The ethical sensations of im-mediacy: Embodiment and multiple literacies in animal rights activists’ learning with media technologies

In this article, I consider a social movement for animal rights as a site of learning about a particular form of ethics. I use a multiliteracies framework, which emphasizes critical consumption and creation across a range of media forms, to consider how learning unfolds using a different kind of medium: the affective body. Activists in this study learned to read the signs of their embodied encounters with nonhuman animals as a privileged mode for understanding their ethical truth. Then they used other forms of digital mediation to produce and spread the feelings of being present with animals for others. I discuss social media memes and virtual reality as two examples. I employ the term “im-mediacy” to emphasize both the affects of feeling present and the sense-making involved in mediation and its ideologies. What counts as good strategy in multiliterate organizing for social change is shaped by ideologies about media and the world beyond. These findings suggest the need to consider the affects produced in learning environments that bring bodies in proximity to one another, or that use technology to mediate feelings of proximity, as well as what I describe as embodied literacies for sensing the needs of others and responding with care.

This is the accepted version of the following article: Vea, T. (2019). The ethical sensations of im-mediacy: Embodiment and multiple literacies in animal rights activists’ learning with media technologies. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(4), 1589-1602, which has been published in final form at [https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjet.12809]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the Wiley Self-Archiving Policy [http://www.wileyauthors.com/self-archiving].

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Work Title The ethical sensations of im-mediacy: Embodiment and multiple literacies in animal rights activists’ learning with media technologies
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Tanner Vea
Keyword
  1. Affect and emotion
  2. Embodiment
  3. Multiliteracies
  4. Media technologies
  5. Social movements
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Acknowledgments
  1. I am grateful to the members of Direct Action Everywhere SF Bay Area for sharing their stories and making this research possible.
Publisher
  1. British Journal of Educational Technology
Publication Date May 9, 2019
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. 10.1111/bjet.12809
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Deposited April 07, 2023

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  • Updated Acknowledgments Show Changes
    Acknowledgments
    • I am grateful to the members of Direct Action Everywhere SF Bay Area for sharing their stories and making this research possible.
  • Added Creator Tanner Vea
  • Added The Ethical Sensations of Im-mediacy - accepted version for repository.pdf
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    License
    • https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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  • Updated Keyword, Publisher Show Changes
    Keyword
    • affect and emotion, embodiment, multiliteracies, media technologies, social movements
    • Affect and emotion, Embodiment, Multiliteracies, Media technologies, Social movements
    Publisher
    • British Journal of Educational Technology
  • Updated