Desmond's obscure object, and Tara's desire.

A Phd has to have a 'sock' - a significant and original contribution to knowledge.  What kind of knowledge is this?  The research that is carried out needs an outcome, but when it comes to PhDs in the humanities, this outcome is going to be of a different kind to a PhD in the domain of science.

A PhD that concerns research that is based on or led by practice will have a different coloured sock to a PhD where the 'practice' is sitting in a dusty archive in a library or a laboratory of bubbling test tubes (or possibly blinking lazers).   A practice-based PhD in film will contain research that colours the sock in hues derived from the processes carried out whilst film making. These hues may be more concerned with understanding than with knowledge.  But it's more complicated than that.   It's about methodology.

Desmond Bell's article (cited below) is a useful discussion about this.  Also below, Tara Brabazon discusses the difference between empirical (science) methodologies and the more holistic, interpretive method involving meaning making strategies, typical of a humanities PhD.

Knowledge can be subjective*.

*This has been a topic of dispute throughout the history of philosophy.

'The researcher's experiences link to the research undertaken'.

Desmond Bell (2006) Creative film and media practice as research: In pursuit
of that obscure object of knowledge, Journal of Media Practice, 7:2, 85-100, DOI: 10.1386/
jmpr.7.2.85_1
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.7.2.85_1

Tara Brabazon, dean of postgraduate studies at Flinders University, Australia:

https://youtu.be/SWtPhvIXaOg