PhD Candidate (ABD) University of Georgia Athens, Georgia, United States
Overview: In this interactive workshop, participants will explore the innovative use of new media literacies and digital media, including podcasts, film, visual ethnography/ethnocinema, social media, blogs, video games, music, and multimodal expression as critically reflexive tools for advancing anti-oppressive praxis in social work education, practice, and coalition building.Proposal text: In 2020, social work education programs pivoted to remote learning, throwing many into the unexplored realm of digital technology precariously balanced with the realities of collective traumatic stress and perpetual uncertainty that ultimately impacted capacity to proceed “business as usual.” Social resistance movements brought increased awareness of the growing use of digital media as a tool for reclamation, advocacy, and accountability to a legacy of historical, structural injustices, and state sanctioned violence (Mathiyazhagan, 2021). Additionally, one of the Grand Challenges for Social Work (2020) calls to mobilize technology for social good and justice. As the utilization of new media literacies including digital media operates as both a necessity of expanding and adapting to educational needs as well as a tool of actionable social resistance, it is critical that social work education embraces these new media literacies as core components of educational pedagogy and praxis. We must prepare social workers for the realities of engaging with clients, communities, and advocacy efforts as digital media grows in breadth and accessibility and highlights the potential for enhanced practice, coalition building, collective organizing to advance practice (Castillo de Mesa, 2021; Lee, 2020; Mundt et al., 2018; Reamer, 2013; Young & Ronquillo, 2021).
These last two years highlight the importance for social work educators to diversify teaching tools and address some of the underlying issues with reliance on predominantly text-based materials. Studies indicate that digital media use to augment classroom learning and direct practice increases engagement (Chan; 2016; Morton et al., 2019; Tess, 2013). Rheingold (2012) highlights five core literacies foundational to postsecondary learning—attention, critical consumption of information, participation, learning, and smart networks. Once way to address all five of these core literacies it to consider the ways to incorporate digital media as tools of advancing metacognition, reflexivity, varying modes of communication, and interaction with broader society to amplify issues relevant to practice (Hitchcock & Battista, 2013). While research is only emerging about the connection of new media literacies and student engagement, the evidence is promising (Morton et al., 2019). Further, social work has been criticized for a perpetuation of normative and pathologizing practices through use of conventional texts, vignettes, and racial enactments rather than drawing from the vast array of digital materials and forms of global connectivity that could amplify the voices and narratives of historically essentialized people (Sharkey et al., 2022, in press). The intersection of social work and advancing technology can advance fluency with technological innovations and draw from rich counternarratives that embody the experiences of people and communities historically essentialized in white-bodied, cis-heteronormative centered texts that abound in our syllabi and course materials.
In this interactive workshop, participants will be guided through the use of digital media methods and tools to embed Rheingold’ (2012) five core literacies in reflexive learning experiences across BSW and MSW courses. This workshop encourages engaged scholarship to tie together “the rich resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems” (Boyer, 1996, p. 19).
Learning Objectives:
Define new media literacies and digital media to outline ways they can be utilized to enhance learning environments, students engagement, and creating coalitions;
Identify innovative and ethical ways to reflect the lived and stated needs of potential clients, communities, and domains of research and practice by moving toward an increased use of digital media/tools and a decreased use of historically pathologizing methods
Engage in hands-on multimodal, digital media activities to learn ways to incorporate digital media, including podcasts, film, visual ethnography/ethnocinema, social media, blogs, video games, multimodal expression, and other innovative techniques to deepen reflexive skills and diversify classroom activities geared at strengthening anti-oppressive praxis.
