Twitter as the public sphere or a daytime talk show?

Is Twitter a new version of the public sphere? That is the question I posed last week.

Let me revisit the three basic criteria for the public sphere:

•     First, participants treat others as equal;  
•     Second, participants agree to discuss and question issues related to the common good;
•     And third, everyone participates.

Considering the criteria, how are academics actually using Twitter?

I follow hundreds of professors from around the country. The users I most appreciate are the ones who post new articles and blogs as well as mention events and conferences. The social media provides a great venue to link content. It also changes the pace of academia. No longer do we have to wait days for feedback or years for articles to go through the publication process.

Twitter also presents opportunities to connect and converse with academics across the country. These exchanges most closely resemble Twitter as a public sphere even if they do not fulfill all of the criteria.

But, sometimes the tweeting habits of individuals, including professors and teachers, assume less professional tones. I have read long, heated, and scandalous exchanges of 140 characters or less between esteemed professors. A few weeks ago, during an organized conversation when participants all used the same hashtag, I viewed an academic conversation about school choice degenerate to a personal attack about the professional associations of one of the well-known participants. These are not only issues of etiquette but also the ultimate goals of social media use as they pertain to education. 

Current uses of Twitter do not seem to indicate it is an emerging public sphere. So, after two blogs, what is the point? 

Academia is changing and so is technology. My goal is not to tell you how to use social media. At one level, because the line between the personal and professional is blurred, I think we could all benefit from a few more conversations about standards and practices. At another level, from fomenting revolutions in Egypt to spreading the latest Internet memes, the value of Twitter to discuss and diffuse ideas is clear. I wonder if using the social media to take potshots at colleagues is a missed opportunity to spread innovative ideas and genuinely improve education.

Twitter as a public sphere?

I.

Over the next month, I am going to discuss issues pertaining to education as a public good. The purpose—or purposes—of education has become a polarizing issue (for an introduction to this topic, see David Labaree’s “Public Goods, Private Goods”). Some argue for education to improve democracy; others argue for education to improve the economy. An individual’s opinions about the purposes of education often shape his or her thoughts regarding educational issues such as school choice, standardized assessments, common standards, and Race to the Top.

Because my views rarely fit either / or categorizations, I am going to state some of my basic assumptions upfront. 

• First, we ought to strive for education as a global public good. That is—even though education as a public good is imperfect in its current form, and possibly any form—quality education available to everyone worldwide ought to be our principal goal. 
• Second, education fulfills individual and communal interests at the same time. In other words, a college education may help an individual become socially mobile and democratically inclined. 
• And third, while education ought to be available to everyone, the shape of education (i.e. curricula, testing, schooling options, etc.) ought to be publicly deliberated to meet local needs and interests. As such, forums for discussion are essential. This last point brings me to the idea of the public sphere.

II.

For those unfamiliar with the origins of the public sphere, the most popular treatment of the concept occurs in Jürgen Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. He provides three criteria:

•     Everybody treats everybody as equal. Social status is irrelevant. 
•     The participants agree to discuss and question issues related to the common good. 
•     The forum is all-inclusive. 

The public sphere is situated within Habermas’s larger interest in communicative rationality, the idea that we may achieve mutual understanding through discussion. 

Where does the public sphere occur in contemporary society? Options range from community meetings and parent-teacher associations to newspapers columns, television shows, and radio stations. Opportunities for public discourse are key. However, considering the above criteria, each of the options contains shortcomings. The reason pertains to the core of the concept. As Nancy Fraser points out, the idea of the public sphere itself is fraught with problems, including issues of bracketing social differences, providing equal access, and ignoring subaltern counterpublics. 

Nevertheless, I have recently heard academics suggest Twitter as a new public sphere. The social media, they argue, is our 21st century version of the 18th century coffee house or salon. I understand the allure of social media as a public sphere, but I am not convinced.

So, what do you think? Is the increasingly popular social media a new public sphere?

Next week, I will discuss my thoughts regarding the promise and peril of 140 characters or less.

You can put a price on education

I.

I come from a working class family. I am the only one to enroll in a four-year university. To save money, my father asked me to attend community college first. I did. After two years, I transferred to the University of Maryland. A week before classes began, my family’s economic standing changed drastically. I accepted the fact that I could no longer afford college. A few days later, my mother and I sat in the financial aid office at College Park. The officer did not provide good news. As I sat with my head down, my mom leaned over and, with superhero-type strength, said, “I don’t care what we have to do. Come hell or high water, we’ll find a way.” That belief carried me through my B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. To pay tuition, my mom worked extra hours, and I commuted to school, worked a job, and received need- and merit-based aid. 

I have experienced the same sort of unyielding resolve in many of the parents of the first-generation immigrants with whom I have worked. Last year, I sat with Jose and his father in their living room, which also doubled as a bedroom. Jose’s father, who suffered from AIDS, was struggling to find a free health clinic for his toothache. Through sickness, he worked 12 hours a day for six days a week in order to earn less than minimum wage. I asked why he sacrificed so much. He pointed to Jose. “For him,” he responded, “He’s going to college. He will be successful.” This year, Jose is a freshman at UC Irvine.

Higher education provides pathways to opportunity. That is a core value of our country. It is the belief that has guided my mother and me and Jose and his father. But, higher education is becoming increasingly expensive. 

A new report states that one in five households in the United States—compared with one in ten nearly two decades ago—owe student loan debt. In households such as mine, where the heads of household are under 35 years old, the number rises to 40%, over twice the amount (17%) in 1989. Another report indicates that a staggering two-thirds (66%) of four-year college graduates in 2011 had student loan debt, averaging $26,600.

II.

After ten years of higher education and a six-month grace period, the government now wants its money back. I will spend the next ten years paying for my education. On good days, I pretend I am paying for an imaginary Land Rover. On bad days, when I think about owning a house or having a baby, I consider my student loans—along with my wife’s law school debt—and wonder what we could have done differently. The answer is “not much.” We believed in the promise of higher education, and we borrowed what we needed, not what we wanted. 

My wife and I are now members of a growing cohort of individuals with unwieldy student loan debt. That cohort ranges from those who earned graduate degrees and are now underemployed and struggle to repay their loans to others who dropped out after two semesters of undergrad because they could not afford to pay for remedial classes and are now unemployed and in debt. 

How much should students mortgage today for the potential of tomorrow? We can no longer assume the promise outweighs the cost. 

The upcoming presidential election will determine a lot about the future of higher education and our country. For a summary of the differences between the candidates, see an article published during Education Nation. In short, President Obama wants to increase regulation. Governor Romney wants to provide choice. During the first debate, Romney declared, “The private market and individual responsibility always work best.”

To maintain the integrity of hope in higher education and stay another financial crisis in our country, I ask both candidates what they plan to do to create new pathways to college and away from debt.

Using social Media to improve learning

Last week, I discussed the use of social media to collect data and improve trustworthiness. In this blog, I talk about the benefits and pitfalls of social media to improve learning. 

I want to begin with a few underlying assumptions: First, standing still is not an appropriate strategy to improve underperforming schools and districts. The world is moving faster than ever. A trademark of successful schools is not only the ability to manage the massive challenges of day-to-day operations but also anticipate and embrace educational innovation, including technology. 

Second, schools in general and learning in particular are changing. Brick and mortar schools become less important every day. This is both good and bad news. The open source movement has the potential to democratize knowledge. Even students attending the worst schools will have access. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the most underperforming schools will most likely be the last to adopt digital learning and teach the skills necessary to capitalize on digital learning opportunities. Just as we have seen with charter schools, unequal implementation will lead to uneven opportunity. Counter to the hope of the movement, the participation gap may exacerbate the achievement gap. 

Education is changing, and that leads to uncertainty. School administrators have responded by prohibiting social media use in schools and establishing guidelines for use outside of schools. Reasons include the need to govern access to inappropriate content and guard against inappropriate interactions between teachers and student. I view these responses as shortsighted. Rather than dealing with social media, administrators are ignoring it. S. Craig Watkins recently discussed the problems with current technology use policies. Most importantly, the hardline stances illustrate the growing divide between how people interact and learn outside of school and what they do inside of school. 

Education is changing. Schools that incorporate blended learning like USC’s Hybrid High, School of the Future, and High Tech High are setting the standard for educational innovation. Informed uses of technology have the ability to improve access to and facilitate learning for all students. However, school administrators and teachers must first have the courage to embrace change. The transition will not go smoothly and will include failures. Sometimes, though, the reward is worth the risk. Besides, what’s the alternative? Stand pat? Defend the status quo? As far as I can tell, change is the only option.

Using social media to collect data and improve trustworthiness

This is the first of a two-part blog where I discuss the use of social media in research and practice. Today’s blog emphasizes methodological concerns. Next week, I will discuss social media in schools.

As regular readers of the blog know, I am conducting an ethnography that focuses on the lives of seventeen- and eighteen-year-old male teenagers in a low-income neighborhood. My sample includes a range of participants organized into three categories: low, middle, and high academic achievers. A small percentage of adolescents do not consistently use social media. Those teens— illustrating that opportunity aggregates discriminately in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods—most often live in low-income households, have the worst grades, and uneven access to technology. The majority of students, however, regularly use social media, especially Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It is a critical part of their lives.

How does a researcher incorporate social media data into a study? Few ethnographers blend real world and digital data; danah boyd is the most obvious exception. Even fewer methodologists have provided practical guidance. That should be of no surprise considering the sluggishness of the publication process and the rapidity of technological innovation and adaptation.

Researchers cannot ignore social media; however, students are adopting it in numerous ways, which makes data collection difficult. To make things even more complex, a divide still exists between the physical and digital worlds. In the future, apps like Path will potentially blend the two and provide innovative data collection tools and access previously unavailable. But, for now, we are in a sort of technological and methodological hinterland. 

During my study, I have approached social media data as part of document analysis. I friended and/or followed my participants and created lists in Facebook and Twitter. Everyday, I have checked the lists. For notable posts, I have done screen captures and uploaded and coded them using Atlas.ti—an alternative, as my colleague June Ahn did for a recent study, would have been to create a program to collect the posts.

Last week, I sat in a 12th grade class. The 40 students listened attentively to the teacher, or so I thought. As I checked Facebook, I saw a post from one of the students: “LMS  [like my status] if you want to date me.” I also saw a series of tweets from another student who was chatting with a friend. Both appeared to be listening in class. This example illustrates the value of collecting social media data. The scenario also highlights the value of social media data for trustworthiness. How does a researcher know his observations and interpretations are accurate? Social media data presents an option for triangulation. 

Educational settings are complex. Social media and technology only adds another layer to the complexity. Just as technology is changing the ways in which teenagers interact, it will also reshape every aspect of qualitative research, from collection to presentation. The challenge facing all qualitative researchers moving forward will be to integrate technology into their own methodological thinking.

Getting to the truth: Doing research with teenagers

Credibility is the first (and most important) criteria for establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research. Credibility, like it’s step-sibling validity, is often the subject of much debate; scholars argue about what it can and cannot do and what strategies researchers should and should not use to ensure rigor in research (see “Varieties of Validity,” an article Yvonna Lincoln penned, or “Qualitative Research and Public Policy”, an article Bill and I wrote). Plainly speaking, however, credibility is truthfulness. How does a researcher know his or her data and interpretations approximate the truth? And, what strategies did he or she use? When it comes to research with teenagers, however, credibility is anything but a straightforward idea. Permit me to elaborate with an example. 

The Smallwood Recreation Complex, located in the northwest corner of a neighborhood in South Los Angeles, spans nine acres. The main feature of Smallwood is a multipurpose brick building, which houses a gymnasium, boxing ring, weight room, and dance studio. A playground, soccer field, baseball diamond, and tennis and basketball courts dot the landscape behind the building. Large eucalyptus trees line the outskirts of the park.

During the spring prior to my year-long ethnography, I conducted a pilot study of the neighborhood. I visited parks, schools, and businesses and interviewed residents, teachers, and workers. I conducted participant observations at Smallwood five times. During each visit, the setting was often the same. Cars filled the parking lot. Adults sat at benches watching children on the playground. Young men played basketball. Three or four men in their 20s and 30s congregated at the building’s main entrance. Children and teenagers walked in and out of the building. After each visit, I often left feeling upbeat. Los Angeles is one of the most park-poor metropolitan areas in the United States; however, the young residents of this neighborhood had a nice place to play and exercise.

Last month, I asked Matthew, one of my informants, to go to Smallwood with him. I knew the 18-year old often boxed and played basketball at the park. On the morning of the scheduled visit, he said, “Hey Randy, we can’t go. Not today.” Two days later, while driving Matt home, I reminded him that we still needed to visit the park. “What?” he responded, “You want to go at the worst time. Three gangs is battling.” A Latino gang member shot and killed someone from a rival gang. The park, he said, was the hotspot. Matt continued, “They shot up right where I live. I was pissed and grieving.” Later, I discussed Smallwood with Matt and his peers. To them, the park and the surrounding neighborhood represented a contested territory, a place where violence could occur suddenly. 

How does a researcher make sense of such divergent experiences? What is the truth? If, as Paul Rabinow says, fieldwork is a “cultural activity,” my experience highlights the dual process of interpretation. I was both making sense of the experiences of my participants as well as myself in the field. My understanding of the park diverged significantly from that of my subjects. 

So, which is it? Is Smallwood a family-friendly park or gang-controlled territory? I have embedded in my study multiple strategies to ensure credibility. In this instance, different methods provided different interpretations. The challenge of credibility is not to eliminate different interpretations like crossing items off of a grocery list. The challenge is to acknowledge that multiple truths exist, often simultaneously, and to understand what that means for the lives of those involved.