Session Information
06 SES 15 A, Perspectives for Media Education beyond AI Hype, Authoritarianism, and the Platformization of Everything
Symposium
Contribution
At Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025, many leaders of the most prominent, wealthy and powerful digital technology companies have bowed their knees before him, and his expected policies (some have already before), sitting in the front row. They, also donated at least a million dollars each (Scherer & Parker, 2025). Elon Musk, who has become a most prominent figure in support of Trump, started re-shaping online discourse arenas in 2022, by acquiring the micro blogging service X, formerly known as Twitter. Decentralized structures, such as the fediverse on Mastodon and other community-run services have not yet been able to reach the scope of former Twitter (Dander, 2023). X and other social media or communication services by Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft or ByteDance (TikTok) are critical infrastructure for contemporary media, information and communication ecosystems. Additionally, they interfere with educational infrastructures and, in some cases, these companies provide widely used digital infrastructures for formal educational institutions. Until recently, their business models have been criticized for datafication and capitalization practices, or for their use of simplifying and instrumental concepts of learning and education (Dander et al., 2021; Initiative Bildung und digitaler Kapitalismus, 2023; Selwyn, 2013; Williamson, 2017). Current tendencies, such as the intertwinement of the authoritarian turn in the political sphere and the increasing financial and political power of big tech – mostly, but not only in the USA – (Barabak, 2025), demand more concentration on political contexts of media education and on media education in research and practice on the relations between the political and the medial, between the neoliberal and the authoritarian. The presentation will offer insights and close readings of electoral programs by conservative and right-wing parties for the national elections in Germany (Febr. 2025), especially concerning education, media and technology. From there, a notion of political media education is developed to explore the intersection of media education and political/civic/citizenship education (Dander, 2024). This seems to become ever more relevant to maintain and further develop open learning, open technologies and a democratic open society for the common good (McQuillan, 2022, S. 142).
References
Barabak, M. Z. (2025, Januar 26). Column: The rise of Silicon Valley, from indifference to lords of the political universe. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-01-26/trump-musk-zuckerberg-bezos-political-rise-high-tech-silicon-valley Dander, V. (2024). Medienbildung und der digitale Faschismus. Normative Anfragen an medienpädagogische Kernkonzepte. In S. Schenk (Hrsg.), Populismus und Protest. Demokratische Öffentlichkeiten und Medienbildung in Zeiten von Rechtsextremismus und Digitalisierung (S. 149–174). Barbara Budrich. https://www.pedocs.de/volltexte/2024/29037/pdf/Schenk_2024_Populismus_und_Protest.pdf Dander, V. (2023). Politische Medienbildung und Netzpolitik: Eine Re-Aktualisierung des „Diskurses der Informationsgesellschaft“. Ludwigsburger Beiträge zur Medienpädagogik, 23, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21240/lbzm/23/06 Dander, V., Hug, T., Sander, I., & Shanks, R. (2021). Digital Capitalism, Datafication, and Media Education: Critical Perspectives. Editorial. Seminar.Net, 17(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.4493 Initiative Bildung und digitaler Kapitalismus. (2023). Bildung und digitaler Kapitalismus: Ein Positionspapier. MedienPädagogik: Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.21240/mpaed/00/2023.08.10.X McQuillan, D. (2022). Resisting AI. An anti-fascist approach to artificial intelligence. Bristol University Press. Scherer, M., & Parker, A. (2025, Januar 20). The Tech Oligarchy Arrives. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/tech-zuckerberg-trump-inauguration-oligarchy/681381/ Selwyn, N. (2013). Distrusting educational technology: Critical questions for changing times. Distrusting Educational Technology: Critical Questions for Changing Times, 1–192. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315886350 Williamson, B. (2017). Big data in education. The digital future of learning, policy and practice. SAGE Publications.
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