Taming Global Citizenship Education Within Twitter’s Attention Economy

Abstract

A contested concept that finds multiple theorisations and practices in relation to various ideological, geographical and cultural positionings, global citizenship education (GCE). has taken flight in the formal and non-formal education sectors over the past two decades, bringing together education-focused actors from government and civil society in dynamic relationships. With the proliferation of social media, GCE actors have taken to platforms such as Twitter for educational and communicative purposes, leading to the emergence of an attention economy surrounding GCE. This article utilises issue mapping to trace and visualise the performance of GCE by organisations in the Global North, comparing their formal organisational definitions with their communication of their GCE work over Twitter. While organisational public education and communications have long functioned within a competitive, neoliberal economy, this article focuses specifically on how the attention economy of Twitter contributes to the diffusion or capture of particular understandings of global citizenship through a GCE issue network.