I presented this at the Networked Learning Conference (7/8/9 April 2014 in Edinburgh). The paper is in the proceedings, which are available on the conference website: http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/pdf/perrotta For the complete transcript check my Academia.edu page https://anglia.academia.edu/CarloPerrotta Thanks for watching!

1. THE DIGITISATION
OF KNOWLEDGE
PRODUCES
HYBRIDS
CARLO PERROTTA
ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY
CARLO.PERROTTA@ANGLIA.AC.UK
Networked Learning Conference – 7/8/9 April, Edinburgh

2. (ps. obscure internet
meme reference)

3. WATCHING MOOCS IS, FOR MANY
PEOPLE, LIKE WATCHING TV

4. “Seriously, you’d better tune in fast if you don’t want
to be ostracised by white people… it’s pretty much
all they ever talk about” (Honest Trailers, YouTube)

5. YOU MEAN YOU
NEVER WATCHED…?
“interactive” digital TV and changing viewing patterns
“Choice” rather than passive consumption
GRAZING: moving between TV shows
TV watching as HOBBY that enlarges the viewers’ identities
Barkhuus and Brown 2009

6. CONSUMPTION, POPULAR
CULTURE & IDENTITY

7. CONSUMPTION AND
SUBJECTIVITY
Consumption is enlisted to articulate…
“a response to the social deficits of contemporary society itself,
and in a personal desire to transcend those deficits through an
illusory production of a more meaningful and better socialized
sense of self (Giddens 1991, pp. 3570, Bauman 2000, pp. 5391)”
Binkley, 2008: 618.

8. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE
TO DO WITH MOOCS?
‘given the amount of time that people spend on activities
such as watching television, 'wasting' time on education,
even by non-completing students, seems inoffensive’ (Koller
at al., 2013, para.4).

10. AND NOW… LET’S
TALK ABOUT ANT

11. THE DVR
TEACHER

12. A DISCLAIMER
I am talking about the “X-MOOC” phenomenon during 2011-
2013 when “performative acts” (Austin) were trying to assert
a particular version of what MOOCs are – with intended and
unintended consequences.

14. THREE
“HYPOTHESES”
The assimilation of academic instruction into the ontological
space of digital TV watching.
The DVR teacher as a hybrid artefact serving a neoliberal
project of commoditised, pick-and-mix self-improvement.
Non-committal engagement with “open education” as a form
of “liquid” (Bauman) identity work: frantic eclecticism,
ambivalence and flip-flopping as existential strategies.
“nothing is truly, or can remain for long, indifferent to
anything else – untouched and untouching” (Bauman, 2007)

15. Barkhuus, L., & Brown, B. (2009). Unpacking the television: User practices
around a changing technology. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human
Interaction (TOCHI), 16(3), 15 (Sep 2009), 22 pages.
Bauman, Z. (2013). Liquid times: Living in an age of uncertainty. London:
Polity.
Binkley, S. (2008) Liquid Consumption, Cultural Studies, 22(5), 599-623.
Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge MA: Harvard
University Press.
THANK YOU!