Readings: Mandy Rose. “Making Publics: Documentary as Do-it-with-Others Citizenship.” DIY Citizenship. Pp. 201-212.
Deborah A. Fields, “DIY Media Creation.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 58(1), (Sept 2014) Pp. 19-24. Educause (2013), “7 Things You Should Know About Makerspaces”: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7095.pdf The DIY and makerspace movement resonate with me as a movement towards individual thought. Today’s culture and education has moved so heavily towards a text-based and test focused environment that we have all but extinguished the inherent curiosity and creative thought. This is not to say that there are not individuals who are creative or curious but rather that these individuals often face challenges in going against the grain or in questioning “traditional” thought or “common” beliefs. The makerspace and DIY culture is a fitting mechanism to encourage and reward new ideas and out of the box thinking. That this ability to speak up offers a means to discuss social issues seems a natural repercussion of allowing and promoting individual thought and action. Providing a means for individuals to create, make mistakes, and be heard is key to the DIY makerspace movement. Dissemination of this movement into the education system may help to offer mechanisms to lessen the participation gap and enable all the opportunity to be heard through their choice of medium. Throughout the readings during this Pop Culture class, the use of inference, visualization, satire, etc, to share, promote or identify various issues of social justice, politics, racism etc in our world today have been highlighted. By providing these messages, thoughts, opinions in what is often viewed as a “less threatening” manner, the common thread of all is the ability to “say out loud” things that are otherwise off limits or socially questionable. The question that arises becomes, is it enough to make these statements through these comics, makerspaces, diy documentaries, etc.. Is that enough? Is it working?
1 Comment
Colin Lindsay
9/11/2016 12:04:40 pm
In a world where conformity is encouraged and self-expression is often frowned upon having a "safe-space" for student creation, like maker-space is key.
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