“What kind of knowledge do we need now?”
In David Gauntlett’s blog post, he discusses the particular potholes within media and how to fix them in three parts:
- How things work
- How things feel/fit
- How to make a difference
I personally disagree with his first point. He calls it the “basis for all critical understanding” yet it seemed particularly biased. To me he appeared more annoyed at uninformed people writing about online culture without an attempt to understand it. Whilst this can be frustrating, people are constantly shifting and changing and that is something that needs to be kept in mind.
I do agree with his second point of contention. Gauntlett discusses the relationship between physical and non-physical things. In todays society many things are intangible yet day to day we are living in the very real world. Our currency and our values tend to be mixed in with one another. We need to build knowledge between the two in our ever changing world if we want to live a harmonious life. You cannot be too caught up in the intangibles of the tangibles, it cannot work, especially in 2016. The key is to figure out how to balance them in order to make sense of it.
And lastly, Gauntlett discusses how to make a difference, which i agree with aspects of his argument. He talks about how we must come up with idea and implement them into the real world. To create movements, lobby governments and make a change. But this to me can turn easily to slacktivism. This requires very little effort, whilst making yourself feel better about yourself. Does sharing a post encouraging equal marriage rights mean that I am actually doing something? The answer is no, I am just making a stance. To me this point conflicts with Gauntletts early point. New media is a fantastic way to make change, but we cannot mistake activism with slacktivism, we must remember what is tangible and what is intangible. Change is merely word until you act on it, you take it and run, physically and mentally try do something different.
