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This book uses data collected from in-depth interviews with young people over the course of a year to explore the complex role of social media in their lives, and the part it plays in shaping how they understand and present their identity to a broad public on a wide array of platforms. Using this data, the book proposes and develops a new theoretical framework for understanding identity performances. Comic Theory, detailed in this book, centres on a consideration of the role of social media design in shaping identity, and explores the ways in which socio-culturally grounded users engage in acts of compromise, novelty, and negotiation with social media designs and digital technologies to produce unique identity performances.
Positioned within the field of educational research, this book overtly challenges assumptions and myths about the internet as a neutral source of knowledge, instead exploring the way in which designs and technologies shape who we interact with and how we understand what it is to be social. Moving beyond the over-used 'digital natives' paradigm, this book makes a clear case that educators and education researchers need to move beyond a focus on coding and digital skills alone, highlighting the pressing need to take explicit account of the overlaps between digital technology, culture, and education.
List of contents
1 The Digital Metamorphosis.- 2 Defining Social Media...It's complicated.- 3 Devices and Technology: How the way in which we access social media affects our experiences, uses, and identities.- 4 What's 'social' about social media?.- 5 Enmeshing the user and design: How is identity managed online?.- 6 Comic Theory: A new, critical, adaptive theoretical framework for identity presentation.- 7 Critical Digital Citizenship: A call to action for educators and educational researchers.
About the author
Dr. Harry Dyer is a digital sociologist and lecturer in Education at the University of East Anglia. He has a broad academic background, with degrees in linguistics and social science research methods, as well as his PhD research, which revolved around exploring online identity presentation.
Harry's current research focus is on the lively field of Digital Sociology. His work explores a range of socio-cultural dynamics online, from broad questions around how identity manifests itself online to deeper explorations of emergent communities such as the 'flat-earth' movement. He's also looking into 'fake news', exploring how it has been covered by the media, how education is responding to 'fake news', and how young people are consuming news online. Harry serves as an editor for Digital Culture and Education, and is a member of the British Sociological Association's Digital Sociology group.
He has taught extensively at the undergraduate and postgraduate level, including courses on research methodology, social theory, media and education, educational theory and practice, and research ethics. Given his broad background, Harry's research and teaching interests are equally expansive, and include digital sociology, identity theory, social theory, science and technology studies, research methodology, ethics, sociolinguistics, poststructuralism, and media and education.
