Marketing Social Change: fixing bush internet in rural, regional, and remote Australia

Cattle producers in Australia have turned to social media to highlight deficits in internet access in rural, regional, and remote Australia. This chapter provides a case study about how a group of Australian cattle producer women used social marketing and advocacy to improve internet access and educational data allowances in rural, regional, and remote Australia. A content analysis of Facebook posts and comments from the Better Internet for Rural, Regional, and Remote Australia (BIRRR) evidenced a connection between advocacy and the principles of marketing. The results of the analysis highlighted deficits in access to internet connectivity and lead to a change in policy giving rural, regional, and remote school children a dedicated education portal to complete their studies

The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) attract diverse student bodies, and course forums could potentially be an opportunity for students with different political beliefs to engage with one another. We test whether this engagement actually takes place in two politically-themed MOOCs, on education policy and American government. We collect measures of students’ political ideology, and then observe student behavior in the course discussion boards. Contrary to the common expectation that online spaces often become echo chambers or ideological silos, we find that students in these two political courses hold diverse political beliefs, participate equitably in forum discussions, directly engage (through replies and upvotes) with students holding opposing beliefs, and converge on a shared language rather than talking past one another. Research that focuses on the civic mission of MOOCs helps ensure that open online learning engages the same breadth of purposes that higher education aspires to serve. Keywords: MOOCs, Civic education, Discourse, Text analysis, Political ideology, Structural topic modelWilliam & Flora Hewlett FoundationSpencer Foundatio

Mediatized Politics — Structures and Strategies of Discursive Participation and Online Deliberation on Twitter

In today’s social environments, many activities implying the construction of cultural and social meaning are intrinsically tied to media. It is not only the interpersonal level of communication that has been shaped by technological innovations like e-mail, instant messaging or chat (Thimm, 2008); but so have complex societal processes. Whether in politics, economy or business, media traverse the whole society. They are part of the transformation of the public sphere and interwoven within the differentiation of new communication structures and segments. Consequently, media development and societal changes have to be seen as closely connected processes. The concept of mediatization offers an approach to explain the reciprocal impact of media on groups and persons, but it also sheds light on structures and processes within public, political, secular, institutional and private spheres and in daily life (see the contributions in Lundby, 2009). As Krotz (2001; 2007) points out, mediatization is one of the pivotal ‘metaprocesses’ by which social and cultural changes can be described and explained: ‘Today, globalization, individualization, mediatization and the growing importance of the economy, which we here call commercialization, can be seen as the relevant metaprocesses that influence democracy and society, culture, politics and other conditions of life over the longer term’ (Krotz, 2007, p. 257)