least have an idea of the general context in which you want to inscribe it and I didn’t. However, progressively, time and some specific books (A huge thanks to Henry Jenkins, Brigitte Le Grignou, Dominique Pasquier & Daniel Cefaï and Shaun Moores for having done all these researches and produced such good publications!!) helped unlock my thinking. Now, I have a much better general idea of where I’m heading and have been able to summarize the main research question that will serve as the horizon of my whole work.

I believe that last night actually played a significant part in this process: basically, around midnight, I was visited by Lady Inspiration. I was kind of exhausted, especially because my allergies have started very strongly, but after months of “blank page” syndrome, I wasn’t going to tell her: “Look, I’m exhausted so can you please come back tomorrow morning?” Because, the last time I did, the next morning, I had forgotten everything and couldn’t write a line! So, until around 2:00am, I was able to put down the main lines of my coming fieldwork, think out the implications of these encounters with various types of people in different occasions and start preparing the questions, questionnaires and other tools to use for this part of my Ph.D. project.

Henceforth, I hope Miss Inspiration stays by my side and continues to support me for the coming months!