Media Landscape without Apple: A Workshop for Critical Awareness of Alternative Media Infrastructure

Until the 2000s, media literacy evolved while centering around the application of critical thinking of contents such as TV programs and the exchanges on social media. However, unlike television, messages on social media are inseparable from the infrastructure that supports them, as the nature of the infrastructure frames the contents and the communication phenomenon. When Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are so visible in our daily lives, we believe it is necessary to examine and promote media literacy towards such media infrastructure, which has yet to be studied in depth. In 2018, Mizukoshi launched The New Literacy for Media Infrastructure Project, which aims to establish a new media theory and design educational workshop programs to develop new media literacy in the era of media infrastructure. In this paper, Mizukoshi will examine a 5-day workshop titled “Media Landscape Without Apple 2019.” “If Apple Computer went bankrupt in 2007 and iPhones don’t exist, what would our media landscape look like today? Please discuss this among your group and come up with a possible scenario.” This was the mission presented to the participants on the first day. This workshop is a model among our media infra literacy workshops whose aim is for the participants to “imagine an alternative media infrastructure environment.”