2019 Annual Conference

Research to Practice

Shared Concurrent Session (Approx. 12 or 20 minutes)

This presentation explores social media or social networking sites as important locations for adult education discourse. These sites are resources for mobilization, collective action and outlets for public expression for marginalized groups. Yet these sites also contribute to ideological silos. We explore this dichotomy through a content analysis.

This session is relevant to adult educators, academic advisors, staff, and administrators working at institutions of higher education. This session will also be helpful to individuals looking to apply different practices and approaches to online teaching and engagment practices

As a result of attending the session, participants will be able to:
- Identify conversations on social media platforms that reinforce the status quo through power and communication structures.
-Articulate key knowledge about civility and incivility in online dialogues.

This presentation explores social media or social networking sites as important locations for adult education discourse. These sites are resources for mobilization, collective action and outlets for public expression for marginalized groups. Yet these sites also contribute to ideological silos. This project addresses three specific objectives: 1. To investigate and classify "civil" and "uncivil" interactions on designated twitter feeds;2. To uncover the various aspects of identity disclosed by twitter users;3. To examine the role of moderators in social media platforms. We expect to find that institutional gatekeepers might consciously and unconsciously perpetuate racist speech and limit the development of a constructive discussion and that this specific analysis has potential to develop and promote campaigns that address the identified issues.

Through a content analysis we provide information about how we analyze and classify the experiences of individuals participating on Twitter and specifically looking at two prevalent institutional hashtags at a large university. The intention of this content analysis of two Twitter hashtags is to 1.) bring attention to conversations on social media platforms that reinforce the status quo through power and communication structures; 2.) Identify and break down ideological silos on social media platforms.

We discuss how we analyze and classify the experiences of individuals participating on Twitter using two prevalent institutional hashtags at a large university. we will discuss how two Twitter hashtags 1.) bring attention to conversations on social media platforms that reinforce the status quo through power and communication structures; 2.) Identify and break down ideological silos on social media platforms. We engage the group in a dicussion about social media and civility.