A careful approach to digital scholarship

Abstract

For a lot of reasons, the types of learning and knowledge valued in our world are diversifying. Networked participatory scholarship, which is increasingly carried out on social media platforms such as Twitter, provides opportunities for alternative forms of academic expression: those that do not necessarily fit traditional academic criteria but fulfil professional and personal needs of faculty, students, and researchers anyway. The Twitter Journal Club (#TJC15), an open, unstructured, academic reading group found on Twitter, provides meaningful learning experiences while embracing the holistic and messy nature of learning. Within this space, we Laura (the group s creator) and Simon (a frequent participant-observer) have found room to breathe as well as opportunities to care, in terms of emotional and intellectual engrossment, relational and personal interest, and kindness and mutual respect. As such, we find this alternative, digital approach to academic reading one that engages its participants in uniquely creative, playful, and human ways of learning even as it augments and challenges traditional academic practice.