Sessions /
“Are Teachers Just Content Creators now?”: CALL in the Age of Social Media #1273

During 2020 portals to online coursework existed alongside portals to social media, which offered the potential for teachers and learners to communicate around and beyond the digital classroom. In addition to conventional communication skills, “online” communication skills suddenly seemed essential to learn and to teach. This presentation will share research on how discourse and relationships change when taking place almost entirely online. Focal points include: Duffy’s (2017) investigation into how “aspirational laborers” (YouTubers, influencers, etc.) seek to generate para-social relationships with their viewers; Vitak’s (2012) explanation of distinct audiences combining into “a singular group” under “context collapse”; and Bueno’s framework for an “attention economy” (2016), which identifies “attention” as the sought-after resource driving corporate innovations in social media interface design. These theories will be explored within the context of a communication course adapted in 2020 to be taught almost entirely online. The goal of the presentation is to share theories from outside the field of TESOL that might constructively contribute to conversations about how best to teach communication skills during an era in which social media has become predominant in our everyday lives.