DIY Communication: Why I opted for making a zine

For our college unit relating to Communication, I opted for doing something that was perhaps a little outside of the box (as I had spoken about in a previous blog post) and make a zine.

At first, I wanted to work around the way the media portray certain people, social networking, and advertising, but as I moved along with the project, I realised that I was taking to much on board, and instead, it would work a lot better for the point I was trying to get across about certain media manipulation if I focused on one particular topic – ‘celebrities’.

Celebrities and the celebrity culture has always been foreign to me because I have never gotten the attraction of heaping praise on someone that you don’t know, and viewing them as a kind of idol (even to the extent a Godly figure.)

This is something I am going to speak about in another topic, but I’ll give a brief outline of what’s to come before I speak more about my intention with my zine.

My fellow college students and I, have been given two separate industry sectors to speak about (all within Digital Media, of course). We have to speak, or present, these topics in the way that we feel most comfortable (mine is going to be a detailed blog post, that mostly reads like an essay, but is fed with a series of images, and video clips to add to the Digital aspect of the work). Through speaking about our two chosen industries, we will naturally end up talking about those that we weren’t assigned, which will lead into our understanding of the Digital Media Industry and how it works; how it combines everything from Film to Graphic Design.

You’ll have to wait until my next post to see what two industries I picked, but before I get sidetracked, back to the zine.

The reason I opted for a 90s style of communication, one where it required me to collage my work onto paper, scan the glued paper carefully onto, new, separate sheets so that I wouldn’t ruin the format, and then staple the work together with a special magazine stapler, is because, I believe, it showed a complete opposite to the tech savvy world we live in.

By using a hands-on medium, I think I have made something that has more of an impact than if it had been totally digital.

It’s a statement to the polar opposite of the world we live in now. Speaking about something that is so heavily digital based, so heavily media based, but through a DIY process.

As a society, we ignore anything that isn’t fast, quick, and gets to the point – we like everything to be in the palm of our hand and this tool of communication is the complete opposite.

Pictures to follow of the zine shortly.