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| Screenshot of results of a Google image search on "political memes." |
A Google image search on terms like “political memes” or “election memes” provides a reading experience markedly different than opening the morning paper. This instant collage of pictures and text is the most complex of digital footprints, still new to even the most web literate among us. Political memes show participatory culture’s take on political news and the evolving process of electing a president. For those of us interested in literacy education and connected learning, for CLMOOC participants in particular, when we see these memes, or .gif looping videos of candidates in our Facebook feeds and Twitter streams, we can plainly see that this presidential election cycle is an international make cycle already in progress. How can the #clmooc community join this stream in the interest of our own connected learning?
The American presidential election has raised question about the shifting role of media and the web on contemporary politics. The emergence of Donald Trump, a controversial real estate billionaire and reality television star, as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, prompts the mainstream print and television media to collectively ask “What’s happening?” almost daily, while Twitter feuds between candidates dominate the headlines the news organizations write.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist and long-time independent congressman from Vermont, has proven himself surprisingly competitive despite eschewing campaign finance support from Super PAC’s. The social media campaigns of all candidates, these two outsiders in particular, are the subject of great interest. In just the last few days, both Forbes and the Economist have each published an analysis. Undoubtedly, the web and informal social channels are changing the way people keep informed about politics, and also how they discuss issues, events and candidates.
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| A New York Times article annotated by Terry Elliott using the social annotation tool hypothes.is. |
Amidst this shifting media landscape, we invite you to join this make cycle that is already underway. Your facilitators for this pop-up make cycle, Terry Elliott and Joe Dillon, will create .gifs and memes, and we’ll annotate the political articles that whiz by, putting our creations in the digital margins. We invite you to join us to learn with us by making your own political statements. If American presidential politics is a turn off, maybe you have something to say about the Flint water crisis. Maybe you’ll be following the planned walkout in Chicago’s Public Schools to protest school funding. Whatever your interest, we invite you to follow it, and to make political statements with us.
Great to see Joe Dillon and Terry Elliott host this activity. As I look at the collection of images it reminds me of a goal that I've been scratching for a while. I've been trying to recruit and teach third party people/organizations to take proactive roles to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reaching youth in high poverty areas. One way to do that is to re-tweet posts by these orgs on Twitter, and/or to like and forward their posts on Facebook. However, there are over 150 Chicago area orgs with sites on Facebook, so I can't give regular attention to them all. However, students/volunteer teams could duplicate what Joe and Terry are doing. Instead of posting the graphics of political campaigns, they could post images of youth/volunteers that are being posted by tutor/mentor programs in their community. Just like in the political campaigns, the more people who take this role, the more who will look at the people who want to get elected, or the people who seek volunteers/donors to support their work with youth.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in how you connect this type of learning to connected learning opportunities in your own setting. Adults can act as translators for youth and explain to them how these channels might create or strengthen a movement. The barriers to entry are remarkably low and there is such rich potential for forging new ground in community organizing and activism.
DeleteJoe, in the mid 2000s I was introduced to the Global Peace Tiles Project, which you can see on this web site. http://mixedmedia.us/peacetiles/ The idea was that groups of youth/adults in one location could create 7x7 inch tiles which could be sent to different places where they would be assembled and displayed. I thought that would be a great activity for the May and November tutor/mentor conferences I hosted in Chicago and/or for a back-to-school volunteer recruitment event held in August to draw volunteers to tutor/mentor programs in a city. I was never able to find volunteers and/or funding to turn the idea into a reality, so it still sits on my "idea shelf". The work you and Terry are doing is another example of work that could bring people from different places together under a common activity. It just needs a champion/organizer in a city or neighborhood with the ability to make it happen. Just by sharing the idea and brainstorming applications in a public forum like this blog, we create the potential that someone else will step forward to say "I can do that."
DeleteI find this to be the "digital age" evolution of political cartoons. One significant difference is that the general populace takes part. Political cartoons, and by extension memes, are complex. There are so many contextual pieces to them that they can be hard for students to fully grasp.
ReplyDeleteCharlene,
DeleteThanks for your reply. A few years ago one of my favorite discussion threads on clmooc was whether or not memes were worthy of our attention and study. A whole range of people weighed in and I just delighted at the thoughtful discourse that was really about teachers of literacy trying to make meaning of evolving texts. Though memes still deserve scrutiny because of the prevalence of low humor, it is a medium we can appropriate and remix for our own purposes. Since they're everywhere in this election cycle they are worthy of another look.
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DeleteI am putting comments on the GDoc that Terry sent out. I am excited you guys are doing this.
ReplyDeleteI am wary of making statements--let alone political statements--they make me feel bound, locked in a perspective. Ah...this is making me think that I could take this as an opportunity to think about how new media/elit can help us make dynamic, mutable statements...
I hear you about the uncertainty. I expect you're not the only educator who feels a little wary about joining in online discussion about issues. A colleague of mine was posting recently on Facebook that she'd sworn to never discuss politics online. A couple of weeks later she was polling her friends about which candidates they support and writing openly about her leaning. I'm thinking this election cycle, combined with the way the news references social media so often now, will be a tipping point for a lot of people.
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