This thesis work responds to emerging issues in media and civic awareness in Canada, exploring how design can be used to highlight, examine and expose characteristics of the digital space in order to enhance young citizens’ media literacy. As the opening chapters will establish, younger Canadians are experiencing a unique combination of factors that render them insufficiently prepared to participate as digital citizens. These issues are compounded by digital threats to democratic values such as the rise in manipulative or propagandistic content, as well as intellectual silos created by algorithmic filtering. The title of the thesis, “concealing and revealing” speaks to our relationship with the digital space that is all at once present, immediate and yet, invisible, and elusive. My creative work aims to illuminate the invisible power dynamics perpetuated by digital tools using information design and data visualizations, presented through a large sculptural installation and a series of illustrated notebooks. The projects’ research focuses on teens and young adults, but the outcomes provide information that is pertinent to citizens of all ages. The projects rely on critical discourse analysis, semiotics and practice-led approaches to research. The theoretical framing of the projects apply Marshall McLuhan’s media theories to explore how we as a society may begin to evaluate our political experience in the digital age, in order to better understand the lasting impacts on citizenship and liberal democracy.

• https://issuu.com/apperlin0/docs/final_h...
• https://issuu.com/apperlin0/docs/final_s...
• https://issuu.com/apperlin0/docs/final_s...