Hananel Rosenberg

The promise, reality and dilemmas of secondary school teacher-student interactions in Facebook

We report on a multi-method study that seeks to explore if, how and why secondary teachers use Facebook (FB) to interact with their students. Issues of privacy, authority, and even abuse have fueled socio-political debates on the desirability of teacher-student FB contact, leading some authorities to curtail or even prohibit such contact. Proponents of harnessing Web 2.0 and Social media technology for learning purposes, on the other hand, have emphasized the many potential advantages for formal and informal learning. However, there is little empirical research on the scope, the nature and the purposes for secondary school teacher-student contact through social network sites. The present study makes a first step in this direction, by triangulating teacher survey data (N?=?187) with in-depth teacher interviews (N?=?11). Findings from both data sets show that teacher-student FB contact comes in different forms and serves a range of purposes, which fall into three main categories: Academic-instructional, psycho-pedagogical and social-relational. Advantages, dilemmas and limitations of FB contact with secondary school students are identified. We study teacher-student communication through Facebook.Data from teacher surveys and in-depth interviews were triangulated.Teachers use a variety of Facebook features, depending on the communication goal.Facebook is used for instructional, psycho-pedagogical and relational purposes.

The “flashpacker” and the “unplugger”: Cell phone (dis)connection and the backpacking experience

The cellular phone’s unique characteristics—its mobility, its portability, and the constant availability that it enables—challenge the feasibility of solitary spaces in individuals’ lives. These spaces—for example, cultural “timeouts,” leisure, and backpacking travel—necessitate a certain degree of cutting oneself off from one’s daily routine, which is threatened by the constant presence of one’s cell phone. This study examines the role of cell phones in young adults’ backpacking experience. Using questionnaires (n = 105) and in-depth interviews (n = 14) with “cellular backpackers” and “cell-free backpackers,” the study shows how an attempt is made to reduce availability and attain maximum control over the scope and timing of communication, using a variety of avoidance practices. Those practices derived from the personal narrative structure of the backpacking experience as an escapist, “dropping-off-the-radar” one, and as an attempt to preserve the trek as a space that is cut off and isolated from a technology-saturated environment. In addition, it was found that backpackers care a great deal about their parents’ position when making their decisions whether to take their phones with them and when to use them. In this regard, the article continues the discussion on the metaphor of the cell phone as a transitional object, applying this concept from childhood and adolescence to the twenties and thirties, the ages of most backpackers. On another level, the article addresses the mobile phone’s unique function as an antistatus symbol, in a way that contradicts its function in an ordinary context.

Media Theology: New Communication Technologies as religious constructs, metaphors, and experiences

Recent studies have seen religious observance as inherently related to available communication technologies. This study follows this thrust but complements the focus on religious praxis with a look at media theology—the ideological dimension of the religion and media nexus. It traces three distinct facets of media theology: the way religious sensibilities affect how we create, shape, apply, and establish a relationship with media technologies; how media technologies serve as tools for grasping aspects of theology; and finally, how media use can launch mental and existential religious experiences. The study’s orientation is historical, charting the development of the relationship between media technologies and the religious mind in the Abrahamic religions from the biblical media of fire and cloud through script and electric communications and all the way to the Internet.