Emerson thesis -- Civic media: art and practice

Overview

"An attempt to address the issue of homelessness through video games. The game intended to show the user challenges homeless people in the Boston area deal with, and in turn create a sense of empathy for this demographic. Through a fictional narrative based on gameplay actions, the player learns that homelessness is not something anyone deserves." --Abstract.

Overview

"2121 is an educational tabletop card game designed to educate about the issue of gender parity, generate excitement around the prospect of running for office, and build political imagination through role-play." --page 31.

Overview "Within one of the nation's most racially segregated cities, the Boston Ujima Project is an organization that feels a sense of urgency and responsibility to unlock the innovation potential trapped in Boston's poverty-stricken communities. The Boston Ujima Project operates with a paradoxical joyful militancy (bergman, Montgomery, 2017) to redistribute the financial power to communities of color who have been long displaced.​ This thesis explores how a community and organization-driven design...

Overview "Within one of the nation's most racially segregated cities, the Boston Ujima Project is an organization that feels a sense of urgency and responsibility to unlock the innovation potential trapped in Boston's poverty-stricken communities. The Boston Ujima Project operates with a paradoxical joyful militancy (bergman, Montgomery, 2017) to redistribute the financial power to communities of color who have been long displaced.​ This thesis explores how a community and organization-driven design...

Overview

"Public art, through the use of interactive technology like Augmented Reality, might shift how we talk about the identity of a community. As development changes the landscape and eventually the culture of a neighborhood, this paper asks the question, 'can public art through interactive technology help play a role to preserve a community's spirit?'" --Abstract.

Overview "'Back To Reality' is a virtual reality-based reentry training program for a women's prison, created with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women as collaborators. Conceptually drawing on VR exposure theory, this first prototype consists of facilitated discussions centered around a series of guided, first-person 3D-360° video episodes that depict psychologically stressful situations that women commonly face when returning home. Critical story and production elements—including...

Overview "This project was designed to test the efficacy of a purely affective model of issue-based communication, representing a context-based innovation in a social sector that has traditionally relied upon informative, fact-based public appeals. Using music and humor as primary affective hooks, this project sought to raise awareness of the need for civics education in Greater Boston, and, in doing so, increase demand for its provision. More specifically, this experiment sought to test whether...

Overview "Citizen TALES* Commons is an intersectional research and media project encompassing civic media design, civic dramaturgy, interdisciplinary research, textual criticism, storytelling and curatorial studies. Fueled by institutional critique —especially in today's academia in the United States, characterized by an adjunct underclass and the decline of the humanities— and committed to social justice and the democratic values, Citizen TALES Commons aspires to offer an innovative, holistic...

Overview

"Community Storytelling Guide on Migration is a digital resource to support community storytellers and mediamakers in being better prepared to work with a wide range of migrants to share their stories online. This guide is intentional in its usage of the word migration, a practice which is an essential part of human existence and survival. We migrate for different reasons, and stories can be a powerful means of understanding those nuances of migration." --Abstract.

Overview "This project advocates for college radio stations to unify in a new digital space in order to maintain relevancy, re-evaluate their value propositions and form a plan for sustainability in the digital age. With radio engagement and listenership transitioning to more customizable spaces such as streaming platforms, college radio's clear benefits are now more immediately evident to individual participants as opposed to listeners. College radio participants often cite the experience of...

Overview

"DIY Data Art is a master's thesis civic media toolkit that co-designs creative data literacy activities with librarians to build youth data literacy skills through short, hands-on, self-guided activities that use personal data as an entry point to harnessing data science." --Abstract.

Overview "This paper will examine how we developed three prototypes for Dunamis to work in tandem to revamp the Jamaica Plain Porchfest and address BIPOC community needs. Each prototype is examined in depth as to how they present new design opportunities not only technologically but socially as well. Our rationale and processes are shown to exemplify how we got from beginning to end to create designs that will live beyond our involvement with our community partner, Dunamis. This thesis paper was...

Overview

"The Foxborough Community Museum is a fully community-sourced museum that used participatory methods to build its collection. Through meetings in common spaces and family homes, residents in Foxborough donated objects to represent the town’s past and present from their own perspectives. Located in a community theatre, the museum is a permanent installation where community members can continue contributing to the archive as the town grows and changes." --Abstract.

Overview "iCivics Explorer is an app designed to be used by students, both in and outside of the classroom, as a tool for assisting them and their teachers in conducting interviews as well as collecting, documenting, and sharing stories of local and personal interest. The guiding principle behind the design of this app has been to provide students with three key opportunities: learning foundational media creation skills, creating expressive content around topics of personal interest, and contributing...

Overview "iCivics Explorer is an app designed to be used by students, both in and outside of the classroom, as a tool for assisting them and their teachers in conducting interviews as well as collecting, documenting, and sharing stories of local and personal interest. The guiding principle behind the design of this app has been to provide students with three key opportunities: learning foundational media creation skills, creating expressive content around topics of personal interest, and contributing...

Overview "Illuminating Mental Health is a participatory art model that explores combating the stigma that surrounds mental health issues through a participatory art method called the "illuminated collage." This paper documents the research and design process of the Illuminating Mental Health workshop models, which use education, dialogue, and participatory artmaking in an effort to increase awareness and build knowledge about mental health, as well as to provide an entrypoint for having conversations...

Overview "Young people within the LGBTQ community often find themselves without mentors as they begin to discover their gender and sexual identities, and potentially put their safety at risk by attempting to learn more about themselves online. LGBTQ+A is a digital safe space app prototype where those discovering their identities are able to connect with others like themselves and learn from those with similar experiences, making the LGBTQ+ community accessible to queer individuals all over the...

Overview "The personal data that we generate on the Internet is one of the most valuable resources available to businesses and governments. Due to a variety of political, economic and social factors, however, a common language and understanding surrounding key aspects of personal data – ownership, value and privacy, specifically – has failed to emerge. This state of affairs undermines and distorts arguments for extending the financial and societal benefits of “big data” toward models that serve the...

Scope and Content Note The collection is comprised of two series: Publications and Master's Theses, Digital. The Publications series lists publications produced by the Office of Graduate Studies. Master's Theses, Digital, series lists digital master's theses created partially from 2015 to present. There are also a handful of older theses from 2010 and 2015 that were digitized. The remaining theses from 2015 and non-digital theses are searchable through the Iwasaki Library website: ...

Overview "Path of Participatory Resistance​ is a decal-based installation that asks visitors to actively interact with and question the issues and intersections of art, social change, and justice. The installation creates a gallery-wide pathway that features a series of prompts for visitors to respond to. As visitors and community members respond to the associated prompts, they're encouraged to position and leave their written responses amongst the exhibited art. In leaving these responses amongst...