Democracy 2.0, Old and New Media, and the Quest for Engaged Participation
Biographical Sketch
PAUL R. CARR is a Full Professor in the Department of Education at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada, and is also the Chair-holder of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education (DCMÉT). His research is broadly concerned with political sociology, with specific threads related to democracy, media literacy, peace studies, intercultural relations, and transformative change in education. He has seventeen co-edited books and an award-winning, single-author book (Does your vote count? Democracy and critical pedagogy). He is the Principal Investigator of two Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research projects entitled, respectively, Democracy, political literacy and transformative education, and Social Media, Citizen Participation and Education. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Global Doing Democracy Research Project, which involves researchers in some 20 countries examining how educators understand, experience, perceive and do democracy in and through education. Before entering academia, he was a Senior Policy Advisor in the Ontario Ministry of Education, working on equity and social justice issues.
Michael Hoeschsmann is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University (Orillia). His research focuses on digital and media literacies, cultural studies and education in formal and non-formal settings. His teaching interests are in social studies; multicultural and anti-racist education; and media education 2.0. His published books include Media Literacies: A Critical Introduction (Wiley Blackwell). He is a board member of the non-profit organization Media Smarts: Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy and the Canadian co-Chair of the North American network of UNESCO GAPMIL (Global Alliance of Partnerships for Media and Information Literacy).
Gina Thésée is a Full Professor in the Department of Education and Pedagogy at University of Quebec à Montreal (UQAM) in Montreal, Canada. She is the past Director of the Bachelor in Secondary Education program at UQAM, and is currently a member of the Teacher-Education Committee (CAPFE), an advisory committee to the Quebec Ministry of Education in Quebec, which reviews all teacher-education programs in the province. Her research focuses on interculturalism, epistemology, social justice, and science education, and she has published widely in these areas. She is a Co-Investigator of the Democracy, political literacy and quest for transformative education, and of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education.
Type of Presentation
Panel submission
Brief Description of Presentation
We aim to present concepts, ideas and theoretical frameworks that will connect the production and consumption of media, especially social, alternative and now forms of media, with the potential for critically-engaged citizen participation. Education and media literacy, thus, are central to our on-going research project, and the linkage with thicker forms of democracy also underpins our thinking. We seek to elucidate the potential for transformative change while interrogating hegemonic power relations in the ways that we all are exposed to and engaged with the media.
Abstract of Proposal
It is virtually impossible to imagine a society or world that is not already (re) presented through media forms. The popular imaginary/imagination is already inhabited by pre-packaged soundbites of common-sense wisdom derived from hegemonic sources, and the mainstream corporate media has long skillfully demonstrated its ability to incorporate, coopt and sublimate yesterday’s radical or alternative ideas into today’s slogans and products. Nonetheless, we have witnessed over the last decade a profound transformation in who shapes the media and how it is shaped. The emergence and consolidation of Web 2.0 has irrevocably transformed a number of media functions, particularly in relation to news reporting, advertising and music and film production, and it has opened and created spaces where anyone with a cell-phone, a computer and Internet access can, potentially, become a global change-maker (Fuchs, 2017). Activist media in the era of digital citizen participation has flourished, sometimes resulting in profound new alliances and social change, though often transforming into superficial forms of “clicktivism” that are feel-good but relatively ineffectual forms of social activism. With the exponential growth in technological platforms and social media, the need to understand, contextualize, and problematize the meaning of the media in and through Education, especially as it relates to democracy, is increasingly necessary (Ranson, 2017). The focus of our presentation involves this intertwined nexus of activity and inter-change, linking together media, democracy and education in their diverse, contested, nuanced and paradoxical forms.
Democracy makes less and less sense to us without a thorough interrogation of how our sense of power, social justice, political literacy, transformative change and inequitable power relations pass through the sieve of the media, notably contemporary, internet-based, communicative forms of media. Democracy requires a functioning, engaged and literate populace, one that can participate and shape, in meaningful and critical ways, the discourses and forms of the society in which it exists (McChesney & Nichols, 2016). Education for democracy, therefore, requires not only political literacy but also media literacy, given the immersive ubiquity of media and their prolific consumption and use by students and citizens of all ages today. Media literacy combines the analysis of media texts, institutions, audiences and contexts, on the one hand, with the theory and hands-on production of media material on the other.
Start Date
2-24-2018 1:10 PM
End Date
2-24-2018 2:40 PM
Recommended Citation
Carr, Paul R.; Hoechsmann, Michael; and Thésée, Gina, "Democracy 2.0, Old and New Media, and the Quest for Engaged Participation" (2018). International Critical Media Literacy Conference. 43.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/criticalmedialiteracy/2018/2018/43
Democracy 2.0, Old and New Media, and the Quest for Engaged Participation
It is virtually impossible to imagine a society or world that is not already (re) presented through media forms. The popular imaginary/imagination is already inhabited by pre-packaged soundbites of common-sense wisdom derived from hegemonic sources, and the mainstream corporate media has long skillfully demonstrated its ability to incorporate, coopt and sublimate yesterday’s radical or alternative ideas into today’s slogans and products. Nonetheless, we have witnessed over the last decade a profound transformation in who shapes the media and how it is shaped. The emergence and consolidation of Web 2.0 has irrevocably transformed a number of media functions, particularly in relation to news reporting, advertising and music and film production, and it has opened and created spaces where anyone with a cell-phone, a computer and Internet access can, potentially, become a global change-maker (Fuchs, 2017). Activist media in the era of digital citizen participation has flourished, sometimes resulting in profound new alliances and social change, though often transforming into superficial forms of “clicktivism” that are feel-good but relatively ineffectual forms of social activism. With the exponential growth in technological platforms and social media, the need to understand, contextualize, and problematize the meaning of the media in and through Education, especially as it relates to democracy, is increasingly necessary (Ranson, 2017). The focus of our presentation involves this intertwined nexus of activity and inter-change, linking together media, democracy and education in their diverse, contested, nuanced and paradoxical forms.
Democracy makes less and less sense to us without a thorough interrogation of how our sense of power, social justice, political literacy, transformative change and inequitable power relations pass through the sieve of the media, notably contemporary, internet-based, communicative forms of media. Democracy requires a functioning, engaged and literate populace, one that can participate and shape, in meaningful and critical ways, the discourses and forms of the society in which it exists (McChesney & Nichols, 2016). Education for democracy, therefore, requires not only political literacy but also media literacy, given the immersive ubiquity of media and their prolific consumption and use by students and citizens of all ages today. Media literacy combines the analysis of media texts, institutions, audiences and contexts, on the one hand, with the theory and hands-on production of media material on the other.
