Digital Disruptions

Abstract

The exposure of the ‘real or alternative’ has potential to be disruptive. Social and interactive media allows society to communicate and share ideas that disrupt mainstream culture. Visually, these messages have potentially more power when they entertain and engage with an audience. This mode of creative communication isn’t always sustained, progressive or democratic, however it acts as an archive of resistant practices and representations of ‘the other’. Practitioners such as Ministry of Agnes are exploring protest design within the context of social media and using interactive digital communication to disseminate visual messages. This process acts as both a springboard for conversation and discussion around this creative process and design methodology. Design as a professional activity, in conjunction with an interdisciplinary approach to image production, has the potential to create ways within which we can work against the stakeholders of commercially orientated mass media.