ERIC Number: EJ1160785
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1743-9884
EISSN: N/A
Fixing Higher Education through Technology: Canadian Media Coverage of Massive Open Online Courses
Dumitrica, Delia
Learning, Media and Technology, v42 n4 p454-467 2017
The popularization of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been shrouded in promises of disruption and radical change in education. In Canada, official partnerships struck by higher education institutions with platform providers such as "Coursera", "Udacity" and "edX" were publicized by dailies and professional magazines. This print coverage of MOOCs captures the contemporary ideological struggle over the meaning of both technology and higher education. By means of a thematic analysis of the English Canadian print coverage of MOOCs (2012-2014), this paper shows that both online educational technologies and higher education are constructed through an economic frame. However, this frame does not go unchallenged. Where newspapers construct MOOCs as an easy fix for an allegedly inefficient and outdated higher education system, professional magazines question the relationship between technology, higher education and money. These different representations point to the efforts of academic communities to develop alternative social imaginaries of education as public good within a dominant neoliberal framing of MOOCs and of the higher education system. In conclusion, the paper reflects on how the academic community can create alternative discursive spaces by shifting the discussion of MOOCs from economic concerns to civic goals.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Online Courses, Large Group Instruction, Educational Technology, Technology Uses in Education, Mass Media, Higher Education, Newspapers, Periodicals, Social Attitudes, Role of Education, Neoliberalism, Educational Finance, Ideology, Discourse Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A