First rejection of Video Essay

Sometimes I experiment with video essay’s. My first finished work was sent to the journal Audiovisual Thinking. It also became my first rejection:

“Concerning your video essay “Auto-ethnographic diffractions – performing science” we believe it would need major revisions before it could be accepted. If you want to revise it and re-submit it for a new review the deadline is August 1st.

The video essay is intriguing and the topic of reflecting on auto-ethnographic methodology is highly interesting. Your concept of recording yourself and your writing is a promising approach. But we believe it is too open for interpretation as it is. It is quite difficult to draw any conclusions from it or understand your point. As it stands now it is more of a re-representation of situations, reminiscent of thick description. We would prefer if the video essay could make a more firm conclusion and be more specific in what it says.”

I think that this is valuable critique. It also clarifies that academic video essayes cannot be as open ended as I was aiming for. My main goal was to problematize the complexities of making the researcher visible, the place and space for scientific knowledge production and the conflict of video and text. Maybe that was exactly what I accomplished.