<
https://theconversation.com/writing-for-our-digital-lives-war-social-media-and-the-urgent-need-to-update-how-we-teach-english-180679>
"The war in Ukraine is being described as the first social media war, even as
“the TikTok war”. Memes, tweets, videos and blog posts communicate both vital
information and propaganda, potentially changing the course of history. This
highlights the importance of agile and critical social media use.
English in schools, in contrast, still focuses on reading books and writing
exam essays. Despite mentions of media in the Australian Curriculum for
English, the study of digital writing via social media is not prioritised in
senior assessment or national high-stakes testing. This approach seems
increasingly out of touch with modern communication.
Meme-ification is a feature of media coverage of the Ukraine war. This new word
describes the explosion of ordinary people creating shareable, and potentially
influential, digital content.
Anyone with a smartphone and internet access can participate in a war that is
being fought both on the ground and on digital platforms. And this content
frequently references other popular digital culture. For example, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is portrayed as Captain Ukraine by photoshopping
his head onto Marvel’s Captain America’s body and tweeting this image."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
