Facebook for supervision? Research education shaped by the structural properties of a social media space

Abstract

This study analyses the use of a group space on the social networking site Facebook as a way to facilitate research supervision for teams of learners. Borrowing Lee’s framework for research supervision, the goal was to understand how supervision and learning was achieved in, and shaped by, the properties of a social networking space. For this purpose, the discourse between supervisor and learners was analysed along with the structural properties afforded by the space. Using the empirical findings and further literature, a conceptual framework was developed that illustrates the ways in which functional supervision, enculturation, emancipation, critical thinking and relationship development are achieved and formed by the interplay of the technological, functional, multimodal and the wider sociocultural, political and sociolinguistic structures associated with social media space.

Keywords:

• Social media
• social networking site
• education
• supervision
• research education
• mentoring

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all research participants, Ms Thandiwe Ndebele and the project sponsors, the swissuniversities and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, for their support of this work.