Even as web-based digital media increasingly presents itself as participatory, users are still largely subject to a landscape of 'one-to-many media' in which they are the recipients of, or participants within, artifacts and edifices crafted by a relatively small elite who have full fluency in the underlying language of digital media. New Media Art Education must provide students with the literacies to respond critically to these structures and to create their own digital structures and artifacts in return. This project examines the problem of pre-formatted thinking with respect to new media works in popular visual/web culture, fine arts practice, and art education, and recommends avenues for giving students the opportunity to use programming as an expressive and empowering artform.
