"Making is Connecting" - David Gauntlett
For once the summary is provided and presented by the author himself...
Central issue:
"Making is connecting. I mean this in three principle ways: (1) Making is connecting because you have to connect things together (materials, ideas, or both) to make something new; (2) Making is connecting because acts of creativity usually involve, at some point, a social dimension and connect us with other people; (3) And making is connecting because through making things and sharing them in the world, we increase our engagement and connection with our social and physical environments." (DG, p.2)
> Everything is ... a remix ... an experiment...
"Typically, people mess around with materials, select things, experimentally put parts together, rearrange, play, throw bits away, and generally manipulate the thing in question until it approaches something that seems to communicate meanings in a satisfying manner." (DG, p.4)
Observation:
"Thankfully, the World Wide Web soared in popularity, becoming mainstream in itself, and opened up a world of diversity and imagination where the content itself is created by everyday users (as well as a growing number of professionals [1]). This opportunity to make media and, in particular, share it easily, making connections with others, was unprecedented in both character and scale, and therefore a much more exciting thing to study." (DG, p.3)
> "Instead of individuals tending their own gardens, they come together to work collaboratively in a shared space. This is actually what Tim Berners-Lee had meant his World Wide Web to be like, when he invented it in 1990. He imagined that browsing the Web would be matter of writing and editing, not just searching and reading." (DG, p.5-6)
> Social Media...
"Sites such as YouTube, eBay, Facebook, Flickr, Craigslist, and Wikipedia only exist and have value because people use and contribute to them (...)." (DG, p.7)
"Since the historical point at which education became institutionalized in a system of schools, learning has become a process directed by a teacher, whose task is to transfer nuggets of knowledge into young people's minds. (...) school education has tended to settle around a model where a body of knowledge is input into students, who are tested on their grasp of it at a later point." (DG, p.8-9)
On creativity:
(Csikszentmihalyi) "Rather than being a lightning-bolt of unexpected inspiration, he argues, creative ouputs appear from individuals who have worked hard over many years to master a particular 'symbolic domain' (...) and are encouraged by other supportive individuals, groups, and organizations." (DG, p.14)
(DEF) "Creativity, (...) is a process by which a symbolic domain in the culture is changed. (...) creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation. (...) so creative ideas vanish unless there is a receptive audience to record and implement them." (DG, p.14-15)
... Amongst other things, Gauntlett continues to talk about the benefits for citizenship, social cohesion and social capital.
[1] Remark: Perhaps it is the other way around, first the uploaders were mainly professionals or semi-professionals... and now with the rise of social media we see more 'everyday users' that are becoming uploaders.
