On drawing in mass media contexts

This paper discusses the role of the author’s drawing practice as applied to mass-mediated contexts. That is, the use of drawn imagery as a paradigm of analysis and expression of ideas published in various print and screen media. It seeks to explain the rationale for both the author’s individual, and editorially collaborative decision-making through the methodological framework of an Action Research model. In each case this is a ‘reflective’ process, which also helps examine how the images were developed in response to problem solving. The paper includes Action Research reflection on data collected in collaboration with filmmaker Solon Papadopoulos about participants interviewed and on the subsequent alterations and additions made to his film. The drawings presented here have been commissioned in place of, or alongside words and/or lens-based media, for UK broadsheet newspaper articles published between 1990 and 2007 and within the documentary film ‘My War’ made by Hurricane Films in 2011. The author’s imagery is discussed within the contexts of contemporary illustration, rationales and published theories. This paper asks the following questions: 1. What does drawing offer as a graphic language in broadcast media, particularly in contrast to that of the photograph? 2. How are drawings received and valued in the process of visualizing and remembering particularly by those whose memories (the participants) were the subject of this research