Critical digital citizenship: A call to action for educators and educational researchers

Abstract

This chapter explores what a consideration of the manner in which design influences social experiences online might mean for educational researchers, educators, and pupils. The chapter begins by critiquing the current approaches towards technology in education, particularly highlighting the one-size-fits-all model of technology in classrooms, the creeping ‘data gaze’ in education, and the attempts to present and view technology as apolitical. The chapter finishes by summarising how Comic Theory (presented in Chap. 6 of this book) can help understand the interactions of young people online in a nuanced and careful manner. To echo Larkin’s (2008, 3) words, ‘what media are needs to be interrogated, not presumed’. This holds true for education and for our understanding of media writ large. It is hoped that Comic Theory presents a method through which this interrogation can take place.