Civic Learning With, Within, and Against Digital Platforms

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Increasingly, research shows that connective platforms – once associated with democratic possibilities – are often freighted with exploitative processes that, in practice, reinforce inequities. This raises profound questions for civic education: How might we navigate, critique, or intervene in these media environments? And what pedagogical practices might sustain such forms of learning? Convening scholars whose work cuts across subfields, methods, and research contexts, the symposium examines such questions through a range of empirical and theoretical projects. The papers consider, in particular, what tactics might be of use in conceptualizing civic media pedagogies tuned to the injustices and possibilities of our moment.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Media, Culture, and Learning

Chair

• T. Philip Nichols, Baylor University

Papers

• Teaching Digital Citizens: Civic Education in the Platform Society - T. Philip Nichols, Baylor University; Kevin R. Magill, Baylor University; Alexandra Thrall, Baylor University

• Fighting for Liberation: Uncovering Literacies of Abolitionist Worldbuilding in the Digital Fighting Game Community - Kia Turner, Stanford University; Antero Garcia, Stanford University

• Raising Critical Technology Consciousness - Daniel G. Krutka, University of North Texas; Marie K. Heath, Loyola University Maryland; Jacob Pleasants, University of Oklahoma

• Resist! Refuse! How Educators Care for Students by Opposing Educational Technology’s Harms - Michelle Ciccone, University of Massachusetts - Amherst; Charles Logan, Northwestern University

Discussant

• Sepehr Vakil, Northwestern University