Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Industrial dimension of mediatization: inquiry from cultural industries approach 85 MAN, 2013). While digital platforms for MOOCs (such as EDX and Coursera) was proclaimed the “next billion-dollar start-ups” (ADAMS, 2018). MOOCs are fundamentally changing the craft nature of the basic teacher’s and professor labor. It transforms the rela- tionship between student and professor which previously was based on interpersonal communication (either non-mediatized in case of traditional lectures and seminar or mediatized inter- personal interaction, in case of textbook or videoconferences format) into mass communication oriented to virtual non-de- fined public through media platform. That makes the fundamen- tal relationship based each time on individual performance of the professor (similarly as in theatre and other performing arts), reproducible on specific medium, and accessible to millions of people. That makes the online education a media product func- tioning according to the logic of digital media industries. First effect of that is the “learnification” of the educa- tion (VAN DIJK; POELL, 2015), so division of the education on relatively little separately sold pieces, which could be combined into entire curricula. In classic education, its outcomes represent a wholistic object and not the sum of the isolated items. While in commercial logic, the consumer should have a choice between dif- ferent elements. Another effect of mediatization of the education through digital platforms is the “uberization” of the education and implementation of the mutual client-service assessment and ranking, which contribute to the implementation of the neo-man- agerial practices into academia (KPI – key performance indicators of professors and academic units, usage of rank-depending sala- ries etc.). Together with digital bibliometrics and big data system of evaluation of the academic performance, it oversimplifies the representation of the quality of teacher’s work in academia. Another effect making the online education like cul- tural industries – the new division of labor. Professor remains the key figure of the new online education industry, but his cre- ativity needs to be mechanically reproduced and made available for the public. This mechanical reproduction is ensured both by the university (generally granting facilities to make the online course) and by the platform, which ensures the distribution. In other words, the creation of the online course is like any cultural