‘Doing’ media studies: The media lab as entangled media praxis

Thayne, Martyn and West, Andrew (2019) ‘Doing’ media studies: The media lab as entangled media praxis. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 25 (2). pp. 186-208. ISSN 1354-8565

Full content URL: http://doi.org/10.1177/1354856519834960

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‘Doing’ media studies: The media lab as entangled media praxis
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Abstract

Typically understood in relation to innovations in new media and modes of peer-production, the ‘media lab’ has emerged as a contemporary phenomenon encompassing a variety of ‘maker- spaces’, ‘fablabs’ and ‘hackathons’. This article seeks to resituate the ‘media lab’ in the context of media research and education, drawing inspiration from the recent ‘nonrepresentational’ and ‘nonhuman’ turns in media and cultural theory that examine our entanglement with media on a social, cultural and biological level (Grusin, 2015b; Thrift, 2007; Vannini, 2015; Zylinska, 2012). This article contributes to such debates by presenting the lab as entangled media praxis as a set of 10 principles for teaching media as mediation: a reflexive form of ‘doing’ contemporary media studies that is primarily concerned with developing an embodied ‘attunement’ to the entangled relations of media lab participants. This framework calls for transdisciplinary modes of practice research and ‘critical making’, whereby students, artists, creative technologists and academics work colla- boratively to address the affective and subjective conditions of contemporary digital culture. This article will explore these methods in relation to the concept of media entanglement, drawing out the underlying principles of the ‘entangled media praxis’ framework by examining two pilot media labs facilitated by the Arts Council England-funded project, 1215.today.

Keywords:Affect, Critical Making, Embodiment, Maker Culture, Media Education, Media Studies, Media Entanglement, Media Lab, Mediation, Media Praxis
Subjects:W Creative Arts and Design > W280 Interactive and Electronic Design
X Education > X290 Research and Study skills not elsewhere classified
L Social studies > L990 Social studies not elsewhere classified
P Mass Communications and Documentation > P300 Media studies
X Education > X990 Education not elsewhere classified
Divisions:College of Arts > Lincoln School of Film & Media > Lincoln School of Film & Media (Media)
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ID Code:35421
Deposited On:10 Apr 2019 08:19

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