Bits at the Backline: Comedy and Service-Learning in the Age of Pandemic
This article will act as a reflection from the authors’ time in the field during and after the production of the Bits at the Backline podcast. It is the product of our commitment to produce an artifact to engage in academic discourse as well as empower our community partners and podcast guests. Our methods and approach borrow heavily from “Critical design ethnography” as defined by Barab, Thomas, Dodge, Squire and Newell. Critical design ethnography sits at the intersection of participatory action research, critical ethnography and socially responsive instructional design (Barab et al. 254). The impetus for this project was a desire to bring composition and rhetorical scholarship outside of the university and into the rich artistic communities that exist within Omaha. It is at the crossing point between the institutional situation and the rhetorical situation that we engaged in this project, seeking to engage meaningfully with an Omaha arts community in the midst of a world changing pandemic.
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