Description: Andy Coverdale PhD Blog: Student Learning, Higher Education and the Social Web
Many of us have developed sufficiently sophisticated media ‘literacies’ to recognise that TV programmes, magazines articles and advertising about cooking, interior design and other recreational pursuits rely heavily on a narrative of constructed lifestyles, often directly linked to key protagonists. So much so, that the term ‘lifestyle’ is often adopted as a catch-all to collectively describe the genre.
Whilst academics have no doubt discussed their recreational activities with colleagues for many years, through idle chat in university corridors or over conference lunches, we are the first generation using social media to partly do so in globally distributed environments. I’ve been thinking about how this emergent practice might be mediating ‘academic lifestyles’ and how it might be contributing to a (re)shaping of their cultural norms.
To be clear, the performative context I’m talking about here is not one based on formal (or indeed informal) academic achievement or professional status, but one which relates to public profiles and digital footprints that increasingly include lifestyle revelations beyond purely academic roles and activities. These provide an everyday insight into readily shared selves that are also becoming increasingly quantified. Some of us may even adopt a form of online ‘life laundering’ that is almost confessional, wa