Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The digital revolution of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has created new knowledge and space for the human brain to observe and act. Not surprisingly, humankind has evolved culturally with the construction of techniques and technologies. It is now increasingly difficult to imagine a historical timespan when globalization has had a greater cultural, economic, and political impact through the use of digital tools and technology. With this in context, we explore a critical social institution which has been significantly influenced and inflected by globalization and technology: education and learning. Specifically, we examine the process of transformational learning within the context of a online fake news app-based game to understand metacognitive processing associated to cross-cultural, inter-generational perceptions of cultural rituals, beliefs, and values. The fundamental premise of transformative learning is based on Jack Mezirow’s (1991) model which emphasizes on expansion of consciousness through transformation of basic worldview in adult learning. Through the digital platform of the game, we will study the users’ sensory perceptions related to cultural awareness and evaluate the process of cultural transformative learning. Cultural transformative learning cognitively shifts awareness from seeing with their worldview to seeing their worldview. The game will measure qualitatively and quantitatively how people are impacted through visual, text, and audio distortions, to comprehend culture. The study will engage in understanding how global stereotypes influence cultural comprehension following the encoding-decoding framework of cultural theorist Stuart Hall, and will bring into conversation three significant theoretical frameworks into a single one: transformative learning, globalization, and discourse production.

Presenters

Patty Goodman
Associate Faculty, Faculty Lead for Cross-cultural Communication, Corporate and Organizational Communication, Northeastern University, Massachusetts, United States

Claudine Brunnquell

Chiranjoy Chattopadhyay

Mayurakshi Chaudhuri