Affinity Online: How Connection and Shared Interest Fuel Learning

by Mizuko Ito, Crystle Martin, Rachel Cody Pfister

How online affinity networks expand learning and opportunity for young peopleBoyband One Direction fanfiction writers, gamers who solve math problems together, Harry Potter fans who knit for a cause. Across subcultures and geographies, young fans have found each other and formed community online, learning from one another along the way. From these and other in-depth case studies of online affinity networks, Affinity Online considers how young people have found new opportunities for expanded learning in the digital age. These cases reveal the shared characteristics and unique cultures and practices of different online affinity networks, and how they support “connected learning”—learning that brings together youth interests, social activity, and accomplishment in civic, academic, and career relevant arenas. Although involvement in online communities is an established fixture of growing up in the networked age, participation in these spaces show how young people are actively taking up new media for their own engaged learning and social development.While providing a wealth of positive examples for how the online world provides new opportunities for learning, the book also examines the ways in which these communities still reproduce inequalities based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. The book concludes with a set of concrete suggestions for how the positive learning opportunities offered by online communities could be made available to more young people, at school and at home. Affinity Online explores how online practices and networks bridge the divide between in-school and out-of-school learning, finding that online affinity networks are creating new spaces of opportunity for realizing the ideals of connected learning.

Genres: Education

256 pages, Hardcover

Published December 18, 2018

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides an interesting look at the educational aspects of online affinity networks based on pop culture fandom. The ideas here could prove useful to educators who are interested in incorporating aspects of participatory culture in their lessons. Also, it may help you see how practical fandom activities can be for building skills that connect to traditional academic courses and careers.

One of the weak areas of this book is that the digital tools that are mentioned aren't the most recent ones. For example, TikTok and Discord are not discussed. While this book was published in 2019, it feels like the groups that were examined were from the early or mid 2010s. However, this is not a big issue because digital tools will always be changing. The processes that underlie these tools are the same.

The other weak area is that it only briefly touches on the negative use of affinity networks. If you want to cover that more in depth, you'll need to supplement that source. However, this is not a big issue as there is quite a lot that has been published on this aspect on online communities is the past few years.

[Aldon Hynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well worth the read, especially if you are interested in how online communities can shape us and curious about how we might all interact better online. I strongly recommend this book and look forward to referencing it in my further writings.

In the spirit of the book, anyone up for online affinity groups here in Goodreads? Especially around books like this?

[Kevin Hodgson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful research on how young people find and forge connections, and those connections might support academic and civic engagement