Social and technological infrastructures in tertiary education and beyond

Dr Lorena Gibson, a senior lecturer in the Cultural Anthropology Programme, and former colleague Dr Grant Otsuki, were awarded an FHSS-FoE Strategic Research Grant for their new project, “Content and Platform: An ethnographic study of the social and technological infrastructures in tertiary education and beyond.”

Media scholars argue that what defines “content” is not that it conveys information; instead, its main purpose is to circulate via digital platforms. Think TikTok and YouTube. This project explores how platforms – like Canvas – are transforming education into “content,” and what that means for teaching practices, student experiences, and university futures.

Over two years, this project will use multi-sited ethnography to understand how tertiary students, teachers, and institutions in Aotearoa engage educational content and digital platforms. Otsuki and Gibson will also work with platform developers to understand the design principles and practices they use, and how this shapes the way that content circulates.

The importance of this project is in bringing together two loci of change. Universities are making greater use of platforms to enhance peoples’ abilities to participate in society, culture, politics, and the economy. Concurrently, digital platforms are where much of society, culture, politics, and the economy happens today. This project will study the relationship between universities and broader society by focusing on their shared nexus of change: content and platform.