cyberspace

doctorate education gamification phd pokemon effect triforce

The Digital Culture and “Peda-Socio” Transformation

-

The Digital Culture and “Peda-Socio” Transformation

The internet and computing (as technologies) are no longer tools, but have been integrated into human communication. They have become a part of the communication and is a part of meaning creation. Such technology is now more the environment than the tool. 

Snyder asserts that young people are immersed in the digital age – where technology is the norm. Why then, she asks, are adults not learning from children how to integrate digital culture into schools? Data shows that 89% of students find school boring. A similar percentage are actively engaged in online communities. 

The lure of online communities is the ability to create an identity and explore an online life with people from around the globe. Through imagination, young people are engaging in a “reality” where they are able to ask questions, foster social relations and develop knowledge.

Considering this reality of life outside the school, in which youth are actively and captivatingly engaged in social networks, creation, exploration, self empowerment and identity development, we begin to see that youth have both the motivation and the skills to connect and learn. 

This is a motivation that is crucial to understanding and improving learning. Snyder claims that educators need to explore the implications for learning and digital citizenship which are beyond the classroom and school’s borders. This relates back to how young people see technology – as a part of the process of creating meaning.

The idea of studying technology in education (when technology is perceived as a learning device) is too limited. The growing importance of cyberspace reinforces the divide between schooling and society. Young people are creating new connections, networks and resources for learning that mirror 21st century life.

This is the thrust of Synder’s view – that technology has an integrated role in society. Following a constructivist theory framework, we are co-creating our realities together alongside technology.

Through this co-construction we give meaning to our realities, resulting in common language, symbols, values, behaviors, norms, and understanding. As learners, we make sense out of our world by analyzing and synthesizing our experiences in an attempt to give meaning. The elements that contribute to our sense making process are those parts of an event or experience with and through which we interact and act. In contemporary society, technology and media have become a part of this social interaction process. 

Technology is changing our behaviour and perception, influencing the way we socially construct digital culture of meaning. We are shaping, and are shaped by, the technology we use.

doctorate education gamification phd pokemon effect triforce

Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance

-

Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance

Albrechtslund discusses the notion that online social networking is a kind of participatory surveillance. In doing so, he redefines the concept of surveillance and develops his analysis for how it is both participatory and mutually beneficial.

Albrechtslund identifies cyberspace as a spacial metaphor for the internet. There are similar related analogies such as global village, information highway, world wide web, etc. The spatial discourse relating to computers is an attempt to organise and classify the internet. However the internet is not hierarchical and is not constrained by the same laws as physical space. Therefore the internet cannot be described in terms of classic organisation. 

Furthering the non-linear view of the internet, Albrechtslund notes the interrelated space between the cyberspace and physical space. In such, it’s demonstrated that social network is not only an online practice.

Digital society has a number of key issues to be considered. One key issue is that of persistency. All information, including relationships, is stored online indefinitely. This is a consideration relating to social practices being no longer temporary, their organisation and audiences. As well as persistency, social networks are a mediated public space characterised by their searchability, replicability and invisible audiences. Searchability refers to information being made available through keywords and phrases, allowing for collection and sorting of information. Replication is the ability to detach communication (including pictures and video) from its original source. It can be perfectly reproduced, altered and put into other contexts (remixed). Lastly there’s the notion of invisible audiences. This concept is the idea that although we may have an intended audience (friends and family) there is a larger potential audience – everyone with access to the internet. 

Redefining Surveillance. Albrechtslund takes the traditional notion of surveillance and changes its purpose. Surveillance is commonly used in a hierarchical sense – the watcher and the watched – or as data collection. However social networking has created an environment where people are willingly publishing this information online. It’s free for all to see and collect. This, Albrechtslund claims, is empowering. It’s a form of social and playful surveillance. Simply put, it’s exhibitionism. 

This explains the moral panics, conspiracy theories and dystopian views of digital culture – the people who don’t understand why anyone would engage in online social networking and willingly share personal information. 

Thus, surveillance can be seen, in a social networking sense, as a mutual horizontal practice. Instead of top-down, hierarchal surveillance, people are able to watch themselves and their friends, family and acquaintances. This empowers participants, builds subjectivity and promotes sharing. Albrechtslund calls this mutuality – participatory surveillance.

  1. user empowerment
  2. social networking as space sharing
  3. mutuality

As already noted, participatory surveillance is a kind of empowering exhibitionism. It’s the self construction of identity and a tool used to rebel against shame associated with not being ‘private’. Exhibitionism is a liberating force against the refusal to be humble. 

I like this idea. We socialise with strangers and construct identities (both real and anonymous). We move from passive to active by participating in culture creation and sharing. This sharing should not be underestimated, since it is the core of how social networks function.

Scroll to Top