Towards a pedagogy of digital liberation
Cristiano Ciferri
This article aims to outline the core tenets for a pedagogy of digital liberation that critically addresses the educational challenges emerging within the infosphere, especially those related to the use of social media. It argues that digitalization is not a neutral phenomenon but rather a context that generates new forms of oppression through mechanisms of surveillance, algorithmic manipulation, and symbolic dependency. Drawing on the thought of Paulo Freire, particularly the concept of conscientization, the paper adopts a hermeneutical approach that engages educommunication, and some recent developments such as Digital Critical Pedagogy, Critical EdTech Studies, and Open Pedagogy. The analysis highlights three fundamental challenges posed by social media to educational practice: the undermining of freedom, the erosion of truth, and the fragmentation of personal identity. In response, the article proposes the development of dialogical and community-based educational practices that can transform digital media into spaces of participation and shared responsibility. A pedagogy of digital liberation can help educate young people to cultivate critical awareness and authentic freedom, thereby enabling them to inhabit the infosphere consciously and renew it from within.
Keywords
Oppression, liberation, infosphere, social media, conscientization.