During our lectures and guest speakers this past week, I have discovered how communications are intertwined with everything—from the world of public relations to influence marketing, communications play a vital role in various careers. One guest lecture in particular stood out to me: Professor Taj Frazier. His presentation about the intersectionality between the Metaverse and culture teed up the lecture we had in Professor Lopez’s Communications class the following day. After Professor Frazier’s description of how Hip Hop has started migrating to the metaverse, our lesson on civic imagination tied our two worlds together for me. The metaverse is a real-life example of civic imagination in action. It can take the positive parts of our society and create a fictional world out of them. The metaverse, in theory, could be a happy place for people to escape the struggles of society.
Movies, books, songs, and plays are ways of gaining knowledge and perspective. These types of creative works have their own sphere of influence on the public. The Civic Imagination Project believes “Over the past few decades, popular culture has increasingly offered the resources people have drawn upon to spark the civic imagination” (The Civic Imagination Project). Characters in popular creative pieces can encourage the public to do things that benefit the common good. For instance, Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster from The Wizarding World, is a beloved character who is portrayed in the books and movies as a wise and intelligent role model. For those who are familiar with his personality and charisma, following this leader is an easy choice to make.
In the book Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice, it says, “Superheroes are also increasingly tools that grassroots networks are appropriating and repurposing for their own political ends” (Gordon and Mihaildis, 2022). Organizations use the power of public influence and the power of superheroes to persuade people into doing things like campaigning for their cause, voting for a certain proposition or candidate, etc.
In our lesson on civic imagination, we pictured our world almost 40 years into the future. Our imaginary worlds varied from person to person, but they had similar qualities. Our civic imaginations allowed us to think of a world that was fictional, but not unreachable. When we put a description of the year 2060 into AI, it generated a realistic future of our world. My personal admiration for Albus Dumbledore would have persuaded me to vote if I were 18 years old. This may simply be due to my fondness for the Harry Potter franchise. But if someone or some organization were to use a Wizarding World character in any type of publicity or advertising, they would definitely have my attention, for as long as they could keep it.
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Communicating Change 