Digital Media Conference
"Generating Knowledge and Building Democratic Power with Community-Based Research and Digital Media" brought together the Faculty Fellows, Affiliates, and Community Partners of CCREC along with a selected group of invited guests for discussions of praxis and theory, seeking to begin building a body of knowledge around three themes:
1. Knowledge production through collaborative research
2. Democratic mobilization / knowledge mobilization
3. Digital media
The conference was structured around a series of “Provocations to Wide Awakeness” meant to provide insights, questions, and challenges to help participants to engage deeply in the themes of the conference.
The notion of “wide awakeness” comes from Maxine Greene, a theorist and activist who was always searching for ways to create experiences that would wake people up to both the realities of oppression and suffering and to the transformative possibilities of human beings.
The provocations helped wake discussants up to the potentials and the dangers of incorporating digital media into community-based knowledge production and mobilization.
Only when we are “wide awake” can we hope to mitigate the negative effects of dominant ideologies and see more clearly the potential spaces for interventions that create a more just society.
Attendees engaged in the “World Café,” a method for structuring intimate, deep, and meaningful discussions within large groups. It is a creative process for collaborative dialogue, sharing knowledge, and creating possibilities for action.
The conference proceedings were recorded graphically in real time to capture ideas as they were expressed and to help with identifying themes, patterns, and relationships among the ideas of the group.
The visual recordings of the discussions were used throughout the process through “gallery walks” and as a reference point and tool to keep the conversation moving forward.
digital media final report_FINAL_18FEB2015.pdfDownload the Generating Knowledge and Building Democratic Power with Community-Based Research and Digital Media report.
Julie Gieseke, Map the Mind, was the graphic recorder/co-facilitator. With over 25 years of experience, Julie uses creative methods that engage the deep knowing that exists in each of us individually and in the group collectively.