Creative expression as amusement? Creative expression as contribution? Creative expression as manipulation? Creative expression as effective communication strategy? Creative expression to make a point? Creative expression as sheer entertainment? Creative expression to provoke thinking and evaluation? Creative expression as distraction? Creative expression to nourish the soul? Creative expression as self-indulgent noise? Creative expression as an act of problem solving? Creative expression as art?
How do you use your creative expression?
As our culture barrels ahead with this new capacity for the masses to inexpensively create and distribute slick digital media content, how will we evaluate quality? (Or will we even bother?) In the last century we had editors who earned respect among their peers and in the public eye for their skillful execution of craft, for their dedication to excellence and quality. They took care of the difficult and demanding work of crafting artistic standard. Now that everyone can create and distribute, who will pay attention to quality, to a shared, valued sense of worth?
So much of our life is already bombarded with commercial interests and just plane noise. How are we going to collectively learn about artistic expression through our own new-found acts of creation--a capacity reserved for only a few "talented" people in the past.
Will YouTube continue to be flooded with noise and self-indulgent, low quality products that only amuse and distract us from our true potential for higher levels of significance? Or will we have a growing body of greater contribution because people of all ages are now able to enlighten the human condition through this amazing YouTube distribution system? (Don't misunderstand, I think we need some amusement in our lives.) Will adults, will educators, look in amazement at student-created digital media products that required little skill but look slick because of the technology affordances we as adults don't really even understand?
I guess the main point of this post is that we need to raise the bar on what we expect our students to contribute. Just because it looks amazing (and we haven't a clue how it was done) doesn't mean it actually is amazing. The package isn't the content. Perhaps one reason educators need to better understand the digital ecosystem is not to confuse the form with the substance.
And, by the way, what actually is creativity and creative expression anyway? Want to offer some ideas? Click comment. Comments are now open.
And with that, I offer this little video, which many of you probably have already clicked on before reading this entire post (smile)! We do love our packaging! This 30 second clip took just a couple of minutes to create using animoto: upload some pictures, select some music, click create--three easy steps. This would be a great way to share students learning in your schools! (I mean really, what child wouldn't want to attend this school?!) Yet, substance this is not.
Comments (3)
I agree that we should not be overwhelmed by the ‘slickness’ of the form that ‘creative expression’ may take. Equally if the text is effective we should not diminish it because the production process was simple. The simple pencil sketches of Da Vinci or ‘light’ drawing of Picasso spring to mind.
I think the difficulty now is that the distinction between ‘creative expression’ and ‘media text’ is completely non-existence. When the production and distribution of text and image cost money, a media text is designed to deliver a specific message to a designated audience in the most effective medium. Now that the cost of production and distribution is approaching nil and the means of production in the hands of the many the same level of product deign does not apply.
Platforms like You Tube operate like a market; a huge collection of individuals make choice about what they consume and those choices aggregate to inform a feedback loop into the system. (E.g. the most popular videos get more popular because the are on the most popular list). The change is that those that aggregate to the top may or may not have been intentionally designed to be popular.
Helping our students recognise the tension between new and old media values is key to 21st centaury literacy. Moving students from passive consumer, to active critic and reflective practitioner is vital in a prosumer world, where they must engage with text from disparate and unreliable sources.
I think you underestimate ‘age and cynicism’ when it comes to assessing ‘slickness’ in new media and over estimate the discernment of our students. I think young people are less likely to question a ‘message’ wrapped in a ‘blockbuster’ package verses the opinions of some web-cam Cha Guevara on You Tube.
This is a great post and I must think more on the ‘value’ we ascribe to a message due to its quality of production now that production quality varies so much. I think the Medium is still the Message.
Posted by Gilbert Halcrow | May 15, 2008 10:45 PM
Thanks for your thoughts, Gilbert. The more I clarify my thinking on this notion of media literacy as an essential skill, I realize I need to know so much more about this than I do. So many more questions flow through my mind.
I totally agree that students lack discernment--especially when the packaging (medium) is slick. Is this not a skill schools should be teaching? Is this not part of critical thinking? Here some 500+ years after movable type and our profession is still fumbling around with text literacy. Will we ever value media literacy, which can add so much emotional and visceral impact through music and image, enough to teach it as an essential skill?
I suspect that the 'older and more cynical' adults of the 1500's thought books would be just a passing fad, the latest new fangled thing. Do educators today have the same view of rich media and media literacy?
And do we need to think about a production literacy--moving students beyond passive consumers to producers with a keen sense of craft, of value-added contribution? I suspect that educators as a group need to know so much more about the true nature of creativity. I count myself in this lot, and I'm a classically trained musician who loves to perform and compose! Hmm...
Posted by Tim Tyson | May 15, 2008 11:55 PM
As soon as a child recognises the Golden Arches icon and associates it with food, that fun loving clown or McDonalds (not the one who owned the farm) then media/visual/information literacy has to start.
You would not let someone with no experience behind the wheel of a car – yet we permit our children to consume, form judgements and take action based on the mass of information constantly projected onto them. The motives of the sources of that information and the context of the communication should be understood.
With this knowledge we could make a good dent in personal debt, obesity (and it related illnesses), intolerance and allow the growing population of prosumers to articulate their perspective to greater effect.
The growth of Web 2.0 and the mass of user-produced content has only gone to exacerbate what has long been a gap in our education system. I posted some other thoughts over at wikinomics blog about the end of books http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/05/16/gin-sitcoms-and-the-debate-over-the-cognitive-surplus/
While I am uncertain of the dominate culture response to the introduction of the printing press, this tube demonstrates the point you raised beautifully
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
Posted by Gilbert | May 18, 2008 9:49 AM