Digital media learning in the third space.

Abstract

n this article, we share the outcomes of two fieldwork focus groups conducted as part of a larger project investigating ‘third space literacies’ in digital media learning contexts. One focus group brought together an international group of media education practitioners at the Media Education Summit in Rome. The other was a transcribed conversation between four published researchers in the field, ourselves, Neil Selwyn and Cathy Burnett. The data from these two fieldwork activities was first presented as an afterword to our book Digital Media, Culture and Education: Theorising Third Space Literacies (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017). Here, we present the outcomes and discuss their implications for the themes addressed in this special issue, namely contemporary forms of participation in formal and informal learning. Our contribution is a theoretical and research informed position, drawn from Cultural Studies, new literacy studies and educational research, on the ‘conditions of possibility’ for learning to take place in the ‘third space’ across and between these domains. This space facilitates dynamic literacies, curational practices and a porous exchange of knowledge. Purposive use of such a space can answer questions about the use of digital media for teaching and learning in school, the affordances of transmedia for education and the connection of teaching and learning in and out of school.