Education in times of global crisis

How private actors in Germany gain power through Twitter

Bibliographic Data

ID21639847
AuthorsJohannes Schuster (0000-0003-2252-5062, Leipzig University), N Kolleck (0000-0002-5499-8617, Leipzig University)
Year2021
Volume29
IssueAugust - December
Pages161
Publication date2021-11-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducation Policy Analysis Archives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1068-2341 • E-ISSN: 1068-2341
PublisherMary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.14507/epaa.29.6741
OpenAlexW3217483783
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited38

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to enormous societal changes worldwide and touched many different areas of daily life. One of the most serious restrictions to contain the pandemic was the closure of schools and kindergartens. Particularly in countries with comparatively low levels of digitalization in schools, this situation opened up opportunities for private actors to gain importance and influence in the education sector. For this article, we draw on policy network approaches and network theory to analyze Twitter discussions around digital learning and homeschooling during the period of school closures in Germany due to the COVID-19 crisis. We use social network analysis to identify the actors involved and their influences in the issue-specific Twitter communication network. In recent years, Twitter has been increasingly used for exchanges on education policy content, mainly by political and civil society actors. Our study shows that with respect to digital learning and homeschooling, it was primarily individual experts and consultants as well as corporations which influenced the discourse. In particular, it appears that Twitter is used as a forum to promote corporations’ own products and platforms, including by globally operating corporations such as Microsoft and YouTube, while public actors remain barely visible

Civil society · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Law · Social Media and Politics

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