class: middle background-color: #272822
Teachers on Far-Right Social Media
The Dark Side of Affinity Spaces for Informal Learning
Spencer P. Greenhalgh, PhD
School of Information Science, University of Kentucky
spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu
@spgreenhalgh@sciences.social
Daniel G. Krutka, PhD
Teacher Education & Administration, University of North Texas
Dan.Krutka@unt.edu
@dankrutka
slides:
https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_aect_2023_gab.html
--- background-color: gray class: center, middle # background --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822
far-right social media
--- class: center, middle # emergence of "alt-tech" in late 2010s and 2020s --- class: center, middle # roughly patterned after Facebook, with inspiration from other social media platforms --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822
teachers and affinity spaces
--- class: center, middle # it is well established that teachers use social media for professional learning (e.g., Lantz-Andersson et al., 2018) --- class: center, middle # the *affinity space* is among the most popular frameworks for making sense of this phenomenon (e.g., Hashim & Carpenter, 20219) --- class: center, middle # affinity spaces connect people through shared interests, are fuzzy and amorphous, and may overlap with other affinity spaces based on other interests (e.g., Gee, 2017) --- class: center, middle # research on teacher affinity spaces (and other uses of social media) has typically been optimistic and positive, but more critical perspectives are beginning to emerge --- background-color: gray class: center, middle # methods and study context --- class: center, middle # "enhanced scrutiny and questions of power relations" (Suomela et al., 2019) --- class: center, middle # 49 posts and 209 replies in teacher group on far-right platform # group created in early November 2020 # 78 accounts posted to group, but 50 only once --- class: center, middle # semi-automated data collection # collaborative, qualitative coding # mix of *a priori* and emergent codes --- background-color: gray class: center, middle # findings --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822
Creating a Group for Teachers
--- class: center, middle # group was created and administrered by two users: ## Abigail (@msabigail): a Black woman with experience as an English teacher and school librarian in the South/Southwest of the United States ## Melissa (@its_me_melissa): a white woman who teaches high school science in the South of the United States --- class: center, middle # Abigail embraced a role as an administrator who facilitated an online community. ## responsible for 90 out of the 258 posts we collected (34.88% of total activity in the group) ## however, 52 of the 90 posts were short and generally lacked the kind of substance necessary to advance meaningful discussion of educational issues --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822
The Broader Far Right Context
--- class: center, middle # for all of the group’s purported focus on education, it is impossible to avoid the group’s existence within an explicitly far-right platform --- ## Abigail’s activity on the main platform mostly consisted of "re-posts" criticizing groups such as: * ### Black Lives Matter (n=5) * ### Antifa (n=5) * ### big tech (n=4) * ### COVID mitigation policies (n=2) * ### the media (n=2) * ### China (n=1) * ### Joe Biden (n=1) --- class: center, middle # Melissa's activity was similar, including a series of messages promoting a Q-Anon-style conspiracy theory that suggested that Donald Trump was being prevented from using the Emergency Broadcasting System to address the nation --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822
Mainstreaming of Far-Right Priorities
--- class: center, middle # education and far-right talking points blended within the teachers group --- class: center, middle # Abigail wrote 8 posts related to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which shared misinformed skepticism related to mask-wearing and vaccines --- class: center, middle # Melissa expressed skepticism about the validity of election results and suggested that the Trump administration had been better for teachers than a Biden administration would be --- class: center, middle # only 18 of 78 accounts (23.08%) who posted to the space explicitly identified themselves as teachers # 16 (20.51%) identified self as not-teachers # 44 (56.41%) remained ambiguous --- class: center, middle # group identity was more rooted in far-right politics than educational issues # conversations were about education but remained superficial and partisan --- class: center, middle ## "It is so very important to teach our kids at home because they aren't learning anything in the public schools. I sent my son to [school name removed], an all boys school, when it became obvious he was smarter than his 4th grade teacher. He is now a Constitutional expert.….as he was recently referred to in an article written about him. If I had left him in the gov't run schools he probably would have become a druggie or a breeder for loose money hungry females." --- class: center, middle background-color: #272822
Far-Right Agenda Setting
--- class: center, middle # @galaxydog: ## "the left has take[n] over the education system" ## "putting together some kind of anti-communist curriculum" --- class: center, middle # @AntiIslamclass: ## "will an anticommunist curriculum ban islam?" --- class: center, middle # other accounts: ## criticized Abigail for not following a QAnon influencer ## used racial slurs ## drew on anti-Semitic British Israelism --- background-color: gray class: center, middle # conclusion --- class: center, middle # negligible evidence group is conducive to professional growth ## Staudt Willet (2019) found posts were "almost all on-topic" (p. 284) ## Rosenberg et al. (2016) found over half of participants in teacher-focused hashtags were employed in schools ## Carpenter et al. (2019) suggest that "U.S. teachers' Twitter use tends to maintain a professional focus" (p. 8) --- class: center, middle # media environment facilitates resentment, polarization, post-truth, populism (Miroschnichenko, 2020) --- class: center, middle # dark participation in teacher affinity spaces ## marginalization can still happen in purportedly "flat" affinity spaces (Pellicone & Ahn, 2015) ## affinity can also result in miseducation (Greenhalgh et al., 2021) ## is lack of formal credentials a good thing? (Gee, 2004) --- class: center, middle # "We must liberate these children from the captivity of these Marxist teachers" (C-SPAN, 2022) --- class: middle background-color: #272822
Thank you! Questions?
Spencer P. Greenhalgh, PhD
School of Information Science, University of Kentucky
spencer.greenhalgh@uky.edu
@spgreenhalgh@sciences.social
Daniel G. Krutka, PhD
Teacher Education & Administration, University of North Texas
Dan.Krutka@unt.edu
@dankrutka
slides:
https://spencergreenhalgh.com/work/_aect_2023_gab.html