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Amidst ongoing technological and social change, this article explores the implications for critical education that result from a data-driven model of digital governance. The article argues that tra...

This paper considers the subjectivation of students in light of the increasing amounts of digital data that are now being produced within schools. Taking a lead from critical data studies and the s...

Using digital media is complicated. Invasions of privacy, increasing dataveillance, digital-by-default commercial and civic transactions and the erosion of the democratic sphere are just some of the complex issues in modern societies. Existential questions associated with digital life challenge the individual to come to terms with who they are, as well as their social interactions and realities. In this article, we identify three contemporary normative responses to these complex issues –digital citizenship, digital rights and digital literacy. These three terms capture epistemological and ontological frames that theorise and enact (both in policy and everyday social interactions) how individuals learn to live in digitally mediated societies. The article explores the effectiveness of each in addressing the philosophical, ethical and practical issues raised by datafication, and the limitations of human agency as an overarching goal within these responses. We examine how each response addresses challenges in policy, everyday social life and political rhetoric, tracing the fluctuating uses of these terms and their address to different stakeholders. The article concludes with a series of conceptual and practical ‘action points’ that might optimise these responses to the benefit of the individual and society. Usar los medios digitales es complicado. Las invasiones de la intimidad, la creciente vigilancia de los datos, las transacciones comerciales y cívicas “digitales por defecto”, así como la erosión del ámbito democrático, son sólo algunos de los problemas complejos a los que se enfrentan las sociedades modernas. Cuestiones existenciales asociadas con la vida digital desafían al individuo a asumir quién es, al igual que sus interacciones y realidades sociales. En este artículo identificamos tres respuestas normativas contemporáneas a estos temas complejos —la ciudadanía digital, los derechos digitales y la alfabetización digital. Estos tres términos engloban marcos epistemológicos y ontológicos que teorizan y representan (tanto en las políticas como en las interacciones sociales cotidianas) cómo aprenden los individuos en las sociedades digitalmente mediatizadas. El artículo explora la eficacia de cada una a la hora de abordar las cuestiones filosóficas, éticas y prácticas planteadas por la dataficación, y las limitaciones de la agencia humana como un objetivo global dentro de dichas respuestas. Examinamos cómo afronta cada una de estas respuestas los retos en materia de diseño de políticas, vida social cotidiana y retórica política, haciendo un seguimiento de los usos fluctuantes de estos términos y cómo se dirigen a las distintas partes interesadas. El artículo concluye con una serie de “puntos de actuación” conceptuales y prácticos que podrían optimizar estas respuestas en beneficio del individuo y de la sociedad.

Many scholars across the world have studied the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to use digital media. Yet as digital texts have proliferated and evolved, there has been much conjecture over what it means to be ‘digitally literate’. As literacy researchers from Australia, Sweden and Argentina we are concerned with the drive to standardise definitions of ‘digital literacy’ despite notable differences in the cultural politics of education in each country. This paper analyses how the term digital literacy has been conceptualised and applied by scholars in these three language contexts. To do this, we analyse the most cited publications on digital literacy in the English-speaking; Scandinavian; and Spanish-speaking contexts. In the analysis the variety of definitions across and within each context, the key tensions and challenges that emerge and the implications for digital literacy education are explored. Our findings reveal that similar tensions and challenges exist in all three contexts, however, the path to resolution varies given contextual differences. The article concludes with suggestions for educational research that acknowledges and advocates the need for local conceptualisations of digital literacies in increasingly globalised educational systems.

The ongoing ‘datafication’ of contemporary society has a number of implications for schools and schooling. One is the increasing calls for schools to help develop young people’s understandings abou...

This paper is based on a presentation given at the ‘Rethinking Literacy, Digital Competency and Media Education in the Age of Digital Platforms’ webinar hosted by Gyeongin National University in September 2020. In the paper, I explore the difficulties of implementing ‘critical data education’ programs in schools with children and young people. Reporting on three research projects with over 150 Australian students (aged 8-16 years), I explore the challenges and opportunities that arose. Each project was based around an educational chat app designed to develop young people’s understandings about the role that digital data now plays in their everyday lives – especially in terms of the data economy and dataveillance. The findings highlight the technological, ethical and social issues encountered and the need for data education programmes to articulate with young people’s expectations for media use. The paper concludes by considering how this might be achieved in schools through re-imaging the dominant forms of digital ‘cybersafety’ education in schools.

As mobile and connected digital practices reshape social, interpersonal and learning relationships, it is increasingly challenging for teachers and schools to keep pace with rapid change. This paper reports on a professional learning project which set out to support teachers to learn more about how students in their classes used technologies, which technologies they used, what they thought about how they and others used them, and what they used them for. Teachers’ research into students’ digital use acted as a necessary intervention and prior step to developing classroom- and school-level responses to young people’s use of digital technologies. The paper reports on teachers’ findings, their responses to what they learnt and the implications for schools. In parallel, it reports also on the processes of the research and its deliverables as a professional learning enterprise, and the operation and value of this approach as professional learning methodology.

The ways in which young people use digital platforms develop with experience, and are guided by changing understandings of what they should – and should not – be doing online. As such, young people...

The capacity to understand and control one’s personal data is now a crucial part of living in contemporary society. In this sense, traditional concerns over supporting the development of ‘digital literacy’ are now being usurped by concerns over citizens’ ‘data literacies’. In contrast to recent data safety and data science approaches, this article argues for a more critical form of ‘personal data literacies’ where digital data are understood as socially situated and context dependent. Drawing on the critical literacies tradition, the article outlines a range of salient socio-technical understandings of personal data generation and processing. Specifically, the article proposes a framework of ‘Personal Data Literacies’ that distinguishes five significant domains: (1) Data Identification, (2) Data Understandings, (3) Data Reflexivity, (4) Data Uses, and (5) Data Tactics. The article concludes by outlining the implications of this framework for future education and research around the area of individuals’ understandings of personal data.

Like many countries, Australia has persistent rates of school exclusion, juvenile offending and recidivism. In response, there has been a growth of ‘alternative education’ provision – interventions...

This article analyses the representation of the gig economy in three Australian newspapers from 2014 to 2019. ‘Gig work’ is defined as short term, contract or freelance employment and is seen by many social institutions as the future of work. Drawing on a corpus of 426 articles, Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory is used to examine the construction of the ‘gig economy’ in the cultural imaginary. Five key elements emerge, including: demographics of workers; working conditions; workers’ rights; resistance and regulation; and change and disruption. Despite multiple competing discourses evident across the newspapers, each constructs the gig economy as an inexorable phase in the evolution of the relationship between capital and the worker. The article critically analyses the construction of the discourse, including the difficulties of regulating gig economy platforms and the narrative of inevitability used to describe changes to work and life brought about by technology.

This paper explores provocation as an approach towards social science research. While routinely used in natural science and arts research, this paper argues provocation might enable the social science researcher to initiate critical reflection amongst participants on issues that are often otherwise overlooked, obscured or accepted as naturalised practice. By assuming the role of provocateur, stimulator and/or agitator, the social science researcher can interrupt the flow of everyday life in order to illuminate and draw attention to complex social issues. Using research interventions that embrace, rather than deny, the socially constructed nature of the research process, provocation provides an alternative to largely non-obtrusive methods favoured in much social science research. This paper concludes by outlining the practical and methodological issues associated with this approach – in particular the complicated ethics of provoking reflection on topics that might not have otherwise come to the par...

Large amounts of personal data are generated through young people’s engagements with mobile media, with these data increasingly (re)used by advertisers, content developers and other third parties to profile, predict and position individuals. This has prompted growing concerns over the ability of mobile media users to develop informed stances towards how and why their data is being used, i.e. to build ‘conscious’ and/or ‘resistant’ forms of ‘data agency’. This paper explores ways of developing the critical consciousness and resistant practices of young mobile media users towards personal data. Drawing on research with 27 young people (aged 13–17 years), the paper describes efforts to make representations of third party use of personal data openly available as a basis from which to develop data-savvy tactics and strategies. The results of these interventions – while only partially successful – offer valuable insights into the technical, social and cultural issues that shape young people’s engagement with personal data. The paper concludes by considering how concerns over data agency might be better aligned with the realities of young people’s mobile media use.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been a prominent topic of recent educational discussion and debate. MOOCs are, in essence, university-affiliated courses offered to large groups of online learners for little or no cost and are seen by many as a bellwether for change and reform across higher education systems. This study uses content and discourse analysis methods to examine how understandings of MOOC-related ‘change’ were presented in US, UK and Australian newspapers. Drawing on detailed analysis of 457 newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2013, the findings point to a predominant portrayal of MOOCs in relation to the massification, marketization and monetization of higher education, rather than engaging in debate of either ‘technological’ or ‘educational’ issues such as online learning and pedagogy, instructional design or student experience. The article then considers the reasons underpinning this restricted framing of what many commentators have touted as a radical educational form—not least the apparently close association between MOOCs and the economics of higher education.

While it has proved a useful concept during the past 20 years, the notion of ‘critical digital literacy’ requires rethinking in light of the fast-changing nature of young people's digital practices. This paper contrasts long-established notions of ‘critical digital literacy’ (based primarily around the critical consumption of digital forms) with the recent turn towards ‘digital design literacy’ (based around the production of digital forms). In doing so, three challenges emerge for the continued relevance of critical digital literacy: (1) the challenge of critiquing the ideological concerns with the digital without alienating the individual's personal affective response; (2) connecting collective concerns to do with social and educational inequalities to individual practices; and (3) cultivating a critical disposition in a context in which technical proficiency is prioritised. The paper then concludes by suggesting a model of ‘critical digital design’, offering a framework that might bridge the divide bet...

One notable ‘disruptive’ impact of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been an increased public discussion of online education. While much debate over the potential and challenges of MOOCs has taken place online confined largely to niche communities of practitioners and advocates, the rise of corporate ‘xMOOC’ ventures such as Coursera, edX and Udacity has prompted popular mass media interest at levels not seen with previous educational innovations. This article addresses this important societal outcome of the recent emergence of MOOCs as an educational form by examining the popular discursive construction of MOOCs over the past 24 months within mainstream news media sources in United States, Australia and the UK. In particular, we provide a critical account of what has been an important phase in the history of educational technology—detailing a period when popular discussion of MOOCs has far outweighed actual use/participation. We argue that a critical analysis of MOOC discourse throughout the past two years highlights broader societal struggles over education and digital technology—capturing a significant moment before these debates subside with the anticipated normalization and assimilation of MOOCs into educational practice. This analysis also sheds light on the influences underpinning how many people perceive MOOCs thereby leading to a better understanding of acceptance/adoption and rejection/resistance amongst various professional and popular publics.