A Space of Our Own: MySpace and Feminist Activism in the Classroom

Figure 1.

Hannah Lee

"Feminist activism may not look like it did thirty years ago, but it is definitely alive and thriving. "

– Shirleen Lee, "The New Girls Network: Women, Technology, and Feminism"

When we teach, we construct spaces of our own. Whether in physical classrooms, in how we configure and conduct exchanges, in our online classes, in the ways we organize and make those spaces feminist, or in our interpersonal communication with students, we create spaces that foster learning, critical thinking, compassion, and serious inquiry. To create and maintain spaces of radical education and transformation, we must go beyond simple transmission of information and teach students to challenge, transgress, and even subvert "knowledge" and to understand that they are not only consumers but also producers of culture, media, information, and technology. Recognizing the central role of popular culture and media in our students' lives should inspire pedagogies that exploit current trends in student culture(s), encouraging students to become active participants rather than passive recipients. Assignments that ask students to engage in cultural production within (and outside of) their own spaces can function as powerful forms of political activism while meeting course goals and learning objectives. One effective strategy connects activist or Service Learning assignments to social networking sites, such as MySpace (www.myspace.com).

Service Learning links the classroom to surrounding communities through student involvement in service-based or activist projects directly related to course content in order to benefit both student (through enhanced learning) and community (by meeting a specific need). Service Learning assignments that encourage research, discussion, awareness, and/or action around social or political issues can stimulate student interest in learning while promoting civic and political engagement. Since student culture is so embedded in technology, media activism is an appropriate medium for Service Learning activities. Media activism and cultural production use media and communication technologies for social movements, and include web site construction, letter writing, email activism, blogging, 'zine-making, and other student-defined online/cyber activities. Cultural production reminds students that they are not only consumers of culture and media, but also participants who play a role in the proliferation and outcomes of contemporary media. Whether through more traditional means, such as on-site volunteer work, or through cyber-activism, Service Learning imbues classrooms with a greater purpose—connecting learning to social justice. Asking students to not only learn about but also invest themselves in current issues can motivate and challenge them. Assigning (or even permitting) student cultural production or media activism around specific issues as a form of Service Learning provides students agency to participate in larger conversations and insert their own messages into cyber/social/public spaces to incite thought, change, or action. The increasing popularity and influence of MySpace makes it one of the most efficacious sites for such activism.

As an activist and teacher, I always look for opportunities to turn the most popular places into active, political spaces and MySpace is one of the most well-known and probably even overused web sites today. MySpace, like other thriving online social networks, allows users to construct profiles, communicate with others, share photos and videos, post public comments, create groups where users with common interests gather, post, and read blogs, and invite others to join "friend" lists. Social networking online is not a new phenomenon, but the explosion of activity on MySpace marks an unprecedented convergence of the social and technological, as young (and older) individuals rely on these networks to accomplish tasks from basic communication to planning parties to organizing coalitions around political concerns in record numbers. Statistics vary, but in April 2007, MySpace hosted 185 million registered users and was the number one most viewed site on the internet, attesting to the significance of online social sites in our students' lives (Elkin).

The social and political implications of MySpace statistics are tremendous, particularly when one considers that average MySpace users range in age from 15 to 44. Other social networking sites target more specific age groups; Facebook, for example, attracts primarily college students in their early twenties, while...