SANAL SINIF ESTETİĞİ: GÖRSEL İLETİŞİM TEKNOLOJİSİ, KATILIM VE HETEROKRON ORTAK ZAMAN

Abstract

This article explores how immediate communication of synchronous education via virtual classrooms poses questions on implementing visual communication technologies of social surveillance. The striking global transformation of education to synchronous and asynchronous forms of online and hybrid education during the COVID-19 pandemic has reformed the usual teaching and learning methods. Hence, the immediate experience of virtuality also affected the public sphere notion of classrooms, where students socialize and encounter political culture. Building on the content analysis of qualitative research on student experiences of remote education in Turkey, we conducted an online survey with 325 university students with the purpose of understanding their experiences and attitudes toward online education. We theoretically explore how virtual classroom participants construct their social world of education through the aesthetic affordances of digital platforms. Grounded in critical theories of aesthetics that have previously been elaborated on an abstract level, we investigate how time and space compression, enabled by immediate communication technologies, translates into students’ experiences of participation, use of visual communication, and their everyday resistance to surveillance. The research revealed that online education design as implemented today is far from encouraging a public space, and the university students generally underestimate their role in creating a public space through their active participation in discussions. This loss of social spaces should be elaborated and problematized in the future for a better transition to hybrid and online education modules.