Interactive, new media poetry: is such a thing possible?

Using the methodology of practitioner-based enquiry this paper examines the conception, pre-production and production of a collection of interactive, new media poems. Blaikie, in Approaches to Social Enquiry, provides a summary of methodological approaches in an “attempt to highlight the complex range of choices which any researcher needs to make” (1993, p.215). These alternative positions indicate ontological and epistemological assumptions, the relationship of the researcher to the object of study, and the aim of the research. Blaikie goes to some lengths to deflect criticism of the dualism of his summary there is still “a fundamental choice to be made by the social researcher, a choice between very different ontological (realist v. constructivist) and epistemological (outside v. inside) positions” (Blaikie 1993, p.203). Practitioner-based enquiry allows the researcher to access the 'inside' perspective of the producer. Further, this position allows the researcher to examine issues of creativity, motivation, audiences, and cultural production.