Propaganda in an Age of Algorithmic Personalization: Expanding Literacy Research and Practice

In this commentary, the author considers the rise of algorithmic personalization and the power of propaganda as they shift the dynamic landscape of 21st‐century literacy research and practice. Algorithmic personalization uses data from the behaviors, beliefs, interests, and emotions of the target audience to provide filtered digital content, targeted advertising, and differential product pricing to online users. As persuasive genres, advertising and propaganda may demand different types of reading practices than texts whose purpose is primarily informational or argumentative. Understanding the propaganda function of algorithmic personalization may lead to a deeper consideration of texts that activate emotion and tap into audience values for aesthetic, commercial, and political purposes. Increased attention to algorithmic personalization, propaganda, and persuasion in the context of K–12 literacy education may also help people cope with sponsored content, bots, and other forms of propaganda and persuasion that now circulate online

From the outside in: narratives of creative arts practitioners working in the criminal justice system

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley-Blackwell in The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice on 31/12/2019, available online: https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12318 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.The penal voluntary sector is highly variegated in its roles, practices and functions, though research to date has largely excluded the experiences of front-line practitioners. We argue that engaging with the narratives of practitioners can provide fuller appreciation of the potential of the sector’s work. Though life story and narrative have been recognised as important in offender desistance (Maruna, 2001), the narrative identities of creative arts practitioners, who are important ‘change agents’ (Albertson, 2015), are typically absent. This is despite evidence to suggest that a practitioner’s life history can be a significant and positive influence in the rehabilitation of offenders (Harris, 2017). Using narratological analysis (Bal, 2009), this study examined the narratives of 19 creative practitioners in prisons in England and Wales. Of particular interest were the formative experiences of arts practitioners in their journey to prison work. The findings suggest that arts practitioners identify with an ‘outsider’ status and may be motivated by an ethic of mutual aid. In the current climate of third sector involvement in the delivery of criminal justice interventions, such a capacity may be both a strength and weakness for arts organisations working in this field