Rebuilding and repair as a critical practice in the Media Studies classroom

By introducing rebuilding and repair as critical practice in the media studies classroom, students can examine effects as they are triggered by direct engagement with the materiality or media. Encountering material media objects challenges how the media studies student acquires a canonical understanding of media studies and opens new venues for insight. The act of engaging with the material media object–allows students to engage more fully with questions involving the infrastructures that go into the production of media objects, the paradigms for media innovation, and the assumptions that students might bring to bear on the material make up of the media object itself.