Education, Social Media and Visual Politics

Code:

DE242

Acronym:

ERSPV

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Social Studies/Public Policies / Educational Sciences

Instance: 2023/2024 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Education Sciences
Course/CS Responsible:	Master Degree in Educational Sciences

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
MCED	12	Official Curricular Structure	1	-	6	49	162

Teaching language

Portuguese

Objectives

The aim of this CU is to promote the students' knowledge about the political processes involved in the proliferation of images that shape the offline-online public sphere, towards a problematization of the role of social media as contexts of participation and education grounded on youth visual cultures. On the one hand, it aims to enhance the design of pedagogical projects and models that consider the use of visual social media by youth groups in participation, argumentation and construction of themselves and their communities. On the other hand, it aims to teach research and intervention skills based on the articulation between visual, ethnographic and participatory methods.

Learning outcomes and competences

- To understand the transformations that the contemporary emphasis on online visuality has brought to youth socialization, participation, and education;

- To identify online activism practices and main lines of inquiry and visual analysis;

- To problematize the role of social media and the current era of 'hyper-visibility' in terms of empowerment, recognition and/or control;

- To mobilize methodological approaches that explore visual formats of political participation and promote pedagogical experiences close to youth cultures;

- To conduct research and plan intervention projects that mobilize online visual content and that are based on the articulation between the offline and the online.

Working method

Presencial

Program

1. Visuality and visibility: the visual 'turn' in the social sciences and the public sphere.
2. Social media and youth: online uses, visual practices and algorithmic challenges.
3. Lines of inquiry in visual analyses of social movements: expression, representation and visibility.
4. Visual political action: formats, spaces, temporalities, expressions and implications.
5. Images and emotions: political and educational engagement in, through and beyond online images.
6. Visual culture and education: memes, cartoons, and photo-activism as modes of politicization and learning.
7. Methodological strategies for articulating the offline and the online: from artificial intelligence to online ethnography and 'snap-along'.
8. Participatory approaches closer to youth repertoires: the use of photographs and social media in research.
9. Modes of politicization and visual education: the pedagogical character of images in the promotion of practices of education in activism and forms of activism in education.

Mandatory literature

Adut, Ari; Reign of Appearances: The Misery and Splendor of the Public Sphere, Cambridge University Press, 2018
Brighenti, Andrea M. ; Visibility: A Category for the Social Sciences. Current Sociology, 55(3), 323-342, 2007
Campos, Ricardo; Juventude e visualidade no mundo contemporâneo: Uma reflexão em torno da imagem nas culturas juvenis, Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas 63, 113-137, 2010
Doerr, Nicole & Teune, Simon; The Imagery of Power Facing the Power of Imagery. Towards a visual analysis of social movements. In K. Fahlenbrach, M. Klimke, & J. Scharloth (Eds.), The 'Establishment' Responds - Power and Protest During and After the Cold War (pp. 43-55). Basingstoke/New Yo, 2012
Fischman, Gustavo E.; Reflections About Images, Visual Culture, and Educational Research. Educational Researcher, 30(8), 28–33, 2001
Luhtakallio, Eeva; Meriluoto, Taina; Malafaia, Carla ; Visual Politicization and Youth Challenges to an Unequal Public Sphere: Conceptual and Methodological Perspectives. In Jerusha O. Conne (Ed.), Handbook on Youth Activism (pp. 48-78). United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023
Malafaia, Carla & Meriluoto, Taina; Making a deal with the devil? Portuguese and Finnish activists’ everyday negotiations on the value of social media, Social Movement Studies, 2022
Marques, Rita Ruivo, Malafaia, Carla, Faria, Joaquim L., & Menezes, Isabel; Using online tools in participatory research with adolescents to promote civic engagement and environmental mobilization: The WaterCircle (WC) project. Environmental Education Research, 26(7), 1043-1059, 2020
Neumayer, Christina & Rossi, Luca ; Images of protest in social media: Struggle over visibility and visual narratives. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4293–4310, 2018
Rose, G. ; On the relation between ’visual research methods’ and contemporary visual culture. Sociological Review 62(1), 24–46, 2014
Sardelich, Maria E ; Leitura de imagens, cultura visual e prática educativa. Cadernos de Pesquisa, 36(128), 451-472, 2006
Sarmento, Manuel Jacinto ; Metodologias Visuais em Ciências Sociais e da Educação, In Leonor L. Torres & José Augusto Palhares (Org.), Metodologias de Investigação em Educação e Ciências Sociais (pp. 1-19). Braga. Húmus (col. Ciências Sociais da Educação), 2014
Silva, Sofia Marques da ; Building trust, resilient regions, and educational narratives: Municipalities dealing with COVID-19 in border regions of Portugal., European Educational Research Journal, 20(5), 636-666, 2021
Webster, Joan Parker, & Silva, Sofia M. ; Doing educational ethnography in an online world: Methodological challenges, choices and innovations. Ethnography and Education, 8(2), 123-130. , 2013
Woyshner, Christine & Schocker, Jessica B. ; Cultural Parallax and Content Analysis: Images of Black Women in High School History Textbooks, Theory & Research in Social Education, 43:4, 441-468, 2015

Teaching methods and learning activities

Interactive exposition and discussion. Use of projectable and non-projectable audiovisual media, namely the use of blackboard, slide projector, thematic maps, analytical schemes, etc. The final work will consist of fieldwork, images' analysis, contact with activists, and/or analysis of social media.

keywords

Social sciences > Political sciences
Social sciences > Sociology

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

designation	Weight (%)
Teste	35,00
Trabalho escrito	50,00
Participação presencial	15,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

designation	Time (hours)
Elaboração de relatório/dissertação/tese	40,00
Estudo autónomo	67,00
Frequência das aulas	49,00
Trabalho de campo	6,00
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

To obtain attendance, students must participate in 75% of the scheduled classes. Attending 75% of the classes will enable the avaluation moments - Individual highlights (3 points) + Group Project (10 points) + Individual written test (7 points)

Calculation formula of final grade

For the students who attend 75% of the classes, the evaluation will consider the following three components:
1. 'Individual Highlights': at the begining of some classes, each student should briefly refer one of the images presented in the previous class, highlighting the topic, issue or discussion considered particularly interesting and/or intriguing and how the chosen image is related to that.
2. A final project (of about 15 pages), done in pairs, which involves (i) following the visual practices of a photo-activist in the context of a protest or demonstration and the cross-analysis of visual and ethnographic data based on the the topics discussed throughout the course; alternatively, the final project may consist of (ii) the analysis of online visual content, of public access and associated with a political and/or educational hashtag, serving as the basis for the development of a political education project that mobilizes the visual content analyzed and its uses and pedagogical values. A tutoring is mandary to follow up the development of the project.
3. An individual written test, to be held during the exam period, which will consist of answering two development questions of your choice, aiming to articulate the contents of the course, based on two images presented and discussed throughout classes.

'Individual highlights' in the classroom = 15% ; Project = 50% ; Written test = 35%.

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

The students, in situations foreseen by the legislation and regulations in force, who do not attend classes in their entirety or the minimum required (75% of the classes foreseen), should contact the teacher of the subject in September, preferably in the first class, to clarify the mobility of alternative assessment.
In these cases, and for the normal and appeal season, the evaluation will be
1 - Final exam in person - 75%.
2 - Delivery of an individual work, regarding the relationship between online visuality and citizenship education, mobilising bibliography and themes of the syllabus taught in class - 25%

For all the special evaluation periods planned or to be determined during the academic year by the competent bodies the assessment will be
Final examination - 100% weighting

Classification improvement

The grade may be improved through an exam (100%), in the schedule period.