Explain how Higher Education is a site of digital citizenship. Discuss.

Explain how Higher Education is a site of digital citizenship. Discuss.Higher Education is a site of digital citizenship. Discuss.

There are a number of ways in which you can approach this topic. The first thing to notice is that the title contains the hypothesis that higher education is indeed a site of digital citizenship. But what does this mean?It is not clear what it actually means. Therefore, it is in need of intelligent interpretation. In addition, some decisions need to be made about the sort of evidence or theory has a bearing on the question.

One way to approach the title (i.e., one research question) is in terms of the digital behaviour that is expected of students in their undergraduate degrees. The element of compulsion should be acknowledged, because this implies a type of social discipline. The idea of subject formation was introduced in Week 4, beginning in the Tuesday afternoon session.
These lecture notes are very detailed and look at digital practices, datafication, and subject formation. The notes are based on a strong piece of research. They also have a solid theoretical foundation in Foucault and in Bourdieu). Together with lecture material provided in Week 5, you have plenty to work with. I am not going to reproduce that content here. Instead, I want to indicate a second approach.

This second approach (i.e. second research question) may follow the themes of the middle part of the course, beginning in week 7. Rather than thinking specifically about the digital subjectivities of undergraduates and the politics of social control that can be associated with this,

I suggest that we can think about digitalization in society more generally. We can think about the governance of welfare services, and especially about how this has been transformed by the UK governments commitment to open data policies. .
The basic argument is that governance is susceptible to the media logics of large corporations in an open data society. This is a large topic. It can be narrowed down somewhat by focusing on the mediatization of higher education.

We thereby get an interpretation of the essay title which proposes that the governance of higher education is an example of the transformation of public administration in an open data society. This approach proposes that the conditions of governance throughout contemporary society are highly mediatized. The concept of digital citizenship is closely associated with this reality.

By treating higher education as an example, we are essentially undertaking to do a case study. The case of higher education will illustrate themes of digital citizenship that can be observed in other areas of social life. The advantage of focusing on higher education is that the data requirements are readily apparent.
The mediatization of higher education is evident given the importance of media rankings (Links to an external site.) (explore the link thoroughly) in promoting global ideas about the assessment and evaluation of academic institutions.

Rankings also have the consequence that the services provided by universities are unbundled (Links to an external site.); i.e., repackaged and marketed as services/lifestyle to students. A 2013 book chapter which we will read in Week 7 is Governance of science in mediatized society: media rankings and the translation of global governance models for universities, by Josef Pallas and Linda Wedlin.

This suggests that a consequence of the mediatization of higher education governance is a simplification, standardization, and popularization of education. The research for this book chapter was probably conducted a decade ago. You are challenged to update the ideas, finding fresh and insightful examples of your own.

What the two approaches outlined above have in common is the phenomenon of cultural recognition. What types of digital behaviour are markers of “good students” and “good citizens”? The key idea, I think, is to ask the question whether the forms of cultural recognition that are involved in higher education are compatible with the needs and wants of culturally specific groups. Context is all important to this question. You may wish to reflect on a particular cultural identity (e.g., racial group, disability grouping, international students, etc.).

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