Art and Digital Inclusion
Critical Reflections in Media
The notion of literacy as a primarily ‘social practice’ in the 21st century is fundamental in our understanding of inclusivity in art. It is through inclusivity in creating and distributing creative content that a participatory culture is facilitated (Kang et al., 2019), in which broader dialogue is encouraged around social and political issues, often charged with the potential to create lasting change in our social fabric.
Through the artist’s ability to comment and confront certain ideas it is imbued with, to cite Turner, the ability “to transcend and perhaps even change society as well as reflect its tragedies” (2005).
It is therefore important to promote inclusivity by providing artists from societally marginalized groups with platforms that enable the sharing of personal experience and perspectives and subsequently inform views within the dominant culture. As disability blogger The Goldfish explains “The very eclectic nature of many blogs published by disabled people and our allies has drawn many non-disabled people, as well as disabled people who are less politicized, into (the) debates” (The Goldfish, 2007, as cited in Ellis & Goggin, 2015).
Another incentive for artists to integrate inclusivity in their practice would be a potential gain in profitability if the artist chooses to sell or distribute their art or merchandise through social media. The use of the “online art market” had increased by 72% from 2014 to 2019, with 48% of buyers using Instagram as a purchasing platform (Kang et al., 2019). Social media is increasingly used as a curatorial, communicative and distributive tool for artists partly due to the lower costs involved in “online self-promotion (and) marketing” (Zhao, 2021). By ensuring that socially marginalized segments of society are provided with accessibility to their art, by considering pre-existing barriers affecting level of accessibility, could lead to increased popularity for the artist. Most social media platforms allow users to comment on an “post” or immortalized image created by the user, which facilitates a traceable “phatic” (Varis & Blommaert, 2015) conversation amongst those accessing the content. If conversation becomes debate, the artist is potentially aided by the ‘virality’ phenomenon, described by Denisova (2020) as an “allegory of rapid distribution of information and ideas” with potential to spread both regressive and “progressive ideas”, amounting to a greater reach.
The personal preferences and circumstances of an artist’s or communicator’s audience are important to consider, but might need to be limited according to the artist’s reach. Due to the multiplicity of experience that exists within one group or culture, to consider the variety of personal preferences of each individual within a large group of society would be impossible for the artist and perhaps pose too much of a challenge to fully integrate into the art-making process.
References
Blommaert, J., & Varis, P. (2015). Conviviality and collectives on social media: Virality, memes, and new social structures. Multilingual Margins: A Journal of multilingualism from the periphery, 2(1), 31-46.
Blommaert, J., & Varis, P. (2015). The importance of unimportant language. Multilingual Margins: A Journal of multilingualism from the periphery, 2(1), 4-10.
Denisova, A. (2020). How to Define ‘Viral’ for Media Studies? [Editorial]. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 15(1), 1–4. doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.375
Ellis, K., & Goggin, G. (2015). Disability Media Participation: Opportunities, Obstacles and Politics. Media International Australia.154(1). 78-88. doi:10.1177/1329878X1515400111
Zhou, Y. (2021, January 13th). How Recent Technology Impacts Audiences and Artists: A Study on Social Media and Big Data. Illustration History. https://www.illustrationhistory.org/essays/how-recent-technology-impacts-audiences-and-artists-a-study-on-social-media-and-big-data
Image: Mossholder,T. (2021). [Illustration of two hands interconnected]. USC. https://annenberg.usc.edu/events/cclp/digital-inclusion
