Published Online: June 1, 2013
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Matthew K. Gold (ed.). (2012). Debates in the digital humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816677955.516 pages. USD 34.95.

Matthew K Gold has brought together a number of leading figures in Debates in the Digital Humanities in a broad-ranging collection of articles that attempt to outline the contested, eclectic, and progressing landscape of computing in the humanities.  At first glance the premise of the book may seem odd to those new to the field; the very idea that there are high-level academic debates about the construction and application of computing technology within humanities research. However, apart from the distinctive culture of building and coding digital tools, these often heated debates largely constitute the field of the digital humanities and reveal its growing maturity. Gold’s book is a commendable attempt to delineate the discursive nature of computational tools within the humanities, rather than reconstitute a formulaic, passive and instrumental understanding of computing.

In Gold’s introduction and framing of the book, largely focusing upon North American issues, he does perhaps overstate the so-called rise of the digital humanities. The field is perhaps not advancing any more quickly than any other field in the humanities and often the ‘determinist’ and overly optimistic lens in which computing is viewed clouds other realities.  A sophisticated, contextual and applied understanding of computing is far from the norm in humanities education and the field is not so much ‘rising’ but merely broadening to encompass all sorts of computing in education, and unfortunately, much of this is not really research nor humanities focused.  Patrik Svensson discusses this in his article ‘Beyond the Big Tent’ where he reflects upon the boundary-making in the community and the highly contested and different modes of engagement with computing in the humanities.

Gold has divided the book into six sections which serve to introduce some of the more established understandings of the landscape of the field. The sections are; defining, theorising, critiquing, practising, teaching, and envisioning a future for the digital humanities.

Contributions in defining the digital humanities section discuss the values of the field, its boundaries, its institutionalisation, and the tensions between ‘making and interpreting digital’ objects. The ‘defining the digital humanities’ debates is perhaps as old as the field itself, and as it is one if the boundary-making debates of the community, it is not going to be settled quickly. Still, the contributors in this section do take the worn-out ‘defining’ debate forward somewhat.

The contributors in the theorising the digital humanities section concentrate on the debates surrounding theory and practice; again an important discussion within a field that has software development at its core. Joanna Drucker warns of some of the dangers of software tool use in humanities research if humanistic contexts are not well understood. As many software tools used in the humanities are developed for scientific enquiry, there are dangers that the knowledge they represent may be understood empirically and through ‘fixed frames of reference’ and ‘standard metrics’. She concludes by arguing that it is not that the digital humanities needs ‘theory’, but it cannot be humanistic without the theoretical, conceptual, and relativist readings of technology provided by humanities.

The section on teaching the digital humanities demarcates one of the newer and somewhat neglected debates in the field. Indeed Luke Waltzer stresses in his article ‘Digital Humanities and the Ugly Stepchildren’ of American Higher Education’ that this is because the field has aligned itself to the traditional ‘output’ structures of the academy that value research over teaching . He goes on to state that because the field has an overdependence on projects and grants and short-term contracted work , there is little time for ‘hard to measure areas like curriculum and pedagogy’.  Indeed, the debates in section reflect some of the larger tensions within the humanities as a whole and the role of teaching of learning within it. And these tensions are not eased by the new complexities of computing.

The teaching section, as with the others in this extensive book, contain numerous shorter blog-post, but dare I say I am not convinced of the value of including then in an edited collection, even one about the digital humanities. Perhaps a better approach would have been to include them in the online version where fresh and novel applications could have been attempted.  However, the actual review of the book was completed online through an open peer-to-peer review process, so perhaps some of this momentum will carry into the online version and create precedents for other books of this kind.

The book is a valuable contribution to the digital humanities in terms of outlining the debates in the field, even if the debates outlined are almost exclusively theoretical with very little reference to the important technical milestones in the field.  To many researchers in the humanities, technology is often viewed empirically as ‘a thing’, an object that exists in a functionally, utilitarian context free of the other debates that constitute humanities research.  However, once computing technology impacts upon the outputs and significance of humanities research—and the way that it is done—there is a need to understand computing not just as ‘ a thing’, but also as a part of the way we construct and advance knowledge.  As an introduction to some of the debates that surround computing in the humanities, especially for someone that may be new to these debates, this collection is an excellent example of how critical, interpretive humanities scholars are advancing computing within their own discursive structures.

Biographical Statement

Criag Bellamy is a Research Fellow in Computing and Information Systems, at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the Secretary of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities.

Email: craig.bellamy@unimelb.edu.au

Published Online: June 1, 2013
Full Text: HTML, PDF (397 KB)

Abstract

The present study reports on the findings related to the effect of playing a vocabulary learning and practicing game in elementary English classes at university level, and the attitudes and beliefs of the subjects about playing games with the purpose of learning the foreign language. The subjects were 70 first year university students from two different departments at the faculty of education. A vocabulary quiz that was prepared in accordance with the curriculum and the course book was applied as pre and post test. The results revealed that the experimental group subjects have doubled the vocabulary improvement rate of the control group subjects. The findings demonstrated that there was a slight difference between the performance of the female and male students in favour of the female subjects. The findings revealed positive thoughts and beliefs related to the game they played during their course, and using games in language classes. We have concluded that there is a need for more language games that might concentrate on the different aspects of learning a foreign language, and that the educational philosophies, methodologies, and techniques as well as the language curriculums should be rearranged and modified to meet the needs and interests of the new age learners.

Keywords: language learning, material development, motivation, vocabulary game, VocaWord.

Technology and education are not distant phenomenon, and gaming in education should be also installed as an additional concept for the sake of enjoyable foreign language education. Knowing a foreign language, and even more than one if possible, is regarded as a very important qualification, since languages are powerful tools to help people communicate, do business, establish connections, follow recent developments and so on. Yet learning a foreign language is not an easy task for many people, particularly when little time, money, and energy can be allocated for this specific purpose. Moreover, the task becomes evens harder when teachers do not possess the same vision, habits, interests, and strategies as their students. Prensky (2001:2) emphasised that the single biggest problem facing education today is that ‘digital immigrant’ instructors, who speak an out-dated language, are struggling to teach a population – ‘digital natives’ – that speak a much different language. Yet, interest in using technology artefacts as supportive tools for language learning is growing both from the perspective of the teachers and the students (Liu et al., 2003). The growth of the technology market, the uptake of the Internet and new aids to language education has combined to create an innovative and promising field, namely computer assisted language learning (CALL). CALL is a relatively new field, and illuminates generational divides between teachers and students.

Although foreign/second language (FL/SL) learning and teaching have been quite popular topics within language education environments for a very long time, little attention has been devoted to ‘gaming’ or to the use of games in language education. The common trend has been in favour of doing research and writing books on teaching methodology, skills, vocabulary, student and teacher beliefs and perceptions, testing, and so on. However, the emergence of new technological equipment, environments, and software has created a new generation of learners, namely ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001), also called the ‘net gen’ (Tapscott, 1998) that is fond of the Internet and digital media. New technology has diversified not only educational sources and materials but also learning habits and strategies.

The new generation of learners have grown to question the necessity of schools, the efficacy of standard books and materials, the sufficiency of teaching methods and approaches, and the content that is taught. People have noticed that they can learn on their own. Moreover, they have realised how much and how well they can learn outside of common environments, in other words, out of schools. The discussion of ‘formal’ versus ‘informal’ and ‘individual’ versus ‘social’ learning have been hot topics within the educational environments (Wong and Looi, 2010). The ‘anyone, any time, anywhere learning’ as well as ‘lifelong learning’ concepts have been emphasised and underlined recently, almost at any platform related to education (Gu et al., 2011; Sharples, 2000; Patten et al., 2006). Many researchers point to the serious incompatibility that exists between the learners and teachers of our time (Thorpe & Edmunds, 2011; Melville, 2009; Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005). Prensky (2003) has indicated that today’s teachers, trainers, and educators are not as effective as they need to be, and that digital environments and educational games might help motivate students.

Our personal observation is that many institutions and persons today have noticed the rich and flexible solutions that technology serves, and have taken advantage of these to enhance learning. There are many university programs today that are run online (distance education). There are also plenty of online websites and materials for FL learning. Curriculum developers need to take the conditions of the era as well as the other words, learning should not be a strict duty but a kind of hobby undertaken willingly. A strict adherence to traditional environments and curriculums seems to be doomed, but is unfortunately the case in many schools in many countries at present. Although teachers are aware of multiple intelligences, classes seem to be thought of as identical individuals, and student preferences are not taken into account. One of the most common excuses for this tendency is that it is hard to unite the interests and preferences of each individual in the classroom at the same time, which indeed might be refined by the use of technology and educational games.

Games offer to unify these different interests and needs. In other words, because every person likes playing games, taking advantage of this and letting people learn while enjoying themselves would be a good idea. Web 2.0 tools and mobile devices seem to provide promising potentials for FL learning and for education overall. In what follows we provide an overview of each corner of the ‘technology-learning-gaming’ triangle, with specific focus on FL learning and education. Throughout this paper ‘digital game’ (DG) will be used to talk about the games that can be played on any technological platform such as computers, mobile phones etc regardless of the game type or software itself. On the other hand, ‘non-digital game’ should be understood as any board-, card-, or other type of game that can be played in physical environments but not on virtual, digital, or online environments.

Review of the literature

The most recent literature on education, digital/game-based learning (D/GBL) and mobile learning (ML) has concentrated mostly on the advantages and/or disadvantages of games in education (Franciosi, 2011; Becker, 2007; Nakata, 2008; Neville, 2009; Prensky, 2003; Rankin et al., 2006; Squire et al., 2005; Huizenga et al., 2009; Nash and Williamson Shaffer, 2011; Liao et al., 2011; Funk et al., 1999; Johnson, Vilhjalmsson, and Marsella, 2005); the game designing and application principles (Kiili, 2005; Gros, 2007; Ravenscroft and McAlister, 2006; Gu et al., 2011; Kickmeier-Rust and Albert, 2010; Squire, 2006; Rosas et al., 2003; Moreno-Ger et al., 2008; Lindström et al., 2011; Orkin and Roy, 2007); and the effect of mobile/technology, artificial intelligence and information and communication technologies on learning (Kukulska-Hulme, 2009; Neville et al., 2009; Saljö, 2010; Collins and Halversont, 2010; Bennett and Matont, 2010; Thorpe and Edmundst, 2011; Wong and Looi, 2010; Chu and Tsai, 2009; Hoff et al., 2009; Steels, 2001; Facer and Sandford, 2010; Godwin-Jones, 2005; Richards, 2005); while some other studies investigated the features of good games or the individual and gender differences in gaming and online interaction (Hong et al., 2009; Papastergiou, 2009; Inglis et al., 2011; Van den Beemt et al., 2011). Almost all studies emphasise the unique and experiential learning opportunities that the use of technology and games provide to people. Prensky (2001) emphasised that CGs may create a new learning culture which better suits learners’ habits and interests.

Games and technology as tools for motivation

The first thing that is most often stated about games is ‘motivation’.  There is a two-way motivational relation between games and players. Games are highly motivating means (Franciosi, 2011; Ersöz, 2000; Batson and Feinberg, 2006; Yee, 2006). Games in general and more recently DGs seem to motivate people by creating a challenging, interesting, and demanding atmosphere where people get the chance to interact, to fulfil their needs. Since playing games stands as a basic and natural action of human beings that is carried out intrinsically and willingly, it should be possible to determine that the motivation it creates must be also reinforced by the motivation of individuals towards playing games. That is why games cannot be underestimated as they are excellent tools for education, although they have been neglected by educators (Squire, 2006). Motivation is of great importance for successful learning, but an individual learner’s motivation might change over time due to external factors (Ellis, 2001:36). Yet, the situation seems to be a little bit different when it comes to games, because the motivation is internal and bilateral there, and most probably that’s why it lasts longer than other types of motivation.

Franciosi (2011) explained that technology and games seem to create an intrinsic motivation (a concept that is examined by the principles of ‘Flow Theory’), so people involve themselves in them not because they have to, but because they want to.  Kickmeier-Rust and Albert (2010) reminded that a significant number of young people spend many hours a week playing computer games, and suggested that taking advantage of the motivational potential of games for educational purposes might open new horizons. Again, Prensky (2003) declared that the amount of time a youth spends by playing computer games in today’s world is estimated at 10,000 hours by the time they are 21. However, others have argued that although VGs might provide motivation for learning, GBL might not necessarily result in positive learning outcomes (Rankin et al., 2006). So, it seems that there is need for more research on how, when, and to what degree games contribute not only to the motivation of learners but also to their knowledge and education. To sum up, there is a lot of evidence and support in the literature that games are motivational tools, and that they should be taken more seriously by educators; although there is also some doubt whether the motivation that the games provide would necessarily lead to beneficial learning results.

Games and technology for learner-centred education

Games are ‘learner-centred’ (Neville et al., 2009), which is a feature that is valued and encouraged by most educators. Gaming creates an environment where the learners learn without the interference of the teacher, which provides them with more time for practice, and creates anxiety-free conditions as they are left on their own and not judged. Gros (2007) stated that DGs are user-centred and they can promote challenges, co-operation, engagement, and the improvement of problem solving strategies. Facer et al. (2004) indicated that mobile assisted language learning (MALL) prompts a pedagogical shift from didactic teacher-centred environments to participatory student-centred ones. This should mean that MALL is informal in nature and allows room for individuals to acquire information, as they like and need. Any gaming platform that people can reach online and on the move such as Web 2.0, Second Life, IMVU, or other virtual role-playing environments directly bring the players into the spotlight, so that first-hand experiences and information is exchanged and practiced by individuals. Nevertheless, as Bennett and Matont (2010) discussed, not all young people share the same ‘technology-expert’ profile, and thus, self-centred environments might create lack of motivation and distrust to individual work, implying that formal education would provide a safer environment for students.

FL learning, technology, and games

The FL learning field has always been interested in using technology such as tape recorders, audio and video materials, overhead projectors, televisions, and computers. However, all of these products of technology have been used in the similar way and for the same purposes: to carry out the teaching action in the way the authorities have shown. But today individuals are not so much hooked to the formal learning procedures and rules, since information has become increasingly widespread, everywhere and at anytime. Technological artefacts are much more flexible than formal platforms. Therefore, although the traditional approach has been to ask for direct information and memorisation, the new generation mostly seeks guidance related to where and how they can find the information they need. Today’s digital society appears to prefer virtual worlds to the real or traditional world. Moulder (2004) summarised the situation by presenting the rhetorical question of an elementary school student: “Why should I read about ancient Rome when I can build it?!”. In order to comprehend the matter, teachers need to be involved in the same virtual environments with their students. It would be very natural to expect that for a teacher who has never played DGs, integrating technology and gaming in his/her classes would be a very hard and meaningless task. And actually, teachers often lack the skills and knowledge to integrate technology effectively into their classrooms (Becker, 2007). So while games for language education do exist, they reflect the shortcomings of existing approaches to technology in the field of FL education.

Altogether, research on FL learning and education through technology and games has gained increasing interest and accelerated during the past decade. Recently conducted studies show that there is a shift towards better understanding the new generation learners, and meeting their interests and needs. Kukulska-Hulme (2009) have noticed the potential of mobile phones and other portable devices and carried out a study to discuss the use of these means for language learning as well as the nuances between formal and informal learning, and teaching and learning practices. She concluded that mobility can lead to new perspectives and practices, and that there is an affinity between mobile learning and GBL. In the same way, Wong and Looi (2010) conducted two case studies to find out the impact of MALL in learning English prepositions and Chinese idioms. They determined that MALL has the potential to create unique language learning experiences that would attract and satisfy the new generation learners. In another work, Neville et al. (2009) designed a study where they attempted to teach L2 vocabulary, reading, and culture to university students through interactive fiction games, and observed positive contributions towards subjects’ learning.

Franciosi (2011) explored the relationship between DGBL and task-based language teaching to determine the design features of the two approaches and to present the similarities and differences that might have significant implications for language education. Similarly, Nakata (2008) compared the effect of learning L2 vocabulary by means of word lists, word cards, and computers. Findings suggested that incorporating technology by working with computers created superior results and received higher praise from the learners when compared to other two types of learning. These pieces of evidence support Neville’s (2009) claim that the combination of technology and games would be invaluable for the field of SL acquisition. Again, Rankin et al. (2006) investigated the benefits of a massive multiplayer online role-playing game as a pedagogical learning tool for intermediate and advanced learners of English as a SL, and revealed that the vocabulary of the students who played the game increased by 40%, while the conversational skills and chatting messages increased by 100%.

There are few games developed and proposed for education and more specifically for SL/FL learning and practise. The existing commercial games used for FL education such as Scrabble and Taboo, or the educational games such as ‘Spell it’, ‘Word puzzles’, ‘Hangman’ and so on have been used for a long time. Nevertheless, there is no investigation and evidence in the literature related to the effect and benefit of these specific games for language learners. We have also observed that educational faculties and the programmes that train FL teachers do not provide students with sufficient knowledge and skills to use games in their classrooms. There are courses in the programs such as ‘Language Teaching Materials Adaptation and Development’ and ‘Teaching Technologies and Material Design’, but the content and products of these courses seem to be not very effective for three reasons: the practical applications at schools have not changed over the past decade; the materials developed in the departments seem to be either old fashioned or impractical to carry around to classrooms; and they are hard to adapt to different platforms and settings.

In the present study our initial motivation was to develop a game that could be used in all language classrooms, in any foreign language, and with students of every linguistic proficiency level. We also tried to design the game in such a way that it would be relatively easy to transfer it to online and digital environments.  The present study reports the findings related to the application of the printed version of the VocaWord game that was introduced by Uzun (2009). A quantitative approach was adopted for data collection regarding the vocabulary knowledge of the subjects, and qualitative methods were employed to elicit their beliefs and observe their attitudes about using/playing the game in their English classes. The present study aimed at finding answers to the following questions:

1. Is there a positive relation between playing the VocaWord game and the vocabulary knowledge of the subjects? And, if there is a positive effect, to what degree did playing the game improve subjects’ repertoire of English words?
2. Are there any gender related issues regarding the game playing process and the success level of the students?
3. What are the attitudes and beliefs of the subjects related to playing games in the English classes?

Method

In the following, the components of our educational game (see Appendix 1) and the implementation procedures will be described and explained. The vocabulary learning and practising game that we present here is the empirical, modified and upgraded version of the work proposed and introduced by Uzun (2009).

VocaWord is the name of our game. VocaWord was designed as a board game that is played quite similarly to one of the world’s most famous games, Monopoly. The main difference of our game is that it focuses on learning and practising vocabulary in a FL. As there is a significant consensus in the SL/FL literature that knowing the most frequent 2000 words in a language would be a vital possession (Nation, 2001:16; Meara, 1995; Laufer and Nation, 1999; Hancioglu and Eldridge, 2007), originally the game was intended to integrate the most frequent English words so that players would both learn unknown words and practise the words that they already know. However, the content in this version was modified to meet the course content and the curricular goals. It should be indicated that the game suggested here can be used as a supplementary material in SL/FL education immediately after the learners reach a basic beginner level, and also it can be played in any given language by just replacing the letters on the board and the words on the cards accordingly with the alphabet of that language. Lists of the most frequently used words of many languages already exist, but there is a need to prepare the lists of all languages to fully enhance VocaWord.

It should be declared that the current version of the game (i.e. printed VocaWord), which was used in the present study, could be implemented in a virtual environment once it is programmed by any suitable computing language and transformed to an online or digital game to be played on computers and/or mobile phones. This would suit the tendencies and habits of the FL learners in our age of technology.

The components of the game

VocaWord consists of a board, 4 card packs, and the dice. In the following, each of the components will be described and the rules of the game will be explained.

The board

The board contains 32 spaces, 24 of which contain letters of the alphabet, and 8 of which (4 translation card spaces and 4 lexical competence card spaces) direct players to pick the card on the top of the relevant pack. Players go over these spaces and collect letters with which they form words and collect points, or pick cards from the specified card packs and follow the instructions. Instructions and rules for players to follow (when they are not sure what to do during the game) are written on the board as well.

The card packs and the dice

Four card packs were prepared in accordance with the curriculum and the course book. We extracted all the vocabulary (see Appendix 2) from the six units (Units 7-12) of the course book (Oxford Headway Elementary, Third Edition) and wrote them on the ‘translation cards’ with their L1 equivalents on the other side (one word on each card). When players land on the translation cards spaces, they have to pick a card from this pack and say the L1 equivalent of the written word. They do not need a teacher around for correction or approval, as the other side of the picked card provides immediate feedback for all the players around the board. The ‘lexical competence’ cards contain a certain number of the words from the mentioned units of the course book and simple exercises similar to the ones in the workbook of the students.

These exercises are ‘fill in the blanks’, ‘matching’, ‘find the synonym/antonym’ etc. The cards are placed on a separate box and the players cannot see the L1 side during the game. The other two card packs are given to students either as a reward (1 cards) where players receive some additional letters or a JOKER to form words and receive points later on, or as a punishment (2 cards) where players are asked to give back from the letters that they have collected while going over the board or are directed to pick a card from the lexical competence pack. There are 235 translation cards,80 lexical competence cards, 56 1 cards, and 32 2cards. Students do not keep any of the cards during the game; they instead return the picked card to the bottom of the pack so that the same words and exercises are circulated and practised during the game. This – practising the words – is the aim of the course book and workbook used.

The rules of the game

The main rules of the game are printed on the underside of the board so that all players can have a look during the game. The game can be played with two or more people, either as individuals or in pairs/groups.The ideal situation would involve four players, each sitting on one side of the square board. Each player rolls the dice and moves their token according to the number thrown on the dice. If the player lands on a letter space, they note down the letters and collect them to form words later on. Words are awarded points based on their length. A word of 1-3 letters is worth 3 points, 4-5 letters 5 points, 6 letters 7 points, and a word of 7 or more letters receives 10 points. (Both the number of the letters given on the spaces and the points given to formed words can be changed as needed). If the player lands on a translation space, they must take a card from the translation pack and provide the correct L1 translation of the word on the card. If they respond correctly, they receive one card from the cards 1 pack as a reward, but if they do not they must pick a card from cards 2 and follow the instructions on it. After this, the next player throws the dice and the game goes on in the same way. The winner is the player with the highest score at the end of a predetermined time, for example 30 minutes, or the first to reach a certain score, for example 30 points.

Prior to applying the game, we piloted it with a group of students and modified the rules and the cards in accordance with the feedback of the learners, so that the game became more motivating, challenging and exciting.

The testing tool

Once the game rules and components were consolidated, we prepared a vocabulary quiz (see Appendix 3) to apply as a pre-test and post-test to the subjects. The vocabulary quiz consisted of four parts. In the first part, there were 13 pictures that had to be matched with the provided words. In the second part, there were 10 sentences with a gap and twelve words (2 surplus words were provided to increase the difficulty) where the students were required to fill in the gaps with the appropriate words. In the third part, there were 11 L2 words and seventeen L1 words (6 surplus words were provided to increase the difficulty) where the students were asked to match the words. In the last part, there were 14 L2 words where the students were asked to write their L1 equivalents. The total number of the items was 48 (8 words from each of the six units of the course book).  All the items were prepared in such a way that they would be similar to the exercises in the course book and the workbook of the students. Likewise, all the words that were required in the items were from the list that we derived from Units 7 to 12 of the syllabus. In order to check the usability of the testing tool, we piloted it with the same students that we piloted the game with (N= 8).

Subjects

We selected two first year classes from different departments (the Mathematics Teaching Department and the Department of Psychological Counselling and Guidance) in the Faculty of Education, and randomly assigned them as the control group and the experimental group. The Control group (N= 34) consisted of 14 male and 20 female students, and the Experimental group (N= 36) consisted of 14 male and 22 female students. 9 subgroups (with one board each) were formed for each session of play, which changed weekly to allow different people to play together. The age of the subjects ranged between 18 and 19. Our observation was that although the subjects were similar, there were minor nuances related to both their socioeconomic background and linguistic ability. Nevertheless, since we believe that social sciences cannot fully assure laboratory-alike conditions, and since we actually observe that our classrooms are certainly never homogeneous, we decided to carry out our study within the natural and usual conditions that existed.

Procedure

The application of the pre-test and post-test as well as the interview session, implementation procedures of the game, qualitative observations, and the data analyses will be explained in the following and further in this paper.

The Application of the testing tool

The testing tool was applied as a pre-test a week before the implementation period of the game, during the usual hours of the classes, while the post-test was applied a week after the game implementation. Students were allowed as much time as they needed to complete the vocabulary quiz both during the pre-test and post-test. Both sessions took no longer than 40 minutes. Additionally, we interviewed the students to elicit their opinions about the game and how they felt during the application sessions that were held in the classes. We asked the following question after the post-test: What do you think about the gaming sessions that were held during the classes and how did you feel?

The Implementation of the game

Prior to applying the game with learners in the classroom setting, we asked a group of volunteer students (N= to help us in the piloting of the game. These students were not from the same class and department of the subjects that were in the control or experimental groups. We explained the game to the eight students (randomly assigned two groups of four persons) and asked them to start playing the game. The students played the game for about an hour, for two days. Their opinions and feedback were obtained and evaluated both during the piloting and after the gaming sessions, and the necessary modifications were carried out. With the experimental group we did the same thing, which was explaining the rules of the game and demonstrating how the game would be played.

The game was played during the last hour of the weekly 3-hour class for a period of 6 weeks. The nine sub-groups in the experimental group played the game each week, and it was recorded that each player made at least 50 turns each week. Each student was able to form some words with the collected letters, and each student had to pick from the translation cards or lexical competence cards at least 20 times each week. The researchers carried out both the application of the testing tool and the gaming sessions were monitored and recorded by the instructor of the course, and the interviews.

Analyses of the Testing and Interview

For the analyses of the pre-test and post-test results, we gave 1 point to each correctly done item, and the total evaluation was done out of 48 (the highest possible score). We calculated the scores for each student from both tests, and also compared the results according to the genders. For the purposes of triangulation, we planned an interview session with the students in the experimental group (5-7 minutes with each student) to better understand their opinions about the game and the game playing procedure. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed, read several times by the researchers, and content and coding analyses were carried out. Students’ views were grouped and the significant utterances, focused on the game itself and its playing procedures, were underlined during the analyses. In the results and discussion part, the same, very similar, or repeated thoughts were given only once represented in one student’s words.

Results and Discussion

According to the quantitative results derived from the examination of the pre-test, no significant differences existed between the subjects in the control group (mean score 28.32) and the experimental group (mean score 27.61). As a result of the treatment based on the game played, there was noticeable progress related to the vocabulary knowledge of the subjects, with superiority of those in the experimental group (see Table 1).

Table 1. The pre-test and post-test scores of the subjects

The results presented in Table 1 demonstrate that the experimental group (+10.66) subjects doubled the total vocabulary knowledge improvement of the control group (+5.02), which suggested that playing VocaWord in the classes contributed positively to the L2 vocabulary acquisition of the students. This finding answered our first research question: Is there a positive relation between playing the VocaWord game and the vocabulary knowledge of the subjects? And, if there is a positive effect, to what degree did playing the game improve the subjects’ repertoire of English words?

In relation to our second research question: Are there any gender related issues regarding the game playing process and the success level of the students? We partially found the answer here by calculating the vocabulary acquisition means for both genders in the experimental group (see Table 2), and partially in the interview analysis procedure. It was determined that there was not a huge gap between the vocabulary acquisition means of the female (11.77) and male (8.92) subjects, a result suggesting that both genders benefited from the game similarly. Yet, we observed that there was a superiority of approximately +3 words in favour of the female students. According to this observation, it might be possible to comment that VocaWord benefited the female subjects more. The interview analyses revealed a similar positive attitude from both genders towards the application of the game sessions in classroom.

Table 2. Mean effect results for genders in relation to vocabulary acquisition

The qualitative observations revealed that the students in the experimental group were more motivated during the classes. The interview sessions showed that the students in the experimental group were friendlier towards the instructor, and more comfortable and relaxed during the formal examinations. During the interviews, the subjects in the experimental group indicated that the English course has become much more exciting, refreshing, and comfortable after the implementation of the gaming sessions. They also articulated that playing with their classmates improved their social relationship and self-confidence, will for collaboration and group work. The students mentioned that they learned new words from one another, and even words that were not in their course book or workbook. Some sample responses of the students related to the question “What do you think about the game playing sessions that were held during the classes and how did you feel?” are presented in Table 3 below. The same or very similar responses of each student were not repeated in the table.

Table 3. Responses of the students to the question What do you think about the gaming sessions that were held during the classes and how did you feel?

The opinions of the experimental group subjects demonstrate that there was a general satisfaction and contentment in relation with the application of game playing in classroom despite some minor concerns about the content of the game, classmate issues, and the procedure of the application. The italic sentences imply some of the critical reaction or thoughts of the students.

Qualitative observations

In the present study, the product-oriented quantitative data is provided through the pre and post vocabulary tests that aimed to reveal the effects of the VocaWord game on the subjects’ repertoire of English words. The interview sessions following the post-test were a component of the qualitative dimension of the study to better understand the students’ opinions about the game and the game playing procedure. To further support that dimension and ensure more triangulation; four randomly selected groups in four different weeks, who were videotaped for another study, were observed to shed light on the process itself and inform the quantitative products data. Another motivation was to cross-validate what the subjects had reported in the interview sessions.

It is a fact that it is not possible to observe everything (Patton, 1987) in participant observation while videotaping allows repeated viewing. However, as the analysis of the observations had to have some particular focal points in this study, “sensitizing concepts” (Patton, 1987: 82) were determined to ease the task and have some observational foci for when viewing and analysing the records. While determining those sensitising concepts, the characteristics that the relevant literature attributes to beneficial pedagogical games and the aims that the researchers had set while developing the game were considered.

Below is the list of the observational foci, which were specifically attended to during the views of the records and used for interpretation in the analyses.

• whether it caused any procedural difficulties and/or hesitations while being played
• whether it is played with sustained motivation
• whether it was entertaining for both girls and boys
• whether it seemed to serve to further socialisation among the students

The recorded four sessions were viewed in two sittings on two different days rewinding and fast-forwarding the videos whenever needed. During the sittings, an academic that specialised in educational sciences accompanied the four researchers. In consideration of the observational foci mentioned above; the recordings were viewed, notes taken, discussed and interpreted until the conclusions were drawn by consensus among the five researchers.

First of all, it was determined with almost no doubt that the playing of the game did not cause any procedural difficulties for the students. We believe that this is because the game has a lot in common with some well-known board games like Monopoly and information about the rules and the instructions to follow (when players are not sure what to do during the game) are written on the board.

Regarding student motivation: it was observed that no obvious lack of motivation or boredom, which is likely to be caused by a one-dimensional, mechanic and monotonous way of learning, arose. Some students seemed more enthusiastic, but the others never failed or were late to do what they were supposed to do in the course of the game because of not being motivated enough by the game and thinking about something else. None of them were observed to be trying to evade his or her turn without doing the best to come up with the elicited action. Corresponding with this, the game did not seem to function differently with boys and girls in terms of being entertaining and motivating. The agreement was that it kept all its players alert and motivated till the end in a fun atmosphere.

Lastly, whether the game served to further socialisation among the students was the point where the consensus was the least clear among the researchers. More from the students’ lives is needed to make a definitive judgment on it. However, the comfortable atmosphere in which almost all the students frequently swapped good-natured banter was deemed to be promising for the game.

Quantitative statistical analyses

Table 4. Are there any significant differences between the groups considering the pre-test results?

The descriptive statistics showed that the students in the control group seemed to perform very similarly in the pre-test (M:28,32; SD:8,23) compared to the students in the experimental group (M: 27,61; SD: 6,77). An independent samples T test indicated that the difference between the students’ test results in both groups in the pre-test was not statistically significant t(68)= -0,396 , p> 0.05. Therefore, it can be claimed that there were not any significant differences in the students’ vocabulary knowledge levels in the pre-test.

Table 5. Are there any significant differences between the groups considering the post-test results?

The analysis of descriptive statistics showed that the students in the control group seemed to perform less successfully in the post-test (M:33,35; SD:7,16) than their counterparts in the experimental group (M: 38,02; SD: 5,49). An independent samples T test was carried out to see whether the differences between the students’ test results in both groups in the post-test.  The results reveal that the difference between the group scores t(68)= -3,07, p< 0.05 was  statistically significant with a medium effect size d=0.73. Therefore, it can be claimed that the students in the experimental group scored statistically higher scores in the post-test in comparison to the students in the control group.

Table 6.Are there any significant differences between the pre-test and post-test results in the control group?

The descriptive statistics showed that the students in the control group performed lower success levels in the pre-test (M:28,32; SD:8,23) compared to their scores in the post-test (M: 33,35; SD: 7,16). A paired samples T test indicated that the difference between the students’ test results in both tests differed at a statistically significant level t(33)= -12,59, p> 0.01 with a very large effect size d=2,32.

Table 7.Are there any significant differences between the pre-test and post-test results in the experimental group?

The descriptive statistics showed that the students in the experimental group performed less successfully in the pre-test (M:27,61; SD:6,77) compared to their scores in the post-test (M:38,02; SD:5,49). A paired samples T test indicated that the difference between the students’ test results in both tests differed at a statistically significant level t(35)= -15,423, p> 0.01 with a very large effect size d=2,57.

Table 8.Are there any significant differences between the pre-test results of male and female participants in the control group?

The analyses showed that the female students in the control group scored slightly higher in the pre-test (M:30,05; SD:6,95) compared to the male students in the same control group (M: 25,85; SD: 9,49). An independent samples T test indicated that the difference between the students’ test results in both groups in the pre-test was not statistically significant t(32)= -1,489 , p> 0.05. Therefore, it can be claimed that there were not any significant differences in the students’ gender with regards to their vocabulary knowledge levels in the pre-test.

Conclusion

To sum up, we provided an overview related to technology/computers, digital/video/computer/online/mobile games, learning/education, and specifically SL/FL acquisition and discussed the present situation of education. We developed a FL vocabulary game, tested it with real students in real classroom settings, and proposed an example for further material development studies hoping that new and more improved language learning games will be created and distributed. Our observation was that language classes can benefit signifigantly from even traditional games, thus digital tools would certainly bring additional power once opportunities become easier to employ and launch. We also hope that language teaching/learning research suggests new methods and techniques for teachers to better serve the emerging type of learners in the future.

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Biographical Statements

Levent Uzun is currently a PhD candidate, and researcher in the English Language Teaching Department at Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey. His research interests include philosophy of education, CALL, educational technologies and distance education, educational materials development, vocabulary acquisition, and intercultural communication.

Uğur Recep Cetinavci is a lecturer at Uludağ University, Faculty of Education, English Language Teaching Department, Bursa, Turkey. He studied English language and literature at Ankara University. He worked as an English teacher at a state high school and a military vocational school.

Sedat Korkmaz has been a lecturer at Uludağ University Faculty of Education, English Language Teaching Department since 2010. He received his BA from Middle East Technical University, Ankara in 2000. He is currently a postgraduate student in Çanakkale University Faculty of Education ELT Department.

Umut Muharrem Salihoglu worked for the Turkish Ministry of National Education as an English language teacher for three years. He holds an M.A. in English language teaching. He is a research assistant at Uludağ University in the English Language Teaching Department in Bursa, Turkey. Currently, he is a PhD candidate.

Appendices

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Published Online: June 1, 2013
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Abstract

This article presents findings from a recent study into the ways young people are engaging with the social networking site Facebook. It draws on a qualitative, small-scale study with six 13 and 14 year old girls who have been using Facebook daily for two years. It aimed to explore the nature of their critical understanding of the medium in ways that have been obscured by research and popular discussion that assume a simple dichotomy between ‘digital natives’ and others. In order to analyse results, Foucault’s theory of discursive formation is used as a framework through which the motivations behind the behaviours presented might be understood. Results suggest that there are a number of factors that make critical engagement difficult in this context. First, coupling the highly visual nature of the medium with an essentially ‘invisible audience’ made participants anxious about ‘fitting in’ to the discourse, which ultimately limited the scope of their use. Second, because social networking is strongly linked with identity presentation critiquing the medium would require an analysis of personal identity. Finally, to critique the site requires the individual to stand ‘outside’ the discourse (Gee, 1991), which essentially counters the reason for using Facebook. The article concludes by making some suggestions for future educational programs that aim to develop critical engagement with social media.

Keywords: critical engagement, digital native, discursive formation, education, identity Facebook, qualitative study, young people.

Many assumptions have been made about young people and their use of technology. Words and phrases like “digital native”, “tech savvy”, and “millennium generation” are often used to describe young people, assuming a categorical classification hierarchy of dependence, mastery, and awareness of technology. The problem with characterising the relationship in such a way is that it may not only be inaccurate, but it may mean that educators, and society more generally, ignore whether young people are approaching social networking sites, like Facebook, with effective critical skills. Building on Jenkins’ (2006, p. 3) idea of the “transparency problem”, this study aimed to discover whether young people can “see clearly the ways that the media shape their perceptions of the world” through analysis of their ability to critically engage with the social networking site Facebook.

This article begins by examining the appropriateness of critical engagement for social media and how this might be applied to young people’s use of Facebook. It then discusses the theories of identity that are relevant to this context in order to understand the crucial nexus of critical engagement, social networking, and identity for young people today. Foucault’s theory of discursive formation is used as a theoretical lens through which to understand the reported behaviours and explain why critical engagement might be difficult in this context. While a study of this size is limited in scope, it is able to offer a snapshot into how young people are using the medium and how their identity is implicated in this process. The key questions guiding this research are: How are these young people using Facebook? Is there any evidence of a critical engagement with the medium? And, how does this social networking site influence their sense of self and their engagement with others?

Critical engagement and social media in the postmodern context

Critical engagement refers to an active and questioning approach to texts, with its roots firmly planted in critiquing the dominant discourses of society. Critical literacy, pioneered by Paulo Freire (1970), argues the significance of the social context of teaching literacy. It therefore has the potential to examine, analyse, and deconstruct discourses and social structures so that the individual becomes an “agent” capable of change (Barton, 2007). Traditional concepts of critical literacy, therefore, focus on how individuals are ‘positioned’ and act within the dominant discourses of society. Adopting a critical approach to social networking sites is not only valuable in helping young people see the competing discourses that surround their use, but also how it may influence the presentation of their identity and their relationships with others. However, with the advent of the Internet the literal perception of what is understood as ‘text’ has changed. As a result, a traditional model of critical literacy, which is primarily directed at print based texts, is no longer appropriate.

There are two key features of digital texts that are relevant to this discussion. First, the multimodality (Kress, 2003) of digital texts requires the reader to interpret and make meaning from multiple modes of information. When using social media, for example, information can take the form of images, writing, music, gestures, speech, icons and more. Unlike printed text, digital texts require the ‘user’ to interpret information that is “spread across” (2003, p. 35) several modes. Kress writes that the book was “ordered by the logic of writing”, whereas the “screen is ordered by the logic of image” (2003, p. 9). Writing may appear on the screen, but it will be subordinated by the image. For this reason Kress argues that the theoretical framework has therefore changed from linguistics to semiotics. The second major feature is the participatory culture of the internet (Jenkins, 2006) that gives rise to interactivity between participants and, therefore, multiple authorship and collaboration. In this way, social media lacks the “fixity and boundedness of traditional print text” (Burnett & Merchant 2011, p. 46) and therefore gives rise more readily to multiple meanings. Essentially both these features undermine the stable structures that enabled critique to take place.

A theoretical framework for understanding identity in the context of social media

There are several theories of identity that pertain to the research. First, it is important to note that identity is a social rather than an individual construction (Moje & Luke, 2009). However, even though identities are socially constructed they are still ‘lived’ by the individual. Second, Moje and Luke also describe identity as “fluid” in that “it is no longer conceptualized as a stable entity that one develops throughout adolescence and achieves at some point in (healthy) adulthood” (2009, p. 418). This is a counterpoint to Erikson’s (1959) concept of identity as something that can be “achieved”, and perhaps more appropriate given the postmodern context. Finally, identity can also be thought of as “recognised” (Moje & Luke, 2009, p. 419) by others. James Gee (2000) defines this aspect of identity:

Being recognized as a certain “kind of person,” in a given context, is what I mean here by “identity.” In this sense of the term, all people have multiple identities connected not to their “internal states” but to their performances in society. (2000, p. 99)

Gee goes on to acknowledge the presence of a “core” identity “that holds more uniformly, for ourselves and others, across contexts” (2000, p. 100), however, suggests that the definition of identity as “recognized” is more useful as an analytic tool in theorising and researching education. When an individual uses social media these three aspects of identity are at work. The individual presents an identity that can be easily recognised through photos, affiliations and interests; feedback and interaction from other users helps to socially construct identity and there is no requirement to have a fixed sense of who you are, instead identity is about a series of experimentations.

Social networking and identity

Research has shown that social media is strongly linked with the presentation and formation of identity (Boyd, 2007; Ito et al., 2008; Greenhow & Robelia, 2009; Dowdall, 2009) Further to this, it can also be a place where role conflict can be worked through. Selwyn (2009), for example, discovered that for the University students in his study, the Facebook wall was a place where they could become familiar with the “identity politics” of being a student. It became a space where the issues that arise from University staff, academic conventions and expectations could be reported and reflected upon. Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007) also link Facebook usage with “psychological well being” (2007, p. 1143) because it was able to build social capital (Bourdieu, 1977) in its participants. However, particular aspects of identity are reinforced in this context, perhaps at the expense of others. Kress (2003), for example, writes that the “screen is the site of the image – it is the contemporary canvas” (2003, 9). It is plain to see this on social networking sites, like Facebook, as the photo or visual representations of self are of great import. Boyd (2007) outlines four properties that separate unmediated publics from networked publics:

Persistence: in that “networked communications are recorded for posterity”;

Searchability: in that “identity is established through text [so] search and discovery tools help people find like minds”;

Replicability: in that “networked public expressions can be copied from one place to another verbatim such that there is no way to distinguish the ‘original’ from the copy”;

Invisible audiences: in that “it is virtually impossible to ascertain all those who might run across our expressions in networked publics” (2007, p. 9).

As Boyd acknowledges these “properties affect the potential audience and the context in which the expression is received” (2007, p. 7). While many users may find these qualities liberating, for others such unstable parameters for expression and reception may become an issue, particularly if issues of self-esteem are at play. Furthermore, how do such contexts intersect with unmediated or offline identities? At the very least, it requires the individual to be many things at once; to mediate and perpetuate their identity for the variety of audiences and discourses they experience (Beck & Beck- Gernsheim, 2002).

Methodology

This small-scale research project aimed to examine how a small group of experienced users were interacting with the social networking site Facebook; and the kinds of critical and uncritical understandings they had of it. It examined more closely the kinds of interactions and understandings being developed through the templates it provided, in order to construct a more nuanced and complex picture of how young people use social networking sites, beyond simple dichotomies and assumptions. It offers a discursive understanding of social networking practises that are not afforded in quantitative research. It involved an initial whole class discussion, peer administered interviews, observations of the participant’s Facebook page and a follow up interview where points from the peer administered interview were clarified and explained in greater detail. The interviews took place over a period of six weeks.

The study considered critical engagement to mean several key things. First, it meant knowledge of the conventions of social networking sites and an awareness of how they structure information and interaction in a particular way. In practical terms this might mean knowing how to adjust privacy settings and limiting the amount of personal or private information that is posted. It might also mean knowing the difference between an online friend and an offline friend, and not becoming friends with strangers or unfamiliar people. Using social networking sites critically might also mean demonstrating behaviour that is appropriate for the medium. No doubt what is deemed appropriate would vary across age and cultural groups, however, certain behaviours would be universally considered inappropriate. For example, most groups would consider engaging in offensive or mean behaviour online inappropriate. It might also mean avoiding posting provocative photos or posts and, as a corollary of this, being aware of the digital ‘fingerprint’ that will stay with them into the future.  Finally, given the pre-eminence of photos on the site young people could become overwhelmed by the pressure that such a visual medium places on them. Critical engagement might therefore mean understanding, and then possibly resisting, the pressure that social networking sites like Facebook place on the user in relation to posting photos, posts and having a lot of friends. One aspect of the study investigated whether the site encouraged or directed particular behaviour in users and if they accepted or resist this ‘positioning’.

The study involved six volunteer female students who ranged from 13-14 years old and came from a Government school for girls in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs. This Government school has one of the highest numbers of parents/guardians educated to a tertiary level (DEECD, 2011), and is located in an affluent suburb. They have ready access to technology and, we could presume, parents who have expectations about their education that may well extend to a critical engagement with social networking sites. The six participants’ names have been changed to protect their privacy and are presented here as Phillipa, Nina, Nadia, Cassie, Sally and Felicity. They all use Facebook daily and most signed up two years ago, when they were 11 or 12 years old.

The participants were also involved in the research process and helped to construct the interview questions and carry out the interviews on each other.  There were two reasons for this. First, the aim was to deliver an insider’s (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003) perspective on social networking use, not only through the answers to the interview questions, but also through the questions and ideas that the participants added to the set of interview questions. Given that the research was to take place in a school, the aim in adopting this approach was to overcome the ‘deep grammar of school’ which ‘institutionalizes the privileging of the newcomer/ outsider mindset over the insider mindset’ (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003, p. 33) In this way, the research could be likened to social and cultural anthropology which “attempts to understand alien belief systems ‘from inside’” (Hammersley, 2002, p. 66).

Second, involving the participants in the research process aimed to lessen the power imbalance between researcher/teacher and participant. In this context, such power imbalance may skew results. Rather than participants “telling it like it is”, they may feel pressure to respond in a particular way if the researcher is an authority figure, like a teacher or university researcher. Collaborating with student researchers was one way to breakdown this hierarchy; the ‘subjects’ were positioned as active ‘participants’ working with the researcher toward a common goal (Herring, 2008, p. 87). The participants in this study were actively involved in designing the interview questions and collecting data with their designated partner, however, given some of the sensitive information that was put forth during interviews, they were not involved in the analysis of results.

Results

When the data from the student interviews, follow-up interviews, online observations and class discussion were analysed, three main themes emerged: (1) For these participants the main purpose behind their Facebook use was to produce and present a social identity or image that could be recognised by others and, in this context, photos were the main way this was achieved; (2) Anxiety resulted from judgments and bullying that was reported, which impacted how they used and engaged with the ‘templates’ and functions of the site; and (3) Participants often contradicted what they reported in interviews with their social networking behaviours, demonstrating that enacting a critical practice in this context is difficult. Because participants often felt restricted by what they could and could not do on the site, Foucault’s notion of a discursive formation was used to help understand how this discourse positioned users of the site. Through this theoretical lens we can see how Facebook encourages and privileges some behaviours over others, making it difficult for young people to find the ‘space’ to critically engage with the site. An analysis of these themes provides some insight into the complexity of the critical engagement required for a social networking site like Facebook.

Presentation of identity – the purpose of Facebook

For these participants Facebook was predominately used for presenting an identity and maintaining and extending friendships. None of the participants, for example, mentioned embedding videos, linking to blogs or other Web 2.0 technologies, or even organising social events through Facebook – they simply re/present themselves through photos and status updates. For example, when Nadia was asked whether she used Facebook to organise events she replied: “Not really then you have email…or phone or whatever”. It seemed that there was quite a specific purpose behind their use, and that this was quite limited. When asked what cues they use to understand a Facebook friend’s identity, all the participants explained that photos and ‘friends’ were most important. While this seems an obvious observation, it is important to note that photos were more important than status updates and wall posts. This fits in with Kress’s (2003) assertion that on screen, image subordinates writing by dominating all “displayed communications” (2003, p. 9). According to the participants, not only do they need to carefully select which photos they upload, but they also need to monitor and review photos of themself that their Facebook ‘friends’ upload. To Sally, photos are important because, “people can judge you even if they don’t know you”, or in Nadia’s words they “help[s] to know who that person is”.

The participants also expressed concern about what sort of photos to put up, commenting that their ‘friends’ judge photos. For example, Sally said now she knows “what photos to put up and what photos not to put up”. Felicity mentions several times that the photos of her on Facebook “are really, really ugly” and “bad” and that she is often “being weird” in them. She attributes this to her “being caught off guard” and hopes that we “never see them”. When asked if there were any inappropriate photos of her on Facebook she equates appropriateness with attractiveness: “Define inappropriate … because I just have really, really ugly bad photos on”. She has 74 photos and images uploaded onto the site. Similarly, Phillipa feels “self-conscious” when people are looking at her photos wondering whether they will like them. She says that it is also important to consider what potential friends might think: “if people are looking to add you as a friend they would look at them to see what kind of things you do”.

In this instance, boyd’s (2007) notion of Searchability is evident, where the capacity to search for and choose friends based on what they do and who they are friends with gives a greater sense of control in the presentation of identity. However, there is a negative side to this, as looks often determined whether a potential friendship was made. Felicity explains:

Well I have a few friends and they go around looking up different people and if they find someone who they think is hot or who looks good they add them, so it looks like they are more cool. Because mostly people would assume that pretty people are the cool people.

In this way, a friends’ list becomes a ‘resource’ that is worth displaying to others.  Even though Felicity acknowledges that the assumptions made are questionable she accepts it as what happens on Facebook:

You would try to add the more pretty and good-looking people I guess. It’s just what you do. I don’t try to do that, but sometimes it slips up a bit.

Sally, Felicity, Phillipa and Nina all acknowledged that photos can be an inaccurate representation of who a person is and in this way are engaging critically with the site. Phillipa explains:

People will put photos on because they think it will make them look cooler, but then that’s not actually what they’re like they just do it because they think it makes them look good.

Despite expressing doubt over the ‘truthfulness’ of photos, all participants relied on them to represent their own identity and understand others’ identities; in many respects they have little choice given the dominance of the image in this context. Only two of the participants mentioned status updates as relevant to understanding a person’s identity on Facebook. For the participants, the highly visual nature of the medium shaped how they represented their identity and perceived others. In this context, recognition of identity was key, so that identity is continually re/presented in response to feedback from others. Given the highly visual nature of the site, Facebook can be thought of as a room of mirrors, images of an identity are projected on Facebook, but are also bounced back to reflect an identity constructed by others. It is essential that photos are used to represent an identity, but then there is little control over how these will be interpreted. While boyd (2007) argues that in some sense “people have more control online” (2007, p. 12), the participant’s comments reveal the complexity of the context. While they may have more control over what is presented to the world (the photos, comments and conversations that are uploaded into the site), the participants expressed concern over who their audience was, how they would be received and whether their interactions were appropriate or “fit in” to the discourse. In this instance, their anxiety seemed to arise from a perceived lack of control, which was ultimately related to how their identity was “recognised” (Gee, 2000) by others.

Anxiety

Representing an identity through such a visual medium seemed to be a source of anxiety for all the participants, to the point where behaviours were limited and only some templates used. Nina attributes this to the judgements people make on Facebook:

I think people are really judgemental on like Facebook and stuff because of the photos and the statuses and, if say your friend tagged you in a photo where you looked really bad and people might judge you and be like “She’s really weird”.

It is interesting to note that several participants equated an “inappropriate” photo as one in which they looked “ugly”. It seems that the visual representation of self on Facebook is of utmost importance, perhaps even more important than how you appear face to face.

Status updates were also a source of anxiety for Sally and Phillipa. Both were “worried” about what to write because they felt they might be judged; as a result they rarely post statuses. Nadia on the other hand thinks that communicating on Facebook can be easier because you can “sound really smart”. Such pressure pushes some people to lie. Phillipa mentioned that she has observed people lie about what school they go to. In one extreme case she said a ‘friend’ had written information that suggested they attended a private school, when in reality they were a student at a government school. Nina also mentioned that some people tell “white lies”:

Some people tell white lies to get attention and to make themselves seem cooler or to get sympathy… I think they are made by people who are insecure…reassurance that’s really what people look for.

On Facebook, positive comments and ‘likes’ from ‘friends’ in response to posts were essential reassurance for their quality and, more generally, the participant’s online identity.

All the participants describe judgement, meanness and often bullying taking place on Facebook. It is clear that the participants know that this is wrong, but according to Nina “it’s easier to be mean to people…online”. Sally explains the phenomenon:

In real life they will be like “oh it’s really bad” but actually online they kind of have a different identity and like “ha ha ha that’s so funny” and go along with it, but not really do something about it.

Nadia also thinks people tend to go along with it: “If someone says something mean or whatever and people are like ‘ha ha so funny’ it’s not because the other person feels like …I don’t know”. Felicity admits that while she is “not usually mean on Facebook it comes out once or twice” and this, she believes, is because “you have a screen in front of you and no one there”. Cassie admitted that while she does not try to be “deliberately” mean online, “people can get the wrong idea”. Misinterpreting information and people seems to be a common occurrence on Facebook. By extension, when interpretation becomes “slippery”, participants expressed a tendency to read things in a more negative way. While this also takes place in an unmediated exchange, considering the way identity is constructed in a digital environment does provide a helpful way of making sense of this trend.

In many ways the manner in which an individual and their identity is presented has fundamentally shifted with the advent of social networking sites, and digital technology more generally. Mark Poster (2006) writes that “digital machines” are not an addition, tool or prosthesis but “an intimate mixing of human and machine that constitutes an interface outside the subject-object binary” (2006, p. 48). In this theory, humans are no longer considered separate from their digital tools. Such complex couplings between humans and machines have far reaching implications. Poster writes, “Since the digital self also absorbs the affordances and constraints of the Internet, we can say that the positions of speech that are made in this medium are greatly expanded from what we have known before” (2006, p. 42). While a small-scale study of this nature has limitations in its scope, traces of Poster’s idea are evident. In some instances, the social networking site was thought of as a tool to communicate with others, but at other times it configured interactions and relationships in a new way; enabling the participants to forget that there was a real person or ‘subject’ behind the tool or ‘object’. While the majority of the participants knew that this was wrong, there was a resignation about being able to change behaviours. Sentiments like “that’s just what happens” and “I don’t mean to but…” were often expressed. Add to this the pressure from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. He explains that Facebook “…has always tried to push the envelope. And at times that means stretching people and getting them to be comfortable with things they aren’t comfortable with yet. A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of” (Thomson, 2008). Indeed, if the digital self does imbibe the affordances of the internet, which is evident from this study, then a critical engagement with Facebook or social networking sites more generally, is akin to isolating and analysing how identity has been constructed in and around this context.

Contradictions

One thing that was apparent from the interviews was that what participants said they were doing on Facebook and what they actually practised online were two different things. For example, in the interviews most reported that photos can be an inaccurate representation of people’s identity and that an online friend is different to an offline friend. However, these sentiments were often contradicted later in the interview or by the online behaviour that they recounted. Phillipa, for example, acknowledged that a lot of people find Facebook can become a “competition to see who has more friends”, but she sees herself as able to resist the “pressure”:

For some people I think there would be [pressure], but I don’t really care whether people think I should have friends or not because it’s not really their opinion that should matter.

However, later she elaborates on the complex network of pressures at play that are sometimes difficult to negotiate:

Sometimes there is pressure like if you’ve got a lot of like mutual friends with them …then you might think maybe I should friend them because then I can be like “Oh yeah I know this person I’ve got them on Facebook”. But then sometimes you just don’t because you think: “Why would I even want to have you? Why would I want you to see all my things? I only add people who I am comfortable with seeing what I have put up.

Most of the participants shared this belief indicating that it was important to say that they ‘knew’ their Facebook friends even though their actions might suggest otherwise. Cassie, for example, says that she doesn’t normally add strangers as ‘friends’. However, later in the interview she says that she became friends with an older man who she didn’t know:

This guy was like a creepy paedophile. And then he was like being weird and then he’s like I want to meet you … and I’m like de-friend.

As a result of this experience she is “really careful” and doesn’t “just add people for the sake of it”.

The majority of the participants knew what they should and should not be doing on Facebook: they know photos were not always an accurate representation of identity; they know that they should not judge others online; they know not to ‘friend’ strangers. In essence, this was the cybersafety message. However, this message was at odds with pressures to adopt other behaviours, like having lots of “pretty, cool” friends and posting glamorous, often provocative photos; essentially what participants admitted gave them “status” on Facebook. For example, in the follow up interview, Sally suggested that some of her classmates would not have told the truth in the peer administered interview: “Some people would say they don’t have provocative photos, but they do”. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) define social capital as “the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships” (1992, p. 14). The reported behaviours and contradictions suggest that for these participants the drive for social capital overshadows the educational and moral lessons these participants had learnt about social networking. This might explain why participants say one thing (the thing they think is ‘right’), but do another. It also points to the fact that the critical digital programs offered by the school have not been practically and consistently realised in the participant’s out of school engagement with social media.

Formations of a Facebook identity

The participants, and the class more broadly, expressed the point that particular behaviours were encouraged on Facebook, as there was pressure to look attractive, post exciting status updates and also to be extroverted. For example, Cassie says, “I think there is more pressure to be extroverted online because you have to make more like – more for people to like you”.  Similarly, Nadia thinks “there is really no point in having it [Facebook]” if you are really shy and introverted. Other participants acknowledge this point, but in relation to others, not themselves. Phillipa explains this:

For some people I think there would be [pressure], but I don’t really care whether people think I should have friends or not because it’s not really their opinion that should matter.

When asked whether they thought Facebook could do things any better, all the participants answered no; in Nadia’s words “everything is on there”. Two of the participants suggested that they have adapted their behaviour to suit the perceived expectations of Facebook. Nina explains:

I think at the start I was quite introverted and sort of conservative, but as I’ve become more confident and more comfortable with the networking site and in myself, I’ve become more extroverted.

While there were moments where the participants were critical of behaviours that took place on Facebook, they all maintained that they were the same person online as they were offline.

All the participants mentioned that there was a particular way to do things on Facebook, an unwritten set of rules, what Nina called “cybersense”. While it may have helped participants “type onself into being” (Sunden, 2003, p. 3), it seemed that Facebook and its set of values underwrote the “being” that was constructed. At one point during the class discussion, Nadia announced “MySpace is so grade 6”, as if there was only one possible choice for social networking now – Facebook. Despite moments of critical engagement, each participant appeared committed to accruing friends, posting photos where they looked ‘good’ and writing interesting status updates; essentially things that improved social status on Facebook. Applying Foucault’s discursive formation as a theoretical lens is appropriate here in that it emphasises how the workings of texts, institutions and social practices can align in certain ways and set limits to how people and things can be recognised (Gee, 2000).

A discursive formation can be approximated to a discipline (like political science, literature or medicine) or “divisions or groupings with which we have become so familiar” (Foucault, 2002, p. 24). Using medical science as an example, Foucault explains that from the 19th century practitioners began to “presuppose the same way of looking at things” and that medicine was organised by a “certain style” and “series of descriptive statements” (2002, p. 37). O’Farrell (2005) explains discursive formations are “a bit like the grammar of a language [and] allow certain statements to be made” (2005, p. 79). In this way discursive formations provide a “space in which various objects emerge and are continuously transformed” (Foucault, 2002, p. 36). A key point is that discursive formations create systems of knowledge and lead to a particular way of engaging with the world, which Foucault terms discursive practice. When social networking sites are viewed as a discursive formation, attention is drawn to the fact that they have the potential to ‘position’ the user. Once positioned, however, individuals have the ability to assume or resist the position and it is here that critical engagement comes into play. In light of the results, while it may have been possible for the participants to see the behaviours that were encouraged by Facebook, it was very difficult for the participants to see how Facebook positioned them, let alone resist it.

In Archaeology of Knowledge (2002) one of Foucault’s concerns was our reluctance to question the way a discursive formation like Facebook shapes our perception of the world. He believed that we should interrogate why discursive formations result in some statements and practices emerging into our everyday lives and not others. Through both subtle and overt means, Facebook encourages an identity that is extroverted, outgoing and even sometimes narcissistic; most importantly, one that would be approved by their peer group. The pursuit of such an identity made it difficult for the participants to critically engage with the site, as they become immersed in the social reality of Facebook. While the participants may have had some degree of critical awareness of the site, they were unable to maintain this critical approach as they set out to achieve the ‘ideal’ self, set out in their personal profile. Often this meant pursuing what was considered valuable in this context– lots of friends and a rich and exciting social life. However, bringing a critical practice to Facebook, or any other social networking site for that matter, equates to critiquing selfhood, and this is no easy task, particularly for a young person who has had little time to form their identity. Further to this, to critique this discursive formation would essentially mean seeing yourself as ‘outside’ it, and for many of the participants this ‘space’ for reflection or language for critique had not been discovered.

Toward a critical engagement with social networking sites

This paper has explored the complexity of social networking sites as a text for analysis, and the social and personal discourses that take place in and around Facebook. It has shown that critical engagement is important in this context because it is so closely linked to identity formation and presentation for young people today. It has explicated the factors that make it difficult for young people to critically engage with sites like Facebook so they may broach the “transparency problem” (Jenkins, 2006) of social media. While critical literacy approaches to use of social media have been put forth (Dowdall, 2009; Hartley, 2010), the role of identity does not figure as a central point for analysis. However, Burnett and Merchant’s (2011) ‘Tri-partite Model’ is of particular significance for this study.

Building on Greenhow and Robelia’s (2009) idea of “advantageous online community practices” (2009, p. 136), Burnett and Merchant offer a conceptual model that highlights the inter-relationship between identity, practice and networks, but argue that these three concepts take place around, through and outside social media. In this way, the model is able to shift the focus from the objects to be critiqued to how the ‘user’ engages with these, integrating identity with critical practice. They write:

Critical practice in this context may be less about digital technology as an abstract force (one that considers how it might structure our thoughts and actions) and more about an interrogation and evaluation of what we and others are actually doing on and off-line. (2009, p. 51)

With this model there is a shift in the locus of practice that is more suitable for networked, collaborative texts like social media. Finally, it should be noted that social networking is a popular pursuit, so any critical practice needs to balance learner interest with more serious pedagogical aims (Burnett & Merchant, 2011). As Buckingham (2003) writes, undermining or ‘spoiling’ enjoyable literacy practices with a ‘correct’ reading of texts is likely to have negative results. Consequently, any sort of critical practice associated with social networking sites needs to be mindful of the connection to, and possible objectification of identity.

To engage critically with Facebook might also mean giving young people the ‘space’ to reflect upon their use. This might be further developed through a ‘meta-discourse’ to identify and evaluate the behaviours and interactions that take place in and around the context in order to encourage what Gee (1991, p. 9) calls “Powerful Literacy”. As Gee explains we cannot expect young people to acquire these skills, they need to be learnt. In this instance, the myth of the digital native as transformed by new technology and, therefore, not needing any education or resources to negotiate social media is inaccurate and potentially damaging. Further to this, the results from this study demonstrate that even a basic literacy was lacking for some of the participants interviewed. For example, several participants did not have adequate privacy settings and would often ‘friend’ strangers.

Final comments

What the research here shows is something of how young people who are very much at home with Facebook are not simply skilled users (“digital natives”) but a group being formed in a context which impacts on their identify formation, and not always positively. While many participants could clearly articulate the cybersafety messages, understood a number of things about how Facebook worked, what kinds of representations were prioritised, and also knew what was moral and ethical behaviour, it was difficult for them to maintain this approach when using such an immersive and pervasive medium. The impact a medium such as Facebook has on the self-esteem and personal development in people so young also needs to be considered. For many participants the anxiety associated with presenting an identity that was Facebook ‘appropriate’ and that would be accepted by their peers was palpable. Many of the participants spoke of bullying and judgemental behaviour that seemed elevated on Facebook.

Poster’s notion of a “digital self” who absorbs the affordances of the Internet is a useful way to understand how the behaviours online might be shaped more by the technology than the individual and their moral code. In this way, while it may have been possible for participants to reflect on how Facebook was shaping their view of others, it was more difficult for them to see how it shaped their view of themselves. Abandoning use of the site did not seem to be an option for the participants. This research has uncovered some of the challenges young people face when asked to critically engage with Facebook. These challenges are due to a range of factors: the structure of the site and the privileging of images (photos) over writing in this context; the fact that when viewed as a discursive formation (Foucault, 2002) certain behaviours and language are encouraged over others and left the participants feeling anxious; and that to critique the site is to stand ‘outside’ the discourse, which essentially counters the very purpose of being on there in the first place.

While this research does point to schools playing a more significant role in educating for critical use of social networking sites, the fact that Facebook is banned in many Australian schools, makes this an unlikely prospect in the near future. Lankshear and Knobel (2003) argue that education should not be focused on learning or schools, but instead “human lives seen as trajectories through multiple social practices in various social institutions” (2003, p. 48). For meaningful learning to take place then, the skills taught in schools need to have traction beyond the school setting and this may well involve education around social networking sites. What is needed is a robust program that couples pertinent information with opportunities for young people to reflect on their use of social networking sites, so they have the time, space and confidence to see how the site is shaping their interactions with others. Here Burnett and Merchant’s (2011) ‘Tri-partite’ model may be of use in developing a critical literacy that incorporates a reflection on how identity fits into the picture without alienating or objectifying young people in the process. The purpose of this research has not been to undermine young people’s use of social networking sites, but to demystify some of the ambiguity around common understandings of their use. To encourage confident, enquiring agents in the world, then not only does more discussion and education around critical engagement with social networking sites need to take place, but we also need to continue to investigate and attempt to understand the complex and dynamic nature of the digital worlds young people inhabit.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts of the work and The University of Melbourne for the grant to write this paper. Special mention should also be made to Dr Nick Reynolds and Professor Lyn Yates at The University of Melbourne for their guidance and constructive comments on the work.

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Biographical Statement

Luciana Pangrazio completed a Masters in Education at The University of Melbourne in 2011. She has just started a PhD at Monash University researching the areas of critical literacy and digital media.

Email: luciana.pangrazio@monash.edu

Published Online: June 1, 2013
Full Text: HTML, PDF (379 KB)

Abstract

This article highlights an emerging set of literate media practices that are simultaneously critical and participatory in nature. These practices, themselves natural responses to a shifting new media landscape, have echoes of existing media literacy paradigms, though are not fully encapsulated by them. Through an analysis of public reactions to Facebook privacy policy and feature changes that took place in the Spring of 2010, the article shows how what the author calls hacker literacies are currently being practised in situ. Hacker literacies, which draw their name from the practice of computer programmers that take existing code and reconfigure it according to their own values and for their own purposes, are unique in that they are not only empowered by participatory technologies, but empowered in relation to these technologies as well. Reactions to changes in Facebook during this time period illustrate the ways that the users of new media did not take for granted the design of these new modes of participation nor the intentions and interests of their creators. Their understanding of the malleability of this sociotechnical space and consequent actions resulted in its reformulation, a type of process the author argues will be crucial if there is to be a more fluid and equal distribution of media power in the digital age.

Keywords: critical literacy, empowerment, Facebook, Hacker literacies, media literacy, new literacies, participatory culture, privacy, sociotechnical spaces.

What it means to be literate with communications media has always been a moving target (Hannon, 2000) – media shift and flux, as do the social practices that surround and shape them. In the 21st century, this is undoubtedly truer than at any point in the history of human communication. As a result, documenting and creating frameworks for understanding new literate practices with media is of increasing importance.

The “first wave” of these literacy frameworks, critical media literary, arrived after the flourishing of broadcast media including print, radio, television and film in the 20th Century. While these media offered societal benefit including new forms of popular culture and broadly accessible political news, they also presented risks associated with a centralised media system including political bias, propagation of problematic stereotypes, and ownership by corporate interests disinclined to address certain important societal issues. To some degree, critical media literacy emerged in response to instances of exploitation of these media by vested interests and the promotion of questionable cultural norms often found in their content. Recognising that broadcast media have commercial, ideological and political implications (Thoman, 2003), it advocates practices that empower citizens and consumers in relation to the messages of mass media, asking viewers to question the intent, assumptions and biases of media producers (Alvermann et al., 1999; Buckingham, 2003; Kellner & Share, 2005; National Association for Media Literacy (NAMLE), n.d.).

In the 21st Century, the advent of the Internet and the broader participatory culture surrounding it heralded a number of “second wave” media literacy frameworks, most prominently the new literacies studies (Coiro et al., 2008; Gee, 2007; Kress, 2003; Lankshear & Knobel 2006; 2007), the notion of multiliteracies that focus on design (New London Group, 1996; Salen, 2007) and new media literacies (Jenkins et al., 2006). In this paper I refer to these complementary frameworks collectively as “participatory media literacies.”  Participatory media literacies recognise that distinct and empowering forms of engagement that have been present historically have new emphasis and importance in the world of new media (blogs, wikis, video games, social networks, virtual worlds, mobile media, etc.), and propose that a new set of skills should focus on how people can leverage and participate culturally through new media, allowing them to move beyond consuming culture to become producers of it as well.

In practice, while critical media literacy would focus on preparing a person to ask how a cable news programme might contain political bias, participatory media literacies would aim to equip them with the ability to engage in authentic blogging practices within a broader online community so that they could spread their own political views and contribute to a larger civic ecology. Both of these paradigms are crucial, and there remains an enormous amount of work to be done to engage youth, not to mention the broader public, in practices they have identified as important.

bodies of literature such as these is necessarily an imperfect project – implicated are not just areas immediately at hand such as media literacy, digital literacy, new literacies, and new media literacies but also affiliated fields such as new literacy studies (Brandt & Clinton, 2002; Hull & Schultz, 2001; Street, 1993), critical literacy and pedagogy (Janks, 2000; Luke, 2004; Morrell, 2002) and situated cognition (Brown, Collins & Duguid 1989; Greeno, 1997; Kolodner, 2006), to name a few (for an overview of the relationship between many of these fields see Gee, 2009).

Even within just the critical media literacy and participatory literacies space there is a great diversity of practices and perspectives, not all of which fit neatly within the characterisation I offer above. For example, as new media technologies have emerged, many affiliated with critical media literacy have come to see the process of media production, as opposed to solely critical reading, as deeply implicated in its project (Avila & Zacher-Pandya, 2012; Buckingham, 2003; Janks, 2000). At the same time, these kinds of field level characterisations, though imperfect, have similarly been used before to make large trends visible (see: Gee, 2009; Westbrook, 2011) and allow us a degree of perspective needed to build upon them and explore new areas of conversation.

For example, the current conversation concerning empowerment through technology has seldom incorporated ideas about empowerment in relation to technology, a notion that science and technology studies explores (Lievrouw, 2003; Croeser, 2012) but one largely absent in the literacy space. Too rarely are questions asked about what agendas are implicit in the very design of new participatory digital tools, the sort of question critical media literacy would ask about a media message and that has similarly been asked by technology scholars such as Langdon Winner for many years (Winner, 1986). Rarer still is the recognition that participatory media literacies can be used to advocate for substantive changes to the design or norms of these sociotechnical spaces and tools when they fail to align with a person’s values.

This state of affairs is one that leaves youth and adults alike vulnerable to emerging forms of risk and media manipulation that are already coming to characterise the digital age. Privacy issues and the nature of access to personal information by third parties have become central to discussions around new media (boyd & Hargittai, 2010; Wall Street Journal, 2010), individuals in the design field are coming to a greater understanding of how software is norming sociality in ways users are largely unaware of (Mackay, 1991; Lenhart et al. 2010), and questions are arising about ways that participation in corporate online spaces might be understood from the perspective of exploitation of labor (Sholz & Liu, 2010; Peterson, 2008). These issues, to name only a few, are growing problems in our increasingly technologically mediated society. And these trends may worsen unless our conceptions of what it means to be literate with media shift.

Drawing from many of the strengths of the critical media literacy and participatory media literacies traditions, there lies the potential to address this problem by engaging young people in a “third wave” media and digital literacy framework I refer to as hacker literacies (Santo, 2011; 2012). Hacker literacies, a synthesis of existing practices and mindsets, are characterised by empowerment in relation to participatory technologies such that the design and norms of sociotechnical spaces and the intentions of their creators are not taken for granted, but rather are seen as malleable avenues for expression of the individual user’s, as opposed to solely the designer’s, values and agendas. In short, hacker literacies take critical reading and rewriting practices that prior media literacy paradigms have advocated for in relation to messages and asks that we apply these to the emerging technologies that increasingly mediate our participation in the world.

In this study, I examine reactions to a series of privacy-related changes made to the popular social network site Facebook in the Spring of 2010. I argue that these reactions themselves constitute examples of hacker literate practices and can point out some of the tensions and opportunities that arise as these practices are enacted in situ. Through an analysis of over 250 posted reactions to articles relating to Facebook’s actions on popular news sites, I document the varied ways in which people did not take for granted the design of Facebook nor the intentions of its creators, the forms of advocacy and action that emerged from understandings of Facebook’s malleability as a platform, and the ways that new media facilitated a sharing and seeking of resources to respond to the situation.

Overall, the data reveals a complex constellation of empowered technological literacies that include skills, beliefs and values that governed people’s relationships to a popular participatory media space, practices I argue are likely to become needed in order to promote a more fluid and equal distribution of media power in the digital age.

Defining hacker literacies

Prior to grounding this concept empirically in lived practices, a project the central section of this paper will address, it is first necessary to first briefly situate and then clearly define hacker literacies.

At their core, I believe that the critical media literacy and participatory media literacies movements have a common inclination that drives them: people should be actively engaged in processes of making meaning of and through the media that surround them. Born of this common space as well, hacker literacies can be characterised as contributing to a ‘third wave’ of media literacy scholarship that aims to bring critical perspectives into the new media space, in addition to drawing on established traditions in critical literacies (Janks, 2000). Karen Wohlwend and Cynthia Lewis (2010) argue for a critical engagement within online participatory cultures that examines how the desire to belong in emerging online affinity spaces or fan groups interacts with agency in those spaces. A recent edited volume by Julianna Avila and Jessica Zacher-Pandya (2012) highlights many cases of how educators are working at the intersection of critical and digital literacies.

Hacker literacies builds off these as well as both older and more recent calls for increased understanding of the implicit biases of designed technologies. Constructionist learning theorist Seymour Papert argued as early as 1980 that educators were getting it wrong about the role of technology in education as he discussed the LOGO learning environment: “In most contemporary educational situations where children come into contact with computers the computer is used to put the child through the paces, to provide feedback and to dispense information. The computer is programming the child. In the LOGO environment the relationship is reversed: The child, even at preschool ages, is in control: The child programs the computer” (Papert, 1980). Papert argued through not only his writings but through development of projects like LOGO that taught computer programming that youth should not take for granted the design of technology and the need to understand its malleability.

More recently, public intellectuals have picked up on this insight that people, and especially youth, must understand how technology is formulated and designed if they wish to avoid or push back against the bias of its designers. In his book Program or Be Programmed, popular writer Douglas Rushkoff (2011) states that “As technologies come to characterize the way that we live and work, the people programming them take on an increasingly important role in shaping our would and how it works. After that, it’s the digital technologies themselves that will be shaping our world, both with and without our explicit cooperation. (p.8)”

Where I diverge from both Papert and Rushkoff is in the narrowness of their proposed solution to the truth pointed to in the above quote – both argue that people need to learn computer programming, a highly technical response and really just one of many available social, legal and technical tools that can be used to respond to and “rewrite” technologies that are misaligned with a person’s values.

In putting forth this construct of hacker literacies, I take inspiration from these thinkers as well as from many within the critical media literacy and participatory media literacies traditions. I define the term in this way: empowered participatory practices, grounded in critical mind-sets, that aim to resist, reconfigure and/or reformulate the sociotechnical spaces and tools that mediate social, cultural, and political participation.

These “critical mind-sets” include perceiving how values are at play in the design of these spaces and tools; understanding how those designs impact the users of those spaces and tools; and developing empowered outlooks, ones that assume that change is possible, in relation to those designs rooted in an understanding of their malleability. Critical mindsets, in short, are about critical “reading” of sociotechnical spaces and tools.

“Empowered participatory practices” include making transparent for others the values at play in and effects of sociotechnical designs, voicing alternative values for these designs, advocating and taking part in alternative designs when spaces and tools are misaligned with one’s values, and engaging in processes aimed at changing those digital spaces and tools whether on the social, legal, or technological level via social, legal or technological means. Empowered participatory practices, then, are about critical “re-writing” of sociotechnical spaces and tools.

Context of Investigation and Methods

This study largely aims to take the notion of hacker literacies out of a theoretical space in order to operationalise and ground it in an authentic context where it is practiced. What is referred to by some as “The Facebook Privacy Debacle of 2010” (Beale, 2010) was selected because it offered a natural example of the kinds of mindsets and practices outlined above, was participated in by a large numbers of Facebook users with a range of cultural and technological backgrounds, and finally because the situation ultimately resulted in changes being made to Facebook as a result of user, media and governmental responses (Sengupta, 2011; Zuckerberg, 2010).

While Facebook has a long history of tensions with users around privacy issues (boyd & Hargittai, 2010), the particular situation that occurred in the Spring of 2010 resulted in what was arguably the greatest negative reaction up to that point both among users as well as the press and governmental actors. In late April of that year, Facebook announced at their annual F8 conference features known as Instant Personalization and Social Plugins, both of which aimed to leverage a user’s personal connections within Facebook to extend into their usage of third party websites, such as the now ubiquitous “Like” buttons (McCarthy, 2010) strewn across the web. A lack of clarity in terms of what user information was shared with third parties in this process was the antecedent to an extended public backlash that included Facebook’s user-base, government actors including Senators and regulators at the Federal Trade Commission, activist groups such as MoveOn.org and a range of journalists from both technology oriented and mainstream news sources.

This study focused its analysis on the comments posted by individuals on nine news articles or blog posts written in the Spring of 2010 that addressed privacy issues associated with Facebook’s actions during that period. 280 comments made by 242 individuals in the comment sections of these articles and blog posts were selected and analysed.  Six of the articles came from two mainstream news sources, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and the remaining three came from two prominent technology reporting sites, TechCrunch and Mashable. Equal numbers of comments, 140 from each category, were sampled from the mainstream news sources and the technology sites, with greater comment counts on each article accounting for fewer articles being sampled from the technology reporting sites. Little is known about the demographic makeup of this particular sample, although it is safe to assume that those who posted on the technology-related news sites were more likely to be avid users of social media and more likely to be connected to technology development and business, as those are the two foci of those sites.

Data were not selected with the intention of garnering a representative sample of all Facebook users, but were rather chosen for the likelihood that the literacy practices at the focus of the research would be present in some form. The goal here is not to say that all or even a significant portion of Facebook users displayed hacker literacies in reaction to Facebook’s actions at that time, but rather to show the shape of those literacies as they were instantiated in context.

The data were analysed both at the discourse and content levels, with the unit of analysis being the full comment posted. In order to gain insight into the tone of the conversation, discourse was analysed for stance (Hodsdon-Champeon, 2010) taken by commenters towards Facebook as either a company, service, or sociotechnical space, with all comments evaluated as either positive (+), negative (-), mixed (±) or neutral (~) towards Facebook.

On the content level, a coding scheme was derived based on the definition of hacker literacies outlined earlier. Three broad themes emerged in the codes. The first is Perception of Embedded Values in Design, concerned with the ways that individuals pointed to the effects of the design and policy changes and the values these connected to. This is akin to “critical reading”. The second is Advocating and Taking Action through Empowered Outlooks, in which users recognised the malleability of the sociotechnical space and advocated either for changes to the design of Facebook or other actions in response. The third category, New Media as Means of Change, captured the ways that individuals participating in these comment threads used that new media space and others as a means of sharing, seeking and enacting strategies to deal with the changes Facebook had made. These latter two codes are concerned with the nature of “critical rewriting” of Facebook.

A subset consisting of 40 of the comments was coded by a colleague and revealed reliability at 81.75% accuracy.

Findings & Discussion

Perception of Embedded Values in Design

They are not redefining privacy, they are debasing the language of privacy. George Orwell understood this principle completely: newspeak.

-Anonymous Poster, posting on Mashable.com

And what’s the point of a social network where you have your friends if you don’t post anything fearing it can be public without previous warning?”

-I’m Dario, posting on Mashable.com

If tinkering and changing the formulation of sociotechnical spaces and new media tools is at the core of hacker literacies, seeing that a space or tool isn’t currently meeting one’s expectations is an important precursor to that. Central to these sorts of perceptions is a sometimes explicit, although often tacit, understanding that technology is always an embodiment of values, that these values play out in designs, and that those designs impact the experience of the users of technology.

In his book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace Lawrence Lessig (1999) argued that much like the legal code constrains and affords behaviour, computer code similarly functions to structure the ways that we interact in the online world. This led to his popular dictum “Code is Law”. More than a decade earlier though very much in the same spirit, Langdon Winner (1986) argued that all technology is imbued with politics.

The above quote referencing George Orwell, posted in the comments on Mashable, is an example of how in reactions to Facebook’s decisions people very much understood Lessig and Winner’s insights in explicit ways. At the same time, many of the reactions indicated a more practical, and personal, orientation – people suddenly felt like Facebook was less useful for them, as the second quote above referencing a disinclination to post information indicates. Another poster wrote:

By making a connection on FB, I’m invading that connection’s privacy: revealing that connection’s identity to the world, making the person behind that connection searchable.

-fjpoblam, posting on Techcrunch.com

Beyond considering Facebook less useful and being disinclined to use it, this individual pointed to specific design implications that could result in personal and professional issues arising through the simple, and central, act of adding someone as a “friend” after the new privacy settings were implemented. This evidences a form of thinking in which a person links the particular designs of a tool or space to the kinds of behaviours that are now possible, or not, and the implications this has for the user – a cornerstone of how critical reading of technology takes place in hacker literate practice.

In another case, a poster named Melliodora wrote about an incident in which his Facebook profile photograph was used in an advertisement for a major beer company without his consent, and he was portrayed, in his words, as “having no class and no style” in that advertisement. Apparently a person he was “friends” with on Facebook entered a contest that allowed the company to access Melliodora’s, as a “friend” of this person, profile pictures, and presumably other people’s photographs as well.  Regardless of the legality of the picture’s usage, it is clear that Melliodora felt taken advantage of as a result of the design of Facebook’s privacy settings.

Others moved towards an even more explicit and collectively oriented interpretation of the new designs put forth by Facebook, and inferred specific principles that the company was operating under when it made them:

Facebook is not an altruistic, community-building website; it’s a private, for-profit company that wants to make more money by exploiting the personal information it has access to.

-Colleen, posting on The New York Times

This reaction evidences an orientation that is beyond a consideration of how one individual is adversely affected by any specific feature – it assumes a larger profit-oriented principle governing the design decisions Facebook made based on an exploitative relationship with its user-base, contrasting this with ‘altruistic, community building’ values.

On the level of design principles, some posters even went so far as to articulate themselves what they saw as alternative values that Facebook should adhere to in its designs:

This is a democracy – give people choices before making their private lives public – automatically.

-Ali Eorse, posting on The New York Times

The majority of FB, Flickr, and Yahoo users just don’t know enough to be vigilant about checking their setting – and they shouldn’t have to be.

-Nina Gerwin, posting on Techcrunch.com

It’s about striving to protect a user’s information rather than providing API access to it. If Facebook is a circus, we want a Walled Garden.

-Jimi’s Brain, posting on Techcrunch.com

In some respects, the varied perceptions within the data of design effects and embedded values move up a trajectory of critical understanding of Facebook. On one end, individuals are seeing how a new design is inconvenient or changes behaviour in undesired ways. From there, understandings develop about how a new design might have negative unintended consequences, or even allow exploitation on the personal level. Notions then emerge of what a person sees as the values and intentions behind these new designs. Finally, once at the level of values, alternatives to what is seen as the current reality can be voiced, evidencing a move from critical mindsets to empowered participatory practices.

This last step, the voicing of alternative values, is central to hacker literacies as it stems from an implicit understanding that these spaces are indeed malleable. If people do not believe that something can be changed, there would be no inclination to suggest that alternative values guide its design. Having such an empowered view forms the basis for engagement in advocacy for new formulations of a space, something we have long seen in critical literacy practices that now is making itself visible in situ in sociotechnical spaces.

Advocating and Taking Action through Empowered Outlooks

The notion that a sociotechnical space is malleable forms the bedrock of an empowered outlook that sees possibility for action on occasions when these spaces are misaligned with what a person values. This notion of possibility and empowerment draws centrally from Freire and Macedo’s (1987) idea of “reading the word and the world”, which was primarily concerned with shifting people’s understanding of the world as inevitable or having a “way that it is” to understandings that emphasise the socially determined nature of reality, and the agency that is implicit in that worldview.

Three categories advocacy and action based in such an agentive worldview were revealed in the analysis. The first was oriented towards individual actions that one can take in response to Facebook’s behaviour. This often took the form of calls to refrain from posting certain information on one’s personal profile, suggestions of deleting one’s account, and calls for others to take personal responsibility, as evidenced by this individual’s comment:

If users are concerned with privacy they need to make an effort to educate themselves on the new policy.

-Richard Soper, posting on Mashable.com

The sentiment of this comment, which persisted through all of the reactions across the four news sources, very much aligned with libertarian notions of political engagement, wherein the individual citizen, given freedom and choice, can determine her own destiny according to her values, and avoid things that are undesirable or create her own means of response to them.

A second category of advocacy and action was aimed at creating alternative models that Facebook might follow in order to become better aligned with what their users might want, such as this suggestion for how Facebook should reconfigure its privacy settings:

I’d like to see Facebook adopt a much more simple model: – Share with my Friends.  – Share with Friends of my Friends. – Share with everybody.  If you want to go crazy granular on settings under those buckets, great. But at least at a high level I can choose one of 3 things and feel mostly comfortable. That’s enough for most users.

-Chad Whitney, posting on Mashable.com

Most common was the suggestion that Facebook should adopt an “opt-in” model when making changes to the kinds of information that can be shared. Rather than defaulting users into settings that made their information more rather than less public, a practice that Facebook has a engaged in on numerous occasions (boyd & Hargittai, 2010), many suggested that Facebook make these possibilities available for people to choose to opt into if they so desired.

These sorts of design suggestions evidence a different notion of agency and understanding of the possibilities for reconfiguring sociotechnical spaces than those individuals that suggested that users simply educate themselves on the new policies or just leave Facebook. One can imagine these suggestions emerging from the experiences of individuals that had encountered a wide range of changes to Facebook prior to this one. They evidenced an understanding that Facebook was completely capable of implementing new designs, and via their suggestions these individuals in some respects positioned themselves as advisers to Facebook’s architects, or as advocates exerting public pressure for specific policy decisions and self-regulation on the part of Facebook.

Finally, numerous individuals voiced the need for collective action to explicitly exert pressure on Facebook to change how it operated. Many of these had less implicit trust in Facebook’s either ability or desire to self-regulate than those that suggested alternative policies and designs. Common in this category were calls for governmental regulation, mass exodus from Facebook, and suggestions that users collectively join sites deemed more respectful of privacy. The individual below advocated for a group action that displayed a deep understanding of the underlying market logic on which Facebook operates:

We are taking the fight to Facebook. We know how the info game is played, so every week we’re going to change a detail on our Facebook profiles en masse to throw off their marketing data.

-Amy Stein, posting on Mashable.com

The collective actions more often seemed to align with traditional notions of community organisation and civil disobedience, to desires for regulation of powerful entities and to treating Facebook like a traditional utility such as electricity or telephones with all of the attendant implications for consumer rights.

These varied responses, on the level of individual action, policy and design recommendation and collective action serve to complicate what hacker literacies look like when enacted in practice. There is clearly not only one response here that qualifies as empowered. Rather, underlying the differences in these responses were a range of value systems, understandings of what it means to be empowered and decisions about what an appropriate reaction to the situation was. At the core of each of them though is a notion that there is something that can be done in the face of a sociotechnical space that is misaligned with one’s values, an idea central in distinguishing hacker literate practices as ones that are not only critical but also participatory.

New Media as Means of Change

A unique property of hacker literacies is linked to the technological space in which they have formed, that being the fluidity with which the technological tools and spaces move back and forth from being in the role of norming behaviours of users through their designs to being themselves the means to change those very designs. In the context of this investigation, we saw examples of people first understanding that Facebook was norming their behaviour in some way, but then others that used Facebook as the very means of changing the platform. In the example noted in the previous section of a woman that advocated large groups of people changing profile information to “throw off their marketing data”, a link to a page that had been set up on Facebook to coordinate these efforts was shared. Others again shared more individualistic approaches to using Facebook as a means of resistance:

In my profile all my “about me” fields now contain: “As protest to Facebook’s constant change in privacy rules, I have removed this field.”

-Dude, posting on Techcrunch.com

Facebook, though, was far from the only new media tool that individuals were employing to share, seek or enact responsive strategies. Some shared custom tools that had been created to make transparent which information was currently being publicly shared, potentially inadvertently, by a Facebook user:

Lots of tools emerging now to turn the balance of power back to consumers. Here’s ours, for FF and Chrome users who want to change settings to “Friends Only” and keep them there – http://onebuttonrule.com/ Gets to *all* settings, works *automatically* to react to Facebook’s changes.

-Ginsu, posting on Mashable.com

During the month that followed Facebook’s F8 announcement, tools like this spread widely on the web. Reclaim Privacy, a tool recommended by a user commenting on Techcrunch, provided an open source and itself completely transparent way to provide awareness of Facebook user privacy settings. The designers of this tool were quite explicit in wanting to create a technical response to Facebook’s changes that embodied the values that they saw missing in Facebook itself:

Our privacy policy is not long:

we never see your Facebook data

we never share your personal information

Simple. After the scanner is downloaded from reclaimprivacy.org, it operates entirely between your own browser and Facebook.

-ReclaimPrivacy.org, retrieved May 2011

At the time of this writing, the Reclaim Privacy tool had been shared using Facebook’s own “share page” feature over 270,000 times (ReclaimPrivacy.org, retrieved November 2012).

On analysis it also became clear that the comment sections analysed on these four news sources were themselves spaces where people were leveraging new media to seek and share response strategies. Given the confusion that ensued after Facebook’s announcement, the media sources and the larger ecology of information around them, including these comments, became an important space to clarify that confusion, share resources and information and mobilize efforts like those that have been mentioned. 16% of all posts analysed either shared or sought information and strategies to deal with the changes that Facebook had made.

Stance & Notions of Responsibility

It was not unexpected that the most predominant stance towards Facebook, characterising 55% of all responses, was negative, with neutral responses or those that did not reference Facebook at all at 32%. However, significant differences emerge when we contrast the stance of comments on The New York Times and The Washington Post with those on Mashable and TechCrunch. Figure 1 shows that over 75% of comments in the mainstream news sources were negative towards Facebook, as compared to just above 40% on the technology focused sites.

A number of explanations are possible here. One would be that posters on the more mainstream news sites were more likely to be less technically savvy, and as a result, more frustrated, than those on the technology sites. Another is the possibility that posters on the technology sites were more connected to the development of and business around social media, and were as a result more sympathetic to Facebook’s position.

A final explanation stems from the particular cultural outlooks often found in the technology world. Many of the positive stances towards Facebook in the technology reporting sources were not necessarily praising the site, but rather defending it from what some saw as unfair blame. The following comments from one poster illustrate what was a clear, if minority, voice:

…if you dont like what facebook has done with its privacy policy then dont use facebook anymore.

I just dont get whats so bad about facebooks privacy settings. For one, if you dont want something seen, you can make it private fairly easy. Also, if you dont want it to be seen by other people, then DONT PUT IT ON THE INTERNET!

-Richard Soper, posting on Mashable.com

Figure 1: Stance Towards Facebook

These responses and others that were less forceful again showed the ways that notions of personal responsibility, as opposed to collective responsibility that would implicate Facebook or governmental regulators, characterised parts of the discourse. This is not to say that all the comments that had individualistic orientations were positive or even neutral in their stances towards Facebook – many of them were quite negative, such as those that advocated simply deleting one’s account in response. Rather, the divergent stances of the participants in mainstream and technology news sources allow another avenue of insight into this larger tension, on display in many of the other areas of the results, of collective versus individualistic responses to Facebook’s actions.

This tension is important as it relates to how we understand the way criticality is conceived in hacker literacies. What I argue for in this paradigm is not a particular response driven by a particular set of values; rather, the underlying value of hacker literacies is of seeing sociotechnical spaces and new media tools as themselves imbued with values and as inherently malleable to whatever values people bring to the technology. Implicit in this is an understanding that seeking to promote critical mindsets does not mean imposing one’s particular ideological stance on others, but rather giving them the tools (or revealing the tools they already have) to engage intentionally in the world.

Conclusion

There are a number of promising trends one can point to with regards to hacker literacies. The first relates to existing voices within academia, journalism and parental discourses that exhibit modes of thought associated with critical digital participation.  The second has to do with contemporary movements associated with technology culture itself.

If we look at current journalistic, blogging, and parental discourses, one might contrive a fragmented conversation already in existence that highlights many of the modes of thought associated with hacker literacies. On the far end of the spectrum, media theorists in academia and technology watchers close to industry have been publicly writing and blogging for some time about what social practices and values various participatory technology platforms promote through their features. Examples of this include media scholar Danah Boyd and the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. And in both technology focused and more mainstream news outlets, there exist robust conversations regarding issues relevant to this paradigm, as the research in this study shows. More recently, Common Sense Media, a parent media education organisation, launched a campaign based on the idea that “every kid needs to be digitally literate by 8th grade,” to quote their chief executive officer, James Steyer (Common Sense Media, 2011).  Indeed, in the critical media literacy space we might view newspaper ombudsmen and media watchdog groups as having occupied a similar role as individuals like Boyd or organisations like Common Sense Media during the development of that movement.  All of these stakeholders have the potential to help create a culture that regularly asks what kind of social practices and values media participation promotes and whether those line up with those of the user and the culture at large.

The other place that we can look to with a degree of optimism is technology culture itself. There exist many practices that make places like Silicon Valley potentially more amenable to hacker literacies than the traditional media industry associated with print, television, radio and film. In general, the diverse ecology of the Internet has made web developers and their associated investors much more attuned to user experience and desires as a key factor in determining features and functionality. With a potential competitor a click away, participatory web sites are often in “perpetual beta,” an environment where untested features are regularly rolled out and users are treated as “co-developers” (O’Reilly, 2005).  On a technical level the features are relatively easy to change, and so on a social level a culture of responsiveness to user desires has developed.  At the same time, we cannot conflate wanting a better widget on the part of the user as wanting a participatory experience that embodies that values they want to live by, as so often more base desires for ease and function overshadow living according to more deeply held values.

Another positive trend within technology culture are numerous movements focused on positioning both youth and adults in positions of power in relation to technology through a celebration of “tinkering”, design and protection of the open web. Most prominent is the increasingly mainstream “Maker” movement, exemplified by Make Magazine and Maker Faires that take place around the globe and which celebrate “do it yourself” (DIY) attitudes with regards to technology. The movement is well characterised by an associated popular motto: “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.” DIY practices might involve reconfiguring existing devices to serve new functions, repurposing parts from multiple existing technologies to create entirely novel inventions, or simply taking raw materials as the basis for both analog and technological creations.

Similarly, the Webmaker initiative, launched two years ago by prominent technology organisation Mozilla, maker of the popular Firefox browser, promotes hacker literate practices among both youth and adult populations globally through engagement in web design. Finally, the nature of the web as a designed technological space vulnerable to undesirable reformulations was brought to mainstream consciousness in the highly visible fight around and ultimately defeat of the SOPA and PIPA legislation in early 2012, an instance which has signalled a more coherent mainstream digital liberties movement (Croeser, 2012).

It’s my hope that the positive trends identified with regards to the development of a culture that engages in hacker literacies come to prove more resilient than the challenges, and I believe that educators, academics, technologists, parents, and youth all have a role in making that hope come to pass, as do bloggers, fan fiction writers, makers, gamers, and cultural participants of all sorts. As vested and powerful interests move from dominant role in the realm of mainstream media and advertising into new digital and technological spaces, stakeholders from many sectors will have a role to play.

While I believe the sorts of participatory cultures associated with digital technologies cannot, by virtue of their many to many structure, be dominated by a single vested interest completely, without incorporating critical practices into participatory ones, people may find themselves living in a technologically mediated culture dictated by interests other than their own.

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Biographical Statement

Rafi Santo is the co-director of the Hive Research Lab and a doctoral candidate in the Learning Sciences at Indiana University. His research interests focus on the intersection of new media, educational design and interest driven learning. Santo’s current work involves using ethnographic and design-based research approaches to understand development and diffusion of learning innovations within regional educational networks, promoting systems thinking through digital design, and empowering youth in relation to new media through hacker literacies.

RSanto@Indiana.edu

Website: www.empathetics.org

Twitter: @empathetics

Published Online: June 1, 2013
Full Text: HTML, PDF (365 KB)

Abstract

This essay addresses the question of change as it is expressed in debates on the introduction and use of new digital technologies in contemporary education. It sets out some of the terms of this debate, concerning MOOCs in particular, and puts into question the very conception of change they presume. The essay advocates a distinction between education, which marks the subjective capacity of all for thought, and pedagogy, which, the essay argues, teaches subjective incapacity for all. The case is made that without a formal conception of change MOOCs will only strengthen the contemporary pedagogical project of difference as repetition. In conclusion, the essay attempts to sketch a conception of real change such that a new orientation to the debate is proposed.

Keywords: change, education, MOOC, subject,

The contemporary “debate” concerning the educational effects or affects of digital technology on education attracts philosophical attention. This is not because philosophy is some instrument of censure or tribunal of value ruling sovereign over all discourse. There are three reasons:

1. These debates deploy rhetoric and aver conceptual elaborations that are themselves drawn from philosophy
2. Insofar as these debates make general claims as to the novelty or inventive aspects of these technologies over and above their technical application and effect, philosophy, ever concerned by the new, by how it comes to be and its consequences, is compelled to take note
3. Since Plato at least, education and the subject of education have been intrinsic matters for philosophy. Being intrinsic to philosophy means that education is linked, as a matter of course, to truths. The link between truths and subjectivity is what matters, for truths orient the subject of education to its situation in a way distinct from that which the knowledge of education prescribes. This is the invariant aspect of education, the basis of real change.

What follows is partly intervention, partly analysis. Based on the “simple” contention that the production of a truth, in a situation, is what education names, this essay argues that a) educational change must be thought differently from the regimes of change dominant today and b) be directed specifically against the forms of knowledge these regimes presume to be the knowledge of education. We are thinking here of the collection of educational discourses familiar to everybody today, which range from constructivism to neoliberal reformism, and which regularly make certain claims about educational knowledge, as about how best to harness its effects. The key point is that these regimes, if apparently quite diverse in their presentation, are nonetheless united at the level of their knowledge-operations and subjective effects. The contention is that these regimes, insofar as they condition the contemporary conception of education, produce what we call a subjective incapacity—and not, as these regimes necessarily claim, new capacities. This incapacity can be defined as: that form of the subject whose very knowledge of itself as subject is the condition of its non-knowledge of its own subjection. Each act of this subject, correlated to the knowledge of the world for which such a subject exists is an act of the (re)production or better, the preservation of this incapacity. This incapacity, entirely co-terminus with the form of a world for which modification is its rule, ultimately, is the material form of the impossibility of real change. The object of this intervention is the concept of change which predicates debates over the role of digital technology in education. The analysis will argue that this concept of change is inherently un-educative precisely because it is no change at all.

Currently Dominant Regimes of Educational Knowledge With Respect to New Media

Today, there is a major public anxiety over education, prevalent across the globe, whose intensity—both rhetorical and reformist—is ratcheted up at any indication that education might escape the tight rein of established knowledge. Policy documents from Australia, the UK, Europe and the USA are practically unanimous that as the key feature and facilitator of developments in the ‘new knowledge economy’ education must be ‘constantly’ reformed to meet the demands of the ‘rapidly changing global economy’ (Gonski, 2012: WISE, 2011; WB, 2002). Over the course of the last several decades of global capitalist educational reform major figures such as Pinar (1975), Bowles and Gintis (1976), Althusser (1977), Bourdieu (1979), Foucault (1977), Giroux and Aranowitz (1986), Illich (1971), Freire (2005), among many others have elaborated various critiques of these reforms and their predicates, establishing strong theoretical positions and proposing reforms in turn. Some of these proposals, suitably repurposed, have been registered and even appropriated by governmental policy (New Basics, 2001; UNESCO, 2011; WB, 2002). A critique of this critique is overdue: if for no other reason than to rescue it from the inclusive clutches of the state.

The rapid evolution of new media technology has extended and intensified these already intense debates about the future of global educational change (Bulut, 2011; Jorgensen, 2007; Scholz, 2013). A recent study notes that in the ‘[i]nformation age … learning itself is the most dramatic medium of […] change’ (Davidson et al., 2009). While another asserts that digital technology, in the form of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC), will usher in a ‘historic transformation’ both in the way education is delivered and in the way it is conceived. The ‘four V’s’ of the Web—the sheer amount of data out there (volume), offered in so many different modes of delivery (variety), available anytime and anywhere (velocity), and at different levels of data depth, accessible differentially from novice learners to expert researchers (variability)—constitute a ‘disruption’ of all existing systems of education (Butin, 2012).1 Although critics point to the links between the changes wrought by Internet technologies to educational engagement and ‘participation’ and global commercial interests—centred especially on the mining of individuals’ data (Dolby, 2004; Scholz et al., 2013)—the backing and involvement of elite educational institutions is, it is said, ‘legitimising’ these changes, thereby ensuring their impact on the future of education (Hill, 2012). What these debates suggest is a tension in contemporary discourse on educational change between ‘education as change’ and thus as an inherently unstable site, and ‘changes to education’ as the effort to stabilise change itself (Long &Seimans, 2011; Peters, 2011; Roche, 2013). This crucial distinction, bearing on our conceptual double—education and subject—will be elaborated further below.

One of the key features revealing this tension is the language used to describe the impact of new technologies and economic priorities on education. Digital technology is said to usher in an “historic transformation” in not only the way education is delivered but also in the way it is conceived such that there is the potential for ‘a fundamentally new paradigm’ (Butin, 2012). Moreover, the ‘technological revolution’ currently taking place in online education which, it is said, has the capacity not only to enable information input at a single site to reach anyone on the planet instantly, but allows for the sharing of information, work and data across borders and cultures is, it is claimed, by virtue of its educational effect, ‘a social revolution’ (Downes, 2005). ‘New organizations are being created to offer new kinds of degrees, in a manner and at a price that could completely disrupt the enduring college business model’ (Butin, 2012). The discourse of the ‘knowledge economy’ has already marked this modal complex of policy, economy and technology and is similarly tasked to produce ‘flexible’, ‘adaptable’, ‘entrepreneurial’ and moral subjects: ‘lifelong learners, adapting continuously to changed opportunities, work practises, business models and forms of economic and social organization’ (Bartlett, 2011a; New Basics, 2001; WB, 2002;). Thus in conformity with, rather than in opposition, key figures in digital media and online learning speak constantly of the potential of internet technologies ‘to [change] just about everything about how we think about […] education’ given that it is now possible to create ‘a never-tiring, self-regulating, self-improving system that supports learning through formative on-demand feedback’ (Butin, 2012; Long &Seimans, 2011).

Much of this discourse today concentrates in the discussions of MOOCs.‘A MOOC’, one expert claims, ‘integrates the connectivity of social networking, the facilitation of an acknowledged expert in a field of study, and a collection of freely accessible online resources.  It is a ‘course’ that is ‘open, participatory, distributed’ – life-long networked learning. It is ‘not a school or just a course,’ but an ‘event’: by which one ‘connects and collaborates’—‘engaging   in the learning process itself’ but ‘in a structured way’. Choice, this expert says, retroactively confirmed via ‘participation’, is built in. It is ‘a key feature all the way through…. And even success is your choice ‘just like real life’(Cormier, 2010a).

These events of ‘rhizomatic community engagement’ (Cormier, 2010b) – undefined by experts but strangely recognisable to ‘educators’ alone—are said to be effecting a ‘campus tsunami’, a ‘historic transformation’ and an ‘education revolution’ (Blint, 2012;Boxall, 2011). That MOOCs, conceived as an event, are said to build on ‘established distance learning models’ but remain distinct in terms of access and by the forms of participation required to make them work, brings to the surface a division well known in contemporary continental philosophy between events and consequences; of thinking at the same time continuity and discontinuity. At stake in this is the possibility of the new itself—that is, for the emergence of something that is not simply a repetition of the old in different guise—and, in our reading, finally of any possible subject not constituted in some way by the ‘continuities’ of known knowledge.  This means that the very form of the relation between ‘event’ and ‘consequences’ impacts decisively on what one even understands by education. If the MOOC is both event and real change at once, ostensibly sufficient in itself to change the ‘educational paradigm’, we have no subject except as pure emergence. If these two are distinct, it is because there is a subject unsupported by whatever discourse of continuity is in effect. Concomitantly—and this is an internal debating point not an opposition to this educational event/revolution—questions concerning the ‘educational legitimacy’ of MOOCs, the conditions for their possible credentialing, have been solved, it is argued, by the coming on board of so-called “elite institutions” (Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Edinburgh, Melbourne etc.), who ‘are publicly extolling the value and quality potential of online education, and are willing to invest tens of millions of dollars’ (Hill, 2012). Credentialing is key to the capacity of these ‘partnerships’ between entities like Coursera, Udacity and edX and these institutions to charge fees for these ‘post-courses’ courses. However, this is not where the money really is.

While ‘change’ is subscribed to by (almost) all participants in the education-technology debate for some pre-eminent figures in the world of techno-pedagogy such as Long and Seimans (2011) and Blint,(2012)who see the changes MOOCs announce as more a matter of process, the potential transformative power of MOOCs is far from being fully exploited. For these thinkers the ‘analytics’ (data mining capacity) made available by MOOCs, specifically by the participants in these so-called ‘post-courses’, have been underexploited, and the educational potential they possess are being wasted. Analytics means, essentially, that every keystroke, ‘tweet, status update, page read online’ can be analysed to ensure that every ‘learner’ is targeted ‘with resources relevant to his or her profile, learning goals, and the knowledge domain the learner is attempting to master’ (Long &Seimans, 2011).3 ‘The idea is simple yet potentially transformative: … Continued growth in the amount of data creates an environment in which new or novel approaches are required to understand the patterns of value that exist within the data’ (Long &Seimans, 2011). All this, of course, under the coincident network rubric of openness, sharing, connectedness, togetherness and community.

Placing the Burden of Change in the Learner who is not a Subject

This discourse of innovation, transformation and change, rooted in the learner, note—in a manner not clearly determined but no doubt ideologically prescient—resonates throughout the blogs, discussion boards, online journals, academic articles, policy documents and book-length research projects devoted to the topic.  One commentator sums it like this:

This approach to learning means that learning content is created and distributed in a very different manner. Rather than being composed, organized and packaged, e-learning content is syndicated, much like a blog post or podcast. It is aggregated by students, using their own personal RSS reader or some similar application. From there, it is remixed and repurposed with the student’s own individual application in mind, the finished product being fed forward to become fodder for some other student’s reading and use (Downes 2005).

For Downes, with all the innocence of one unfamiliar with educational history, this means two things: that learning ‘is becoming a creative activity’ and that the ‘venue’ is not an ‘application’ but a platform.   What this means, then, is that the notion of the medium is (supposedly) finished—platform and learner are synthesised—and subjectivity, other than as incapacity, becomes null and void. Because this ‘self-recursive stream of numbers’ effectively renders all creativity, precisely media, as inexistent, ‘consigned to disappear’ as Kittler tellingly remarks, ‘into the black-holes and boxes that, as artificial intelligences, are bidding us farewell on their way to nameless high commands’ (Kittler 1999; xxxix). To be clear, the problem here is the subjective weakness of these ‘new’ technologies and not their overweening power. This weakness is precisely expressed in their filial subservience to the prevailing discourses on education, the very ‘object’ they suppose they are overcoming. We constantly reencounter this structure, whereby declared radicality in fact simply rehearses the most archaic aspects of what it purports to supersede. Boris Groys pointedly articulates this problem against emergence theories in terms of an inability to grasp the key distinction between what is truly new and what is different. ‘Difference’ he points out, citing Kiekergarrd, ‘is recognised as such only because we already have the capability to recognise and identify this difference as difference. So no difference can ever be new—because if it were really new it could not be recognised as difference’ (Groys 2002).

Certainly, the rhetoric concerning these new technologies is such that we would expect that a real discontinuity or something truly new has been established between what passed as education before—and thus its subjects—and the ‘revolution’ or ‘paradigm shift’ now coming to pass.4 Yet this rhetorical exuberance seems, as in ancient times, to go hand in hand with a casual and inconsistent use of terms and a concomitant conceptual free for all. Especially revealing, and a key aspect of the (re)production of this ‘subjective incapacity’, is the interchangeability and conflation of the terms used to promote the extent of its innovative capacity: change, reform, transformation, revolution, disruption, paradigm shift, and so on, are used as synonyms and often without reflection on their use (BER, 2011; Boxall, 2102; Butin, 2012; Friedman, 2012; Long &Seimans, 2011). While there is little doubt that ‘changes are occurring,’ it is clearly the case that certain changes may secure existing practices rather than re-form them, while certain reforms may serve to strengthen set paradigms; equally, a ‘disruption’ cannot itself be equated with a revolution. In effect, certain discourses of change may act as limits to rather than an extension of educational change. This is precisely what is meant by modification—as we will see.

Between Globalisation and Universalism

Unguarded assumptions concerning the subject of education abound—in both senses: education as the subject under debate and thus considered as an object and the subject with which education is concerned. I say the subject and not subjects because it is the subject which is precisely in question. What implicit, unthought theory of the subject are these debates working with or, more accurately here, what (theory of the) subject are these debates assuming? The continually invoked notion of ‘participation’ is one example: is the subject the outcome of participation? Is there a subject who participates or is participation, as in Plato, a subjective process in itself? And of course this only begs the question of just what it is one participates in. No doubt ‘education’ is what one is meant to be participating in, but this again begs the question, if not of ‘what it is’ then at least of which form of education is at stake. Is it the same form as prior to the digital revolution of all paradigms, or do they have in mind some other education? This applies, by the way, to those on ‘both sides’ of the claims for this new affective education—those who see it as coincident with the logic of capital, lets call it, and those who see it as emancipatory of it in some way.5 In reality, however, at the level of the subject of education – thus what it is and what it affects—it appears little has changed at all. What we certainly have is a new technique but the problem of a new technique—as Plato argued—is that it assumes the knowledge of the thing for which it is a technique. In other words, what type of the subject can technology produce? Is it ‘new’? Long and Seimans sum up this ‘all change’ succinctly.

Something must change. For decades, calls have been made for reform in the efficiency and quality of higher education. Now, with the Internet, mobile technologies, and open education, these calls are gaining a new level of urgency. Compounding this technological and social change, prominent investors and businesspeople are questioning the time and monetary value of higher education (Long &Seimans, 2011).

We note that in each case we have referenced here, the address of the claims is always to all. These revolutionary changes issuing from some centre or other will as a matter of course affect everyone insofar as education is a global enterprise. And where such change is resisted—which is always also cast as a sign of barbarity, backwardness or even evil—it will be what education is for them too, one day soon. This is the case, even if the use of terms like ‘community’ is not without certain conceptual problems (as post-colonialist studies have exemplarily argued), notably to do with modalities of exclusion. Since at least Marx, that other great thinker of the nexus of technology, knowledge and capital, we know that there are at last two ways to think the ‘all’ addressed by such discourses: in terms of globalisation and in terms of universalism. We can express this for our purposes this way: globalisation is the expression of what can be done with this for all (the subject of the address); universalism is the expression of what this for all can do (as subject).

Education Considered as Transmission, Subjectivity and Transformation

Under this distinction, let’s say, then, that there are three fundamental aspects to education, whether globalising or universalist: transmission, subjectivity and transformation. These—the means, form and address of a discourse; the material affect of participation (however understood); the name of the educational effect (again however understood)—one way or another, as we have seen, are recognised by all ‘participants’ in the debate and by us who are not. These will act as the interlinked points by which we proceed to see what truth there is to the claims made for these digital technologies with regard to education. The discourse on MOOCs, as noted, certainly touches on each aspect and in turn conditions the form of their relation specific to it. But what is this change inscribed at the centre of this debate? What can change be in a world where change has established itself as the norm?Where the rapidly changing conditions of everyday life are supposed  beyond anyone’s control and where education is nominated as the facilitator not of these changes per se but as what provides subjects capable of adapting to or being flexible before this change?. Subjects, thus, capable (only?) of reproducing such ‘change’ as the ground of their subjectivity. These subjects are subject to the absolute un-changeability of the form of change that there is.

In this sense, the much heralded move from ‘application’ to ‘platform’ does not at all challenge this subjective incapacity recognised in the ‘old ways’ but does ‘smooth over’ or plane-ify the contradiction that makes any thought of the subject possible. If all is platform or ‘plane of consistency’ over which content travels indiscriminately then there is no point—we have no doubt ‘violently imposed’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 510), what Badiou calls a ‘pointless’ or ‘atonal world’:

it is clear that atonic worlds are simply worlds which are so ramified and nuanced—or so quiescent and homogeneous—that no instance of the Two, and consequently no figure of decision, is capable of evaluating them. The modern apologia for the ‘complexity’ of the world, invariably seasoned with praise for the democratic movement, is really nothing but a desire for generalized atony (Badiou, 2007, p. 420)

Groy’s marks something similar when he says, ‘innovation has become a ritual’ (Groys, 2011a). Referring specifically to internet technologies he continues that ‘all the processes of renewal and innovation etc. have become extra-human, extra-psychological, extra-individual, and are functioning according to the circumvention of individual and collective practices of remembering’. Moreover, ‘It’s just like these [post-modern academic grant] applications in which non-innovation [is] offered as innovation’ (Groys, 2011a).6 In other words it is the pointless reproduction of pointless worlds, entirely possible because there is nothing not-it to interrupt the flow of ‘the conservative succession of instants’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 509). For Badiou, and for Groys too, however, the new is for all this not impossible, or rather it is the impossibility inscribed at the heart of the platform itself that must be affirmed, held to, and the consequences drawn. Badiou enigmatically says: ‘Every human animal can tell itself that it is ruled out that it will encounter always and everywhere atonicity…’ (2007, p. 514).

This is the double paradox of discourses of change today, to which the technological, for all its intensity and audacity, reveals itself to be only an addition and not at all something new, something subtractive of or withdrawn from the contemporary knowledge of education. On the one hand it belongs to a paradigmatic logic of ends—the end of history; the end of capitalism and parliamentary democracy as the apex of possible worlds—which is to say, there is now ‘nothing new under the sun’. And yet, grounded by this unchangeable horizon, which is of course, as ever, off limits to thought—inaccessible, ineffable, atavistically infinite or forever ‘emergent’—there is nothing but change. If modularity (Nash, 2013) is the name of the present void of the (educated) subject, modification is the transcendental condition of such a world. The cartoon character Homer Simpson provides us with a clear image of this state of the situation when, criticising some new commodity invention to difficult for him to master, he asks: ‘why didn’t they just take an existing product and put a clock in it?’ One can ask this question, slightly reframed, of the ‘reformers’ or change agents: Have you not just taken an existing product, education, and stuck a (digital) clock in it?

The instrumentalisation of education considered as instrument.

Without at all having to leave aside the commodity form of education—which is as intrinsic to this reform debate as it is symptomatic of its ignorance of education—the underlying assumption of this whole reform debate is that it knows already what education is. Paradoxically, in the midst of all this change, education—such as it is known—is unchangeable. What will and must in fact continually change—and thus difference is mistaken for the new—is the technique for its manipulation or instrumentalisation relevant to the demands of a logic extrinsic to it. Hence claims like: ‘Analytics in education must be transformative, altering existing teaching, learning, and assessment processes, academic work, and administration’ (Long & Seimans, 2011).Thus, if instrumentalised, no matter the technique, it is instrumentalised for something else, for something else beyond education itself. This something else, then, must presume to mark the limits of education itself? Which is to say, it takes the form of a known knowledge: a knowledge off limits to education. But there is another, further twist, for this knowledge of education, which in order to maintain itself must constantly alter its techniques in order to appear as the current knowledge of education, is constrained by an altogether immanent aspect of education: that it is fundamentally about change itself. In other words, the knowledge of education as a technique changes in order that the intrinsic capacity of education for change is made impossible, and from within the debates on education itself.

The current debates about education are themselves being instrumentalised by the knowledge of education they presume, defer to and support in their efforts to instrumentalise education—theory, policy and practice—in support of that knowledge. We have an instrumentalisation of an instrumentalisation. And this doubling takes place in order precisely to forestall the transformative effects of education as such—known to be troublesome for all states throughout history. Such effects are the immanent truths of any possible concept of education and, for all that, to adopt a notion of Groys, are as such withdrawn from the market or the logic of capital, which provides the temporal horizon of our contemporary knowledge. Education is something like a site relative to capitalist knowledge; it marks a divested point, an emptiness in the territory of capital. It remains over, and this indeed with regard to any ‘state knowledge’ (capitalism is simply the state of our situation), ‘for the purpose of creating something that was meant for eternity and not for time’ (Groys, 2011b).

Appropriately, this contradiction, to use some old language, or disjunction, to appropriate some more recent, is not new—it is part of the history of education itself. Plato elaborates this for us in the struggle against the dominant market technique of his day, sophistry, which already offered the youth or ‘learner’ the knowledge necessary to know that the interests of the state were in their interest or, to make its individual way in the world as it is. This is the mark of an educated subject to this day—even if, following Rancière (1991) here, we should properly call this pedagogy and reserve the name education for that form which divests itself of this state pedagogy as the mode of its becoming true. That this disjunction, the effect of education’s intrinsic withdrawal, is a constant of debates on education should be pause for thought, especially amongst knowledgeable commentators on education.

Can real change really be thought: the thinking that cannot not be done.

Against this contemporary return and repetition of the sophistic motif, a twofold question must be posed: What is understood by change and what type of subject is conceived, supposed and created with regard to this technological conception of educational change? Of course these two questions are themselves somewhat supplementary to the question we invoked at the level of the concept: what is education?  This question, which cannot be answered with regard to technique alone, is always foreclosed in debate precisely because to even pose it supposes a distinct orientation to the knowledge of education. In other words it supposes the existence of a point outside knowledge other than on knowledge’s terms. We have elaborated a book-length response to the question ‘what is education’ (Bartlett, 2011)? It maintains that it is demonstrable—it has a trajectory, consequences and an orientation that can be traced and established as consistent under varying conditions and relative to distinct situation.  Thus we can say what it is and hence we can recognise when it is not. This cannot be elaborated here.

However, the key to the demonstration is the intrinsic link between education and truths. Alain Badiou observed with all irony back in 1988 that, ‘truth is a new word in Europe’; but of course it is always what is at stake in education: that there is something other than known knowledge, that it invests the situation with new forms of transmission and that some subjects form or are transformed on the basis of it. In his 2004 essay on the relation of Art (which produces the truths of the ‘art-world’) and Philosophy (the discourse of their composition with the truths of politics, love and science) Badiou makes the declaration, ‘the only education is an education by truths’.  He continues: the ‘entire insistent problem is that there be truths’ (2004, p. 13-4). Without them, without their exceptionality to the normal course of things—assumptions, laws, beliefs, knowledge as such (Badiou, 2007, p.1) —education will be only a matter of received or established or dominant opinion; battered this way and that depending on the dictates or determinations of what norms or knowledge prevail outside it, but within the ‘class struggle in theory’ that is educational reform today.7 It is this link between education and truths that means that education can be conceptualised, and with regard to what Badiou calls real change—as distinct from ‘modifications’ or ‘facts’.

In the short space left we will reductively sketch out Badiou’s typology of change within which the discussed claims to change can be situated. From his earliest work in the 1960’s Badiou has been committed to conceptualising the form of real change; which is to say, ‘can there be something new in the situation’ (Badiou, 2005b, p. 253)? But of course, as he says, to think the new in situation we need to think the old. We have done some of that above. In his Logics of Worlds, a text from 2005 that builds on his formal reconfiguration of ontology in 1988’s Being and Event, Badiou sets out a formal onto-logically rigorous typology of change and links it explicitly to a type of subject. Its very useful to any thinking of education for three reasons which we will take one at a time.

The truth/knowledge couple

Badiou’s typology of change refers to a dynamic reconfiguration of the distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’. Badiou opens Logics of Worlds by wondering what it is we think about our situation today, especially when we are not ‘monitoring’ ourselves (a suitably pedagogical term)(Badiou, 2007, p. 1). In other words, he asks ‘what is our natural belief’ – ‘in keeping’, he says, ‘with the rule of an inculcated nature’. He contends that ‘natural belief is condensed in a single statement: There are only bodies and languages’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 1). This is the axiom of ‘democratic materialism,’ which is for him the name of the knowledge of the world today – it is the knowledge that fashions us as individuals. Against this, Badiou proposes a counter axiom: ‘there are bodies and languages except that there are truths’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 4). Truths are exceptions to the inculcated, pedagogical rule of democratic materialism and as such, they are not reducible to or recoupable by knowledge—sensory, experiential or linguistic. The modes of change constitutive of the knowledge of ‘bodies and languages’ are irreducible to the form of change that has done with this knowledge itself. This latter form of change is exceptional to knowledge tout court. The key thing to note here is that what we called education or rather the change that is properly effective as education is the latter and not the former. The former are changes to education and not educational change. Changes to education are such that a) it treats it as an object of known knowledge and b) that works to forestall the real changes that (a non-democratic materialist) education announces and produces as a matter of course. A truth for Badiou is a generic, subjective and transformative procedure, while knowledge acts upon truths as a stabilising and reformist force. In other words, truths are dynamic and subjective interventions within situations or worlds of established knowledge, which produce precisely a new orientation to this world whose effect, affected point by point, is to displace this knowledge from within. Truths have to be established in fidelity to an event. They are not what is adequate to or an instance of established knowledge. Hence a true education is oriented to the world with regard to an established break with its knowledge, by what exposes there the site of its lack.

Knowledge as encyclopedia, as Badiou calls it, is predicated precisely on being coincident with the all of the whole. Badiou’s ontological formulations show the inconsistency of the latter – the One is not  (Badiou, 1999; 2005a)– and the theory of the event, authorized by this rigourous thinking of inconsistency as such, establishes that what is exposed by the event for a situation is this point of inconsistency. In short, there is always within any regime of knowledge its point of lack—its void-site in strict terms (making it categorically unlike Deleuze!)—around which it organises itself. This ‘lack’ is the ‘excess’ (unknowable) that any such knowledge guards against and is therefore a condition of its knowledge. In other words, knowledge cannot know the void or lack at its heart and must therefore produce as knowledge this non-knowledge. The debates on education that presume a knowledge of education in their debates and so rely on its currency in knowledge are, then, effectively producing the non-knowledge of their lack. Knowledge first and foremost produces its own lack of knowledge. But that is not the issue per se. Rather, it is the production of this lack as knowledge itself, that is, that this lack must not be known, that is the real horizon of this discourse or its genuine excess. For Badiou, while this excess is ‘incalculable’ and therefore cannot be known as such, it can be decided—in and through the construction of a generic, indiscernible or new set. In other words, to decide is absolutely consistent with what ontology formalises.8

Truths are not thereby of being itself but are totally contingent on the contingency of an event or the irruption in a situation or world of that which-is-not-being-qua-being.

But neither is genuine change given to us on the side of appearing, or of the transcendental constitution of being-there, on the side, that is, of worlds. For the appearing of a being in a world is the same thing as its modifications in that world, without any discontinuity and thus any singularity being required for the deployment of these modifications (Badiou, 2007, p. 358).

Truths are subjective productions, subtractive of being as of all knowledge. This distinction or coupling between truths and the knowledge which truths interrupt and avoid as a matter of course is operative in all forms of discourse specifically when change or the ‘new’ is at stake.

Modification, fact, singularity – intensity

Badiou elaborates a formal typology of change drawn from topos theory, itself a sub-set of Category Theory. The aim is still to trace the trajectory of a truth in a world but this time in terms of its appearing there. The sets of relations which affect and determine what it is to appear is what makes up the logic of appearance or ‘existence’, and topos theory provides a formal account of what Meillassoux calls the ‘diverse consistencies revealed to us in experience’ (2011, p. 6). What matter here are the three types of change made thinkable by such an onto-logy. These are: modifications, facts and real change or singularity. They are distinguished in terms of their intensity or affect and their relation to the transcendental specific to their world, which is to say, ‘established knowledge’. Approximating to the language of the above examples, modifications are akin to reform, facts to disruptions, and real change to transformationor the instance of the new.

For Badiou any world, in terms of its appearing as such, is transcendentally structured. The transcendental is the ‘locus of the relations of identity and difference by means of which multiples make ‘worlds’’ (Badiou, 2011, p. 75). This is a relation of order of a specific sort in so far as what appears does so in terms of intensity and intensity is a matter of relation—the relation of one multiple to another. What appears most intensely in a specific world determines the intensity of appearing of the other multiples marked to exist in that world. A world is structured in terms of a maximal intensity of appearing or existence, and a minimum. ‘The intensities of objects and relations are measured according to a singular temporal transcendental, which objectivates in their appearing multiplicities…’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 359).In a world, for example, where knowledge provides the transcendental rule, those deemed knowledgeable will appear more intensely than the unknowledgeable or ‘uneducated’. This is a reductive example but accurate enough. Most objects relative to a world, Badiou says, appear somewhere in the middle.

It is impossible to flesh out the entire nuance, let alone all the technical apparatus. If we understand that to appear in a world is to appear for the transcendental of a world, thus relative the knowledge of the sets of relations organised vis-à-vis the order of intensity, then what we need to know is simply: ‘[…] the appearing of a being in a world is the same thing as its modifications in that world, without any discontinuity and thus any singularity being required for the deployment of these modifications’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 358). In a world stabilised by an established knowledge, one in which any point of difference, such that its difference cannot be marked by that knowledge is always already the operation of a modification. To be-there with some degree of intensity above the minimum (which is to inexist for a world (which is not to not be)) is to exist as and to consist in being modified.

[T]his logical identity of a world is the transcendental indexing of a multiplicity—an object—as well as the deployment of its relations to other multiplicities which appear in that world. There is no reason to suppose that we are dealing with a fixed universe of objects and relations, from which we would have to separate out modifications. Rather, we are dealing with modifications themselves… (Badiou, 2007, p. 358)

In other words, then, modification, as the ‘rule governed appearing’ of difference as such is the norm of a world and is not change.

Change is something more than mere modification and something distinct from a fact. However, while modifications are coincident with the transcendental, a fact and a singularity (real change) have in common what Badiou calls a ‘site’. In short, a site marks the limit point within a world or situation of established knowledge. Beneath the site, so to speak, there is nothing—it marks the point of inexistence or an abnormality inadmissible to the logic of the state: it is present but not represented; its parts are un-knowable.  A fact, then, is a site, Badiou says, ‘whose intensity of existence is not maximal’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 372). It is not evental. It does not carry in its becoming the disruptive force necessary to effect a change in the logic of that world itself. While a fact is not of the law as such, it cannot alter this law either. A fact points at change but is not itself real change. A fact is recoverable for a world.

Badiou admits into the schema a distinction in singularity between weak and strong. A weak singularity is an evental site such that it does not produce consequences. In other words, it cannot make a minimal existence pass into a maximal as can an event or strong singularity. A strong singularity—which is an event—is ‘a site whose intensity of existence is maximal’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 372).  Every world admits an element properly inexistent to it. This properly inexistent will be an element of a site. If there is an event, it is the eruption of this properly inexistent or that which exists minimally for that world, such that what happens becomes the index of its happening: hence ‘singularity’. The minimally appearing element of that world comes to appear maximally—which, given the site has no known or presented elements, is patently illegal. So an appearing minimal of a site, of a sudden appears maximally. What the event signifies is the non-impossibility of a change in that order—in the ‘unbroken phrasing of the world’—as Badiou says. However, this is not enough—the world is not changed—except that an exception has been marked: that an exception is not impossible. But maximality is consequential. In the world as it goes, there is a maximal appearing and this gives the world its rule—the order to its appearing and thus when the minimal becomes maximal the possibility exists that the entirety of the transcendental order be changed—nothing becomes everything. So if ‘nothing’ or rather the trace of the event (events as such appear to disappear) comes to occupy this place, or in other words to present itself as the new point of orientationfor the conjunction of a topos (or world)—a new form of collection—all relations are up for grabs. This trace, Badiou says, is the ‘eternal’ existence of the inexistent, the outline or statement, in the world, of the disappeared event. Education, we can say is this trace, manifest in the object body constructed by a subject point by point—an orientation, a trajectory, a materiality, a transformation, addressed to all. ‘There is no stronger transcendental consequence than the one which makes what did not exist in a world appear within it’ (Badiou, 2007, p. 376). The event gives to the subject the chance of an other orientation than that deemed to exist. ‘The event is neither past nor future. It presents us with the present’ (2007, p. 384).

The subject (of education)

These modes of change are elaborated with a theory of the subject linked generically to both truths and transformation. In this way education is linked to truthsor what is new, beyond what is already known and thus intrinsically to change (Badiou, 2005b; 2007): and not extrinsically as for reform movements and technical ‘innovators’. The three types of the subject derived are the reactionary, obscurantist and faithful.9The key is that each subjective type is also linked for a particular world to a singular event of that world. Subjects, then, are reactionary to, occlusive of or faithful to an event. These figures of the subject are the appearance of three forms of subjectivisation, relative to the ‘new body in the world’ an event makes possible. That of the reactionary is of an ‘indifference: to act as though nothing has taken place or, more exactly, to be convinced that, were the event not to have occurred, things would be basically the same’. It ‘quashes what is new within the soft power of conservation’. The subjectivisation of the occlusive ‘is hostility: to consider the new body as a malevolent foreign irruption that must be destroyed. In this hatred of the new, of all that is ‘modern’ and different from tradition, we recognize obscurantism’ (Badiou, 2011, pp. 91-2). Thus the obscurantist changes or intensifies its forms of rhetoric or, if in a position to do so, its repressive capacities in order to make sure there is no fundamental change, while the reactive subject adapts to the world in terms of its ordinary modifications since ‘there is no alternative’. Conceptions of education correlated to either of these forms of subjectivisation cannot be considered educational precisely because they refuse to think the impossibility of their worlds and so pre-suppose a knowledge of the limits of knowledge as such—which cannot itself be known.

Real change is the upheaval in a world of the very logic that holds it together, that provides its consistency, and is at the same time the procedure by which a new truth of that world is set out for it, point by point and by which a new body or subjective formation for that world is constructed—one that draws on the equal capacity of all inhabitants of that world to ‘not know its knowledge’.  In other words the faithful subject is marked by its ‘incorporation within the [new] body, enthusiasm for what is new, and active fidelity to that happening that locally disrupted the laws of the world through its advent’ (Badiou, 2011, p. 91). Somewhat enigmatically fidelity marks that:

a truth process is the construction of a new body that appears gradually in the world as all the multiples having an authentic affinity with a primordial statement are drawn together around the latter. And as the primordial statement is the trace of an event’s power, we can also say that a body of truth results from the incorporation within the consequences of an event of everything, within the world, that has been maximally impacted by its power (Badiou, 2011, p. 90).

Here is the crux. Badiou’s ontology and its onto-logy too, establish via a universalisation of non-inclusion the not-impossible belonging of all to the new truth of the situation. Real change is correlated to the non-knowledge of the situation, exposed in the event, whose consequences are drawn by the subject—as its thought/practice or as what is education.

Conclusion: One more effort please…

Technology is always much weaker than its advocates seem to believe. In truth this weakness is concentrated in this belief. In 1795, when the French Revolution had gone over to the side of restoration the Marquis de Sade wrote a tract extolling his fellow countrymen: ‘Frenchmen, one more effort please if you would become Republicans’. Sade offered a new radicality to what it meant to ‘become Republican’, to follow this ‘desire’ right to the end.  Without this, he declared, the real ‘murderers and thieves’, the state and the wealthy, would keep on getting away with it. The rhetoric of the MOOC, of its educational capacity, despite the animate desire of its most wide eyed proponents, only delivers this new technique over to the hands of those in the position to continue to get away with determining for all what education is. Despite what such technological innovations can do, what possibilities they suppose, MOOCs and their like will remain inscribed in the vicious, expansive circle of capitalist or state logic, replicating and repeating, modifying over and again the subjective incapacity this logic demands. The weakness of technology, shackled to this logic, is that it never actually does do what is claimed, that its subjectivisation is actually of a bastard kind—it engenders what it does not want and wants what it cannot engender.  Beneath all the fanfare of its arrival, its result—the intensification of the procedures of the pedagogy that already exists—commands only new rounds of cynicism, fatalism, defeatism: in the last instance and at best an emergent ecstatic nihilism supported by a hybrid humanism-vitalism which is destined to merely repeat, with difference to be sure but without the very possibility of the new. Such is why the rhetoric of the MOOC is so fervent, so desperate, so hollow: the symptom, nevertheless, of a real desire which demands to be taken up. If the greatest efforts of technique return us yet again and with greater intensity to what there is then what is there? What can be done? This is the trace of an education, the force of the subject, the demand that we truly recommence.

Notes

[1]Butin (2012) cites Kevin Carey: the ‘monopoly has begun to crumble. New organizations are being created to offer new kinds of degrees, in a manner and at a price that could completely disrupt the enduring college business model.’

² While we think the notion of revolution is overwrought, though as hysterical, instructive, we might add, that it’s a class one too. Of the kind perhaps Marx and Engels allude to in the Manifesto – ‘The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part’ (48). Gramsci, in the PrisonNotebooks) notes that under the bourgeoisie ‘the state has become an educator’, while Rancière in TheIgnorantSchoolmaster) will call this rule of knowledge that designates the sites of non-knowledge the pedagogicisation of society.

3Butin is quoting Kevin Carey.

4 While some advocates acknowledge the privacy implications, they are certainly not considered to be overarching. The nexus of capital, knowledge and surveillance is finding a new avatar. There are many books and articles now dealing with the question of ‘digital labour’ but the key qualifier here is the notion of education, which is the trump card for the business investors. Under the cover of ‘learning’ almost anything is possible – as it once was under the cover of God.

5 In the words of one commentator: ‘A fully-automated, massively-networked, natural language processing, data-driven, feedback-friendly, learning analytics system’ (Butin 2012).

6‘For example, if you want to obtain funding for a scientific or artistic grant application, you will, of course, have to explain what the new results of this application will be even if you are thinking in a postmodern fashion. I have read a great many applications of this kind. They all were, or are, postmodern, and they all claim in their texts that there is nothing new. But in the rationale for why they should receive money, it suddenly transpires that they have absolutely revolutionary, new insights. We are living in this situation in which we want to be innovative not because we are driven by creative insights and energies, but because we are carrying out the rituals of innovation, which are repetitive in themselves’ (Groys 2011).

7After Rancière’s thoroughgoing critique of Althusser, which is indeed a lesson, we use this term with some irony and not at all to support the notion. Rather, the education debates referred to here are internecine insofar as most participants share a concept of education and, as mostly academics, a ‘class’ position – whether related to ‘cultural capital’ or otherwise.

⁸ For this concept of the generic or the new Badiou draws on the work in transfinite set theory of mathematician Paul Cohen. That a generic set, one not bound in its construction to any existing predicates, can be shown to exist serves as the formal model of how a truth can be thought entirely distinct from knowledge. As generic, a truth is ‘for all’ in so far as there is nothing to prevent ‘anyone’ being connected to it. Indeed, its that everyone shares the capacity to not be known by the ‘state’ – represented by it or included in it (or counted as one-part by the powerset) – that is the basis for some new truth of a world. Forcing, the ‘law of the subject’, is intrinsically related to this set and is another of Cohen’s terms. Forcing is the operation by which this generic set or new truth (everything being a ‘multiple’) come to be in or for a world.  Coming from the ‘nothing’ that is there this new collection of elements forces the situation to change on the basis of its capacity to demonstrate or to manifest its being there as a part of that world – precisely ‘where and when’ no such part could be known. See Being and Event, Part VII.

9 There is a fourth mode of the subject – resurrection …

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Biographical Statement

A. J. Bartlett teaches at the University of Melbourne.

Email ajbar@unimelb.edu.au

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This issue of Digital Culture & Education marks the beginning of DCE’s fifth year in publication.  We proudly remain open access with a Creative Commons License to challenge the ongoing hegemony of educational publishers that impede research on digital culture and education.

In ‘Innovation in incapacity: Education, technique, subject’, Bartlett questions the manner in which ‘change’ is conceived through the MOOC, Bartlett critically examines  the debates and claims which surround the emergence and influence of the Massive Online Open-access Course (MOOC) on tertiary education. He advocates for a critical distinction between the notions of education, which marks the subjective capacity of all for thought, and pedagogy, which following Rancière, teaches subjective incapacity for all. Bartlett argues that without a critical conception of change, MOOCs will only contribute to the contemporary pedagogical project.

Santo’s article contributes to the discussion of new literacies by mapping an emerging set of critical and participatory media practices. In ‘Towards hacker literacies: What Facebook privacy snafus can teach us about empowered technological practices’, Santo argues that hacker literacies are distinct from other new media literacies as they are not only empowered by participatory technologies, but also empowered in relation to these technologies. The article uses reactions to changes in Facebook privacy policy during 2010 to illustrate how users conceptualised the malleability of the possible relations between themselves and the platform, and consequently reformulated their actions in relation to and within Facebook.

In ‘Young people and Facebook: What are the challenges to adopting a critical engagement’ Pangrazio explores young people’s critical understandings of Facebook in a way that challenges the simple dichotomy between ‘digital natives’ and others. The article uses Foucault’s theory of discursive formation as a framework through which the motivations behind young people’s behaviours may be understood. Pangrazio concludes with suggestions for future educational programs that aim to develop critical engagement with social media.

Uzun et al. report on findings from their study of how vocabulary learning and practicing games may contribute to learning second languages at the university level. Their article, ‘Developing and applying a foreign language vocabulary learning and practice game: The effect of VocaWord’ reports that ‘VocaWord’—the experimental game they developed—doubled the vocabulary improvement rate of the control group subjects. Uzun et al. suggest that games may be usefully developed to support the different aspects of learning a second language and that recognising the utility of games within contemporary educational philosophies, methodologies, and techniques is crucial for meeting the needs and interests of currant language learners.

The issue concludes with Craig Bellamy’s review of Matthew K. Gold’s edited collection Debates in the digital humanities (2012). This issue’s cover art ‘For your precious love’ is provided by Dr. Adam Nash. Dr. Nash is a Melbourne-based artist, composer, programmer, performer and writer in virtual environments, realtime 3D and mixed-reality technology. Previously was an artist in residence at Ars Electronica FutureLab, and was shortlisted for the National Art Award in New Media at Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in 2008. He teaches at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. The editorial team would like to thank Luke van Ryn for his assistance with this issue.

Thomas Apperley & Christopher S. Walsh

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Image courtesy of Dr. Adam Nash

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