Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataĭIY citizenship : critical making and social media / edited by Matt Ratto and Megan Boler. Printed and bound in the United States of America. This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by The MIT Press. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. © 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England DIY citizens assume active roles as interventionists, makers, hackers, modders, and tinkerers, in pursuit of new forms of engaged and participatory democracy.ĭIY Citizenship Critical Making and Social Media As these chapters make clear, DIY is characterized by its emphasis on 'doing' and making rather than passive consumption. And they explore DIY and media, describing activists' efforts to remake and reimagine media and the public sphere. They discuss DIY and design and how citizens can unlock the black box of technological infrastructures to engage and innovate open and participatory critical making. They consider DIY making in learning, culture, hacking, and the arts, including do-it-yourself media production and collaborative documentary making. Contributors examine DIY activism, describing new modes of civic engagement that include Harry Potter fan activism and the activities of the Yes Men. The authors and artists in this collection describe DIY citizens whose activities range from activist fan blogging and video production to knitting and the creation of community gardens. This book examines the usefulness and limits of DIY citizenship, exploring the diverse forms of political participation and 'critical making' that have emerged in recent years. Social media enables DIY citizens to organize and protest in new ways (as in Egypt's 'Twitter revolution' of 2011) and to repurpose corporate content (or create new user-generated content) in order to offer political counternarratives. Today, DIY-do-it-yourself-describes more than self-taught carpentry.

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