DigiPopEd: Popular Education and Digital Culture

Abstract

The rise of digitisation has led to a radical rethinking of the way in which research and publishing contribute to education, particularly with regards to the previously distinct and now rather more unstable categories of knowledge production and consumption. This article explores aspects of the relationship between digital culture and social movements by examining the adoption of digital publishing tools by educators working in the popular education methodology. Using BuildTheWheel.org, an online community oriented towards the sharing of curriculum as a case study, it examines the apparent meshing of some of the principal components of digital culture as outlined by Mark Deuze, with the goals, values, and practices of popular education, and explores the re-imagining of power relations between teacher and student, author and audience, producer and consumer.