Critical Pedagogy and Digital Technology: Postmodernist and Marxist Perspectives

Introduction

Human learning cannot be thought of without technologies. Yet, while the movement of critical pedagogy has always been interested in educational usage of mass media, in the second part of the twentieth century “there has arguably been less interest in the fourth major platform of the Freirean program – economic development through technological modernization processes” (Kahn and Kellner 2007: 434). At the brink of the new millennium, human society has rapidly become saturated with information and communication technologies. In order to make sense of education in the age of emerging digital cultures, mainstream critical pedagogy has employed two major philosophical traditions: postmodernism and Marxism. Marxism is a social theory that emerges from the late nineteenth century and the works of Karl Marx. (There is also a term “Marxian theory” which stresses the fact that emerged studies follow the work of Karl Marx but not necessarily follow Marx’s teachings in full.)...