Digital and distributed: learning and teaching doctoral writing through social media

ABSTRACT

Higher education learning is increasingly enacted in digital environments and doctoral education is no exception. Scholars – supervisors and PhD candidates – actively create their own digital profiles, and their research is often disseminated via social media in tandem with the traditional publication of journals and books. Online learning behaviours, social media and doctoral education are complex, and, when considered together, present distinct challenges. This paper explores the work and practices of digital academics using social media through a case study of an academic blog, DoctoralWriting. We use statistical data from the blog to map evolving pedagogic practices and forms of doctoral writing support and engagement. This analysis reveals horizontalised networks of co-creating consumers and producers who interact on social media platforms in ways that signal new transnational networks of learning and teaching. This paper contributes to our understanding of academic engagement with social media in contemporary doctoral education, particularly doctoral writing.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral education
• social media
• doctoral writing

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Fernando Marmolejo Ramos and Anna Morozov for their help in analysing data for this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Cally Guerin http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0588-0804

Claire Aitchison http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7449-1178

Susan Carter http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2498-2814

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Adelaide [Faculty Research-Active Grant Scheme].