Cut, paste, publish: The production and consumption of zines

Despite their direct relevance to studies of literacy practices, zines (pronounced "zeens") have scarcely featured in the literature of educational research. Zines have been taken seriously as a focus of inquiry mainly within studies of popular youth culture (cf., Chu, 1997; Duncombe, 1997; Williamson, 1994). This chapter is intended to provide a modest redress of the silence with respect to zines within literacy studies generally and the new literacy studies in particular. We believe that anyone interested in the nature, role and significance of literacy practices under contempory conditions has much of value to learn from zines and, especially, from thinking about them from a sociocultural perspective. Indeed, we think their signficance extends beyond a focus on literacy per se to pedagogy at large. We begin from the premise that zines are an important but under-researched dimension of adolescent cultural practices and provide fertile ground for extending our understanding of new literacies and digital technologies.