The Power of Algorithms in the Commodification of Social Media for Inclusive Education. Invisible or Invisibilised

Abstract

Social networks are communication spaces mediated by complex and opaque structures of relationships and content. The result is an unequal participation of users in the access to and dissemination of content. The dual objective is to identify influential profiles and analyze strategies for disseminating educational content on social networks. The social listening technique and Power Business Intelligence analyse posts on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube for inclusive education content, collecting 113,272 posts over one year. The results show the inequality in social networks, defined by the visibility of political and economic power groups that occupy a privileged position in disseminating content, to the detriment of certain publications associated with altruistic groups or individuals with vindictive content. The economic interests of algorithms, attractive visual content, a large mass of followers and coordinated dissemination campaigns monopolise the visibility of the network outside of socio-educational interests. This situation is partly facilitated by the algorithms of digital platforms, where the commodification of the network is evident through case studies. The value of the findings for building critical digital citizenship in the face of unequal behaviour and self-serving narratives is discussed