Policies and People: A Review of Neoliberalism and Educational Technologies in P-12 Education Research

Accountability regimes, value added, vouchers—it is difficult to ignore the evidence of market-based rationalities in global discourses around education. Such rationalities rely heavily on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for their propagation and maintenance under the guise of educational technologies, or ed-tech. The purpose of this literature review is to examine educational research focused on the role ICTs have played in the neoliberalization of education across the globe. The author contends that future inquiry needs to substantiate the broad claims about the pernicious effects of neoliberalized educational technologies by engaging more directly with those most affected: teachers and students

Reading "all about" computerization: five common genres of social analysis

This paper examines unstated, but critical, social assumptions which underlie analyses of computerization. It focuses on the popular, professional and scholarly literature which claims to describe the actual nature of computerization, the character of computer use, and the social choices and changes that result from computerization. This literature can be usefully segmented five ideal type genres: utopian, anti-utopian, social realism, social theory, and analytical reduction. Each genre is characterized and illustrated. The strengths and weaknesses of each genre are described. In the 1990s, there will be a large market for social analyses of computerization. Utopian analyses are most likely to domínate the popular and professional discourse. The empirically oriented accounts of social realism, social theory and analytical reduction, are likely to be much less common and also less commonly seen and read by computer professionals and policymakers. These genres are relatively subtle, portray a more ambiguous world, and have less rhetorical power to capture the imagination of readers. Even though they are more scientific, these empirically anchored genres don't seem to appeal to many scientists and engineers. It is ironic that computing -- often portrayed as an instrument of knowledge -- is primarily the subject of discourses whose knowledge claims are most suspect. Conversely, the discourses whose claims as valid knowledge are strongest seems to have much less appeal in the mass media and technological communities

“Reporters Gone Wild” Reporters and Their Critics on Hurricane Katrina, Gender, Race & Place

The great fiction of the southern United States is frequently characterized by its passionate embrace of place. In her classic essay, “Place in Fiction,” the widely beloved Mississippi author Eudora Welty writes, “Place in history partakes of feeling, as feeling about history partakes of place. Feelings are bound up in place. Location is the ground conductor of all the currents of emotion and belief and moral conviction that charge out from the story in its course.” Welty\u27s rich stories evoke larger traditions of southern art and everyday culture imbued with multifaceted understandings of place. Starting with Welty\u27s insight, in this essay I discuss the relationship of place and emotion and the expression of that relationship in journalistic storytelling—specifically, the rituals and techniques evident in the televised cable network news coverage of Hurricane Katrina as the storm and its aftermath devastated parts of the U.S. South. My aim is not primarily to provide yet another critique of network reporting (although much of it is ripe for such analysis), nor is it to present a systematic content analysis of television news texts. Rather, this essay offers a meta-critique, examining prominent published evaluations of the reporting in the earliest hours of the disaster, with a particular focus on moments in which normative national network news practices quite literally “broke down.

Organizing Vision and Local IS Practices: A France - U.S. Comparison

In their organizing vision model, Swanson and Ramiller called for more research on the relationship between interorganizational authorized (legitimated) discourse on IT and organizational practices. In this paper, the research question is focused on national differences in the way cross-organizational discourses interact with local practices. The methodology used includes the identification of so-called authorized ideas through an analysis of both French and U.S. publications (using thematic and lexicometric analysis), as well as IT forums, from 1999 to 2003. This analysis is then merged with an overview of French and American case studies. The results demonstrate strong differences in the OV production systems, as well as in organizational behaviour\u27s reaction to cross-organizational discourse

Walking the talk : an investigation of the pedagogical practices and discourses of an international broadcasting organisation : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in Adult Education, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

Increasingly our knowledge of the world around us comes from the media, mediated by professional broadcasters. As the education and training of broadcasters has progressively become associated with educational institutions there has been more theorising about what broadcasters should know and how they should be educated, however the actual educational and training practices of broadcasting organisations remains under researched and under theorised. This research looks at the educational and training practices of an international broadcasting organisation and how they are sustained by the organisational ethos through a series of interviews with people directly involved in the organisation‟s training practices and an examination of a selection of the organisation‟s promotional and policy documents. From this comes a picture of an organisation committed to excellence and also a vision of broadcasting as an emancipatory activity. This commitment and vision is reflected in its inhouse training practices and also its media development work. The interviews with trainers, project managers, administrators and researchers reveal broadcasters who are pragmatic idealists and reflective practitioners and whose passion and commitment to the transformative powers of education and training are undeniable

First Looks: CATaC '98\ud

The First International Conference on Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication (CATaC’98), and its affiliated publications, seek to bring together current insights from philosophy, communication theory, and cultural sciences in an interdisciplinary dialogue. The synthesis of disparate scholarly ideas will shed greater light on just how culture impacts on the use and appropriation of new communications technologies. Beyond the individual contributions themselves, some of our most significant insights will emerge as we listen and discuss carefully with one another during the conference itself. As a way of preparing for that discussion, I offer the following overview of the CATaC papers and abstracts, along with a summary of the insights and questions they suggest

Intercultural Challenges in Networked Learning

This paper gives an account of themes that emerged from a preliminary analysis of a large corpus of electronic communications in an online, mediated course for intercultural learners. The goals were to test assumptions that electronic communication is internationally standardized, to identify any problematic aspects of such communications, and to construct a framework for the analysis of electronic communications using constructs from intercultural communications theory. We found that cyberspace itself has a culture(s), and is not culture-free. Cultural gaps can exist between individuals, as well as between individuals and the dominant cyberculture, increasing the chances of miscommunication. The lack of elements inherent in face-to-face communication further problematizes intercultural communications online by limiting opportunities to give and save face, and to intuit meaning from non-verbal cues. We conclude that electronic communication across cultures presents distinctive challenges, as well as opportunities to course planners

“Software agents and haunted media : the twitter bot as political actor"

This report examines the rhetorical construction of Twitter bots as nonhuman political agents in press coverage of the 2016 U.S. election. It takes the rhetorical framing of “the Twitter bot” as a case study to argue that Twitter bots are a contemporary example of what media historian Jeffrey Sconce calls “haunted media” -- a communication technology that has been culturally ascribed an “uncanny” “agency.” First, this report provides a comparative close reading of two pieces from The Atlantic and The New York Times as examples of mainstream press coverage of bots shortly before and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Second, drawing on Sconce’s analysis of nineteenth and twentieth century media ecologies, it argues that “the Twitter bot” has been rhetorically constructed as haunted media through discourses that are inseparable from larger political narratives. The third and final section speculates on possible theoretical frameworks to expand this project in further inquiries. This report aims to demonstrate that haunted media narratives predate and persist beyond a specific election cycle or medium, and to argue that the construction of “haunted media” occurs alongside constructed concepts of democracy in our technologically mediated society. In doing so, this report contributes to the field of rhetoric of digital technology by bringing it further into conversation with political rhetoric.Englis