Exploring Mobile Media–Making With Youth Activists

• In Event: 58.083 - Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: 58.083-9 - Curriculum as Cultural Production

Abstract

This critical qualitative project assesses the mobile media practices of a youth activist organization. Using interactive interviews and reflective inquiry, preliminary findings reveal that the group operated as a participatory collective. While it uses various media practices to convey its agenda, it does little to create alternative mobile media applications. When given the opportunity to create one, the group co-designed an audio-based app that uses the art of détournement to resist dominant narratives about its community. The application was not intended to be consumed but rather a co-operative production that can be extended across classroom settings. Insights gained from this project afford the opportunity to conceptualize how youth engagement in cultural and political realms can be extended through participatory pedagogy.

Author

• Joseph D. Hooper, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill