Research has traditionally been firmly grounded in a formal, objective knowledge provided by experts. Casual opinions provided by ordinary citizens stood at a stark opposition to what we expect from respectable opinion-makers. Often, the line between expert and citizen is one of access: who can find research and who can use it. The goal of reaching wider audiences is to secure more funding by showing that research is relevant. But this leads to a struggle between research that is high quality and research that is overly elitist.
A similar (and widespread) trend can be observed in some creative disciplines, such as photography and filmmaking, where the border between the professional and amateur becomes increasingly blurry. This can fundamentally reshape the way these disciplines function. Who is an expert? How do professionals and amateurs share their work?
What if this leads to a future where the struggle between subjective and objective results in a paradigm shift? What if in the future an individual story matters more than reports of an army of data-driven experts? With the lack of a united voice of science, the authority of experts might suffer. The quality control and validation of research that follows might lead us to question what can be called research.
Perhaps this dichotomy might even divide society into old-school believers of science-as-it-was, and progressive advocates of the subjective, private, and personal understandings of research. Expert knowledge could be easily substituted by accessible software, making experts obsolete. In the society deprived of scientific authorities, access to technology equals knowledge.
In this world, citizen, informal, and subjective approaches to research becomes the norm.
In this world where citizen and expert blur together, who is in charge of quality control? Does this democratisation of authority leave a scare on the quality of research? Or does it simply result in a reshuffle of power and a creation of the new line of experts among the citizens? With full democracy hard to implement, it is easier to picture a new elite grasping control over research quality.
When the revolutionaries become the establishment, the rules are rewritten. Perhaps even the criteria and requirements change. It might not compromise on quality, but it will follow fundamentally different principles – a shift we have observed in 20th-century art with the emergence of impressionism, cubism, and all the other -isms.
Following that, will more citizen opinion and perspective could democratise the process? Or perhaps it can lead to more diversity of outputs? It is likely that an increased variety of ideas gets allowed and accepted into the newly defined research circles. Suddenly, we might be faced with a plethora of voices from different backgrounds instead of the elitist, mainstream thoughts.
But history teaches us that the pendulum of time keeps swinging. Whatever becomes mainstream will be followed by a fierce opposition of the youth. With time, the sides are likely to switch around, and the opposition becomes mainstream, bringing back the belief in the world of experts.
And we have come full circle. Telling a story about how stories might overtake data-centred research leads to a reminder of failed attempts of science’s own revolutions. Before long, a ‘new wave’ of formal and objective research will be back in place.
But perhaps there is something about experts that helps them stay relevant.
Traditionally, experts have the ability to add context or bigger picture thinking around a single piece of research. Beyond their more extensive knowledge and understanding of their disciplines, they are able to connect dots that nobody else could. Without that, and a thorough understanding of the broader contexts, we risk forgetting why research is undertaken in the first place.
Experts need a role that adds value. In the film industry, professional filmmakers and photographers keep afloat alongside Instagram filters by adhering to circles of establishments which ‘guarantee’ the value of their work: professional associations, awards, titles and elitist societies. The battle between the democratisation and professionalism of the craft results in a clear division of two different environments with mixed quality and fundamentally different outcomes and goals.
While the professionals preserve the traditional patterns of the craft, Instagram stars and influencers seek more immediate success, measured by fundamentally different criteria. Effectively, what we witness are two relatively independent groups, aimed at different audiences and minding their own purposes, functioning side by side, almost like fast food chains and gourmet restaurants (without, necessarily, such a drastic difference in value and quality).
Of course, there will also be space for convergence and hybridity to describe all the spaces ‘in-between’. Often, the expectations and criteria will be stretched and redefined to accommodate new modes and approaches to photography and film. The public response dictates success. A great and very recent example could be a banana duct-taped to a wall by Maurizio Cattelan, which sold for $120,000 and in two copies. But perhaps the most exceptional example of popularity not based on quality is the infamous restoration of ‘Ecce Homo’ fresco in Borja, Spain. The original mural, painted in 1930 by Elías García Martínez, was rendered unrecognisable by the restoration by an amateur Cecilia Giménez. Nicknamed ‘Ecce Homo’ 2.0, the piece became a global phenomenon and a touristic attraction bringing colossal revenue. Still, experts are required to provide context and help us make sense out of this.
One goal in filmmaking or photography is to make the viewer change the way they see the world. One could argue a clear parallel in research?
Without getting too philosophical, our understanding of the world is limited not only by technical advancement or the access to data (there are so many things still hard to measure, such as deep oceans, the centre of the earth, deep space, not mentioning the mysteries of our minds), but also our human perception – we need tools to ‘hear’ frequencies which are inaccessible to our ears, and to be aware of light beyond the spectrum our eyes can detect. So many elements of the universe that surrounds us are barely possible to access without sophisticated tools and technology. And this doesn’t even scratch the surface of our own subjectivity and the question of the existence of the objective reality, in light of the observer effect or uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics.
This is what filmmaking or photography have in common with research – a continued invitation even as the boundary between citizen and expert shift, to explore new ways of seeing the world.
