Building the media-active dojo in a post-secondary classroom in San Francisco

Abstract

This article responds to questions posed by the ‘Community Communication and Alternative Media’ section for the 2023 Conference of International Association for Media and Communication Research. Reflecting on my practice and work with students in a university in the San Francisco Bay area, I propose that we update our pedagogical approach in light of the rise of digital platform capitalism and the changing global communications. Using a research approach akin to critical autoethnography, I tease together insights from Freirean popular education and autonomous Marxist composition. I propose a pedagogical approach that I call media-active dojo that uses the force of student’s own mediated practices within communicative capitalism as the centre of focus of inquiry and praxis. The teaching practices outlined ensure that alternative, community and social justice media are a key component of critical media literacy education.