Enabling Media : Infrastructures, imaginaries and cultural techniques in Swedish and Estonian visual arts education

In an increasingly mediatized society, the ability to understand and communicate through media becomes more important than ever. Visual arts education, as a school subject that has been defined and reshaped historically in relation to different media technologies for image making, can be considered one place to develop such media literacy. Art educators are central actors in this process as they handle and navigate media environments consisting of material, technologies, techniques and soft infrastructures from different time periods and traditions.

This dissertation explores the relation between media, education and teachers by comparing how art educators in Sweden and Estonia relate to media in their subject, showing that local media environments enable certain traditions and ideas about education, at the same time as these environments are enabled through the work of educators. It further suggests that a broad definition of media as enabling environments can be used to develop the field of media literacy and promotes a turn towards infrastructure literacy in visual arts education.