Talk Amongst Yourselves

Digital literacy, “transliteracy” (Thomas et al 2007) and critical perspectives (Carpenter 2009) are crucial to the experience of being a participant in digital communities hosted by highly mediated and manipulative social spaces. The digital cultures that emerge from such spaces are both greatly influenced by the sophistication of the user (Merchant 2007) and by the ongoing interventions inherent in the site design which always remains subject to the choices of site owners, designers and programmers. In this essay I have attempted to explore some issues and implications of algorithmic roles in social spaces but this is a rich and complex area with any social site a worthy subject for further examination into the role of participants and how their behaviour, suggestibility and interaction can be leveraged by the design of the site. I do not think mechanical interventions are automatically negative in impact but as they become increasingly hard to detect it is important to consider the cultural machinations of social sites as part of the process of selecting sites for learning and teaching.