UC Santa Cruz

Feelings of overwhelm and despair are common products of frequent social media use and are directly linked to the onset and amplification of learned helplessness (LH). In this thesis, it is hypothesized that Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed (TO), a theatrical technique designed to empower participants to manage difficult situations, could help combat feelings of learned helplessness. Through a practice-as-research methodology, this essay focuses on 2 workshops that utilized TO Image theater to first communicate and analyze participants’ relationship to social media, and second to create images of upheaval and/or revolution against posts that triggered helpless feelings. The workshops were highly successful when Image Theater techniques were used to analyze participants’ internal frustrations with social media, as they allowed the exploration of subconscious thoughts and feelings that had previously remained hidden. However, there was a point of contention when it came to imagining ways of revolution and/or upheaval because of the discrepancy in the distance of oppressing forces between the Theater of the Oppressed methodology and social media. TO is a technique that centers oppressors as individual people who impact their participants in real time, while social media affects users through distant or indirect systems of oppression. This point of contention, however, rather than a marker of failure, signals the complex systems at play in today’s technologically advancing world and reminds us of the invisible modes of stress that have become part of our everyday lives.