Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In this sense creative technologies have as their main goal the task of facilitating
creation by general people, to allow general people to self-discover the best of
themselves that they can give back to the community.
On the other side of the literary spectrum, we have the debate on the subject of
participatory culture. Jenkins has been talking about the changes in the culture of
content creation for so long (
1992
), moving from mainstream media content to art-
works produced by amateurs, for example, the gigantic fan base for Star Wars, or
Star Trek, which takes communities to produce amateur fi lms, comics, clothes, and
toys.
Also more recently Jenkins was responsible for the white paper on participatory
culture (
2009
) funded by the MacArthur program on “Building the new fi eld of
digital media and learning”. Here Jenkins talks about the shift occurring with cul-
ture that have been produced by some to serve the masses, into culture produced by
all to serve all, and the new approaches we need to take into account in schools. The
discussion focuses around the idea that media literacy taught from the analytical and
critical perspective only is not enough and that kids should be also taught about the
creative dimensions and learn the skills to express themselves and communicate
with all others.
Creative technologies strongly defend this perspective, the need to open up the
teaching subjects, allowing different domains to enter schools. Thus new technolo-
gies being created are aimed at novices, people with no special knowledge, which
sits very well with children at school.
The idea of moving from all-to-one to all-to-all is directly connected with the
idea of democratization of knowledge, shortcutting through creative authorities.
Gauntlet (
2011
:49) compares the democratization allowed by the open-source
software movement in the 1990s of the twentieth century, with the one developed
by the Arts and Crafts Movement in the nineteenth century by William Morris
inspired by the writings of John Ruskin. Both movements were responsible for the
appearance of subsequent movements that we now label as “do it yourself” (DIY).
The DIY creations appear as the basis for the communication all-to-all, engender-
ing a culture of doing things on your own. The DIY emerges because the commu-
nity, in the sense they support creation and sharing processes, allows creators and
also because of the intrinsic pleasure they get from doing, creating, and being
recognized by the community, which grants self-esteem. Compensation doesn't
come in economic form but as social reward in the form of community
acknowledgement.
On this movement to a participatory culture, Shirky (
2010
:28) refl ected about the
mode in which it happens, dividing the process in three dimensions: “the means”,
“the motives”, and “the opportunities”. Shirky defends that we can have access to a
cognitive surplus if we enjoy the free time we have participating and collaborating
with others. The day has 24 h, 8 h to work and 8 h to sleep, and we still have 8 h free.
The “means” appear with the collaboration with people connected through digital
technologies. The collaboration makes it possible to create artworks that are not
possible for one person living in isolation. The “motives” surge with the realization
of higher-quality works through this connection and admired by the connections.
