Digital media, learning and social confidence: an ethnography of a small island knowledge society

This thesis presents an ethnographic examination of digital media and learning as key dimensions in the construction of a ‘knowledge society’ in Trinidad and Tobago. This eighteen- (18) month study investigates the dynamics of social practice in a complex ecosystem of learning in a low-income community. A concept of social confidence is foundational to the findings. Social confidence is a critical problematic faced by participants. It is linked both to possessing knowledge of content, and also navigating expertise to negotiate success in social contexts. This thesis traces the strategies that participants used to instrumentalise their learning to enact social confidence, examining issues regarding privacy, identity, failure, and shame. It unpacks literacies and skills that participants developed to build fluency in “finding out,” “trying over,” and “making meaning,” and their efforts to apply these literacies and skills to build social confidence in their everyday lives. The thesis complicates the interplays of formal/informal, global/local, and online/offline spaces. It adds a small island state perspective to recent scholarship in the field that is appreciative of informal learning but has largely centred on U.S. and European contexts. The study makes a novel contribution to academia as the first ethnographic study to examine social practices of digital media use within formal and informal learning in the knowledge society in the Caribbean. It addresses a practical need from local policymakers for more qualitative data to contribute to evidence-based policy and answers a call from regional academics for deeper insight into ICT use in the region.