Scholars without Borders: Practices and Concerns about Social Media Use in Academia
Abstract: Social media have become integrated with work and professional learning across fields to facilitate novel discourse, identity, and civic engagement. This study explored how and why early career scholars—doctoral students in an educational PhD program—used social media to support their scholarly and teaching-related activities. Through surveys, written reflections, and tweet data collected from students in an advanced doctoral seminar, the paper examines junior scholars’ practices, purposes and concerns regarding social media use in academia. Collaboration, professional networking, engaging diverse publics in research, and maintaining access to up-to-date resources were all prominent purposes for social media use. Concerns centered on privacy and boundaries between personal and professional spaces. Such research advances theorization of the continuities and tensions between formal and informal learning with social media that span place, space, and time. This research has implications for the design of graduate education and professional learning with technology in academia.