David Gauntlett, ‘Introduction‘ to Making Media Studies

“It’s about being hands-on, which means it’s still about ideas and critical engagement, but expressed through making things rather than just writing arguments. (We can still write too, of course, but the writing might be more powerful when informed by the experiences of making and exchanging). ”

This is a quote from our week 2 reading that got me thinking. The idea of “creating is more powerful than writing/saying” caught my interest, because one of my personal experiences is a perfect example of this statement.

I’ve been doing photography for a few years, and I always talk about my ideas with my friends. There was once I told my friends about my up-coming abstract light painting photography. I was saying, “There are going to be a lot of colors and lines crossing each other and it’s going to look like a dragon.” They were all looking at me confused. Seems like they couldn’t picture how great the photo will be. Until the day I showed it to them.

They all started complementing and telling me how crazy the photo looks, asking me how I did it. This experience made me realized creating is so much strong than writing or saying your ideas out. By creating your work you also get to enjoy the fun making it and feel the sense of accomplishment when you finish the work. Creating is an important part of media. So if you have an idea, why not just create the thing instead of just talking about it?