Education and the social Web: Connective learning and the commercial imperative - 0 views
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I argue that commercial social networks are much less about circulating knowledge than they are about connecting users (“eyeballs”) with advertisers
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not the autonomous individual learner, but collective corporate interests that occupy the centre of these network
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business model restricts their information design in ways that detract from learner control and educational use
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Just as commercialism has rendered television beyond the reach of education, commercial pressures threaten to seriously limit the potential of the social Web for education and learning.
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Web 2.0 and online social networking have been the subject of sustained and lively interest among practitioners and promoters of educational technology
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what is seen as the radical potential of these services
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Social networking is so central to these new versions of education that a new “connectivist” theory of learning has come to be closely associated with them
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a theory in which “knowing” itself is seen to be “defined by connections” making “learning primarily a network forming process”
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described in terms of the liberation of learners from traditional constraints, as allowing them go beyond the classroom, to network “with peers worldwide,” and ultimately, to “take control of their own learning”
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These visions are above all associated with the “personal learning environment
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The personal learning environment is envisioned as a set of applications and services — to a large extent, logos and brands — organized around a single user, according to his or her learning and informational preferences and needs.
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Through these services, the user is to be connected with teachers, mentors and other learners
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some advocates of these approaches to learning have been raising concerns about the commercial nature of many of these services.
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“You are not Facebook’s customer. You are the product that they sell to their real customers — advertisers. Forget this at your peril”
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“This simple reality underlies almost all considerations having to do with these tools,
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To use these tools is to reinforce, however indirectly, the ‘advertised life,’
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The question is whether there is a role for higher education to promote ‘safe spaces’ free of this influence.”
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the business model of commercial social networks is based on advertising, assisted by the data collection, as well as powerful tracking and analysis capabilities.
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powerful surveillance functions
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theories of media ideology and hegemony developed some time ago by Raymond Williams and Todd Gitlin
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constraints presented by commercialized forms and contents rendered educational television a failure decades ago
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similar structural issues threaten to sharply limit the potential of much newer social media for education and learning
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Facebook, Google and other Web 2.0 and social networking services are making enormous sums right now from the users and advertisers they attract, and they are in aggressive competition to do this more efficiently
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The absence of references to advertising (and also to tracking and analysis) in many discussions of the personal learning environments is surprising given the proliferation of logos and brands of commercial services
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Because advertising is the raison d’être of services like Google and Facebook, it also provides the basis for the design, organization and maintenance of all of these other services and functions.
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This way of understanding advertising and Web 2.0 draws on critiques of television (and the role of advertising in it) that were articulated decades ago.
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the goal of these media organizations, he says, is to sell a product, and the product that “the networks sell is the attention of audiences; their primary market is the advertisers themselves”
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One thing that is different today is that there is no one monolithic audience that forms a generic product to sell to advertisers.
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An obvious objection to be raised at this point is that Facebook or Google, unlike television, do not have significant control over the content that is used to assemble audiences for advertisers
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users have a clear choice regarding the kinds of content that they wish to view and disseminate
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complex and subtle but very effective ways in which advertisers’ interests shape online social contexts.
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Raymond Williams’ 1974 critique, Television: Technology and cultural form.
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Williams’ text requires only minor revision to speak to the situation of commercial Web services today:
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whether there is a role for higher education to promote ‘safe spaces’ free of this influence.”
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Williams is making the point that the relationship between content and advertising is subtle and insidious, and that it is slightly different in the case of content “made for TV” than for its non–commercial counterpart.
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“a dominant cultural form;”
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what is important for the similarly non–commercial content of the social Web is informational design, architecture, and algorithm.
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operation in otherwise non–commercial programming is registered in terms of sequence, rhythm and flow
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Users of Facebook are sure to have been struck by the numerous and varied ways in which it cultivates gregarity and interaction, the way in which it relentlessly structures and supports sociality and connection
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It is common to observe that the term “friend” itself is emptied of meaning by this incessant use and quantification;
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Facebook exemplifies a way of generating and circulating information that encourages the expansion of interconnections between users
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The controversy arises from the possible addition of a corresponding “Dislike” button.
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lowers the psychological barrier to connecting with commercial entities
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Gregarious behaviour is rewarded on Facebook
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approval of a resource will draw ever more attention to it.
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To provide the option of expressing dislike for a brand like Coca–Cola or to disapprove of a newspaper report or an article like this one is contrary to Facebook’s business interests
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The dynamics here are rather reminiscent of what television of a bygone era had to offer: In both cases, you can either watch (i.e., “Like”) the products and lifestyles being showcased, or simply walk away.
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“Like buttons” similar to many other connective features of social networks, “are about connection; Dislike buttons are about division.”
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Similarly, other services will also systematically exclude possibilities for the expression of dissent and difference.
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Despite the current prominence of social–psychological and connectivist theories, it is easy to make the case that learning is just as much about division as it is about connection.
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In fact, the consistent pattern of suppressing division, negativity and interpersonal dissent that is central to the business model of social networking services runs counter to some of the most common models and recommendations for online student interaction and engagement.
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Opportunities for social selectivity, discretion, privacy and detachment are an important precondition for the acts of disclosure and mutual critique, falsification and validation central to these models
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selectivity and discretion — the “safe spaces” hoped for by Lamb and Groom — are rendered structurally impossible in convivial, commercially–contoured environments
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Knowledge is not exclusively embodied in ever growing networks of connection and affiliation, and it does not just occur through building and traversing these proliferating nodes and links
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Education is clearly a social process, but it is probably much closer to an ongoing discussion or debate than an extended feast or celebration with an ever-expanding network of friends.
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advertising, tracking and analysis functions of commercial social media present, as Raymond Williams says, “a formula of communication, an intrinsic setting of priorities”
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It only remains to be seen whether this dynamic renders commercial social networking services as fully unsupportive of educational ends as commercial television has long been.
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In recent years, new sociallyoriented Web technologies have been portrayed as placing the learner at the centre of networks of knowledge and expertise, potentially leading to new forms of learning and education. In this paper, I argue that commercial social networks are much less about circulating knowledge than they are about connecting users ("eyeballs") with advertisers; it is not the autonomous individual learner, but collective corporate interests that occupy the centre of these networks. Looking first at Facebook, Twitter, Digg and similar services, I argue their business model restricts their information design in ways that detract from learner control and educational use. I also argue more generally that the predominant "culture" and corresponding types of content on services like those provided Google similarly privileges advertising interests at the expense of users. Just as commercialism has rendered television beyond the reach of education, commercial pressures threaten to seriously limit the potential of the social Web for education and learning.
