ABSTRACT
New technologies continually reshape our environment and social relations, producing new dilemmas, while also providing more opportunities for students to create media that can challenge problems, promote social justice, and enhance learning. Critical media production moves beyond simple responses toward the creation of critical arguments through rethinking and reinventing media to counter and address social inequities. This chapter begins with a brief definition of critical media and its roots in Freire before moving onto a discussion of critical media production’s theoretical underpinnings, participatory culture, and activism. It also includes a synopsis of critical media production research over the last ten years organized around perspectives, places, and pedagogies as well as implications for future research. The chapter concludes with a discussion of ideas for pushing critical media production further and an exploration of the responsibility that academics have for not only producing their own critical media but also opening and embracing spaces for others as well.
