New Literacies and the Learning Sciences: A Framework for Understanding Youths’ Media Arts Practices

Abstract

This paper turns our attention to the arts and New Literacy Studies as an understudied area in the learning sciences. Our study documents, describes, and analyzes urban youths' Media Arts Practices within a Computer Clubhouse, drawing on the New Literacy Studies movement and work on authentic practices. Results indicated that youth engaged in at least eight literate practices aligned with professional communities in the arts, media, and new technologies. We organize these practices into the technical, creative, and critical practices of Media Arts production and offer a new conceptual framework for this emergent field. Media Arts are particularly relevant to the learning sciences because of the shared focus on new technologies and computation. The new field of Media Arts is not well understood in the research literature but has the potential to teach us about learning and literacy in the age of multimedia.