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My Digital Literacy Environment: LinkedIn

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My Digital Literacy Environment: LinkedIn

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When I am using LinkedIn I often feel a certain agony within myself, the platform is utilized for job searching, networking and sharing career history and highlights. I feel like the platform has been designed for the ultimate power grab for certain individuals. Being in my last year of University and the pressures of finding a job after I graduate I have learned that networking is a critical skill to have.  LinkedIn operates on something called ‘connections’ and it stops counting the number of connections once you have reached 500+ connections, also there are certain skill tests that you can take so it displays on your profile. Pangrazio (2016) stated that having certain skills within a certain digital environment form certain relationships between one’s identity; thus is true. For my personal profile on LinkedIn I do not have 500+ plus connections and I have not taken any skills tests that LinkedIn offers, does that make me less attractive to job recruiters? Perhaps that is a question meaning to be left unanswered. The power dynamics within this platform has cultivated so complex that it eventually will consume the individual; because the ideology that this app runs on is hegemonic power.  I believe that people are freely not themselves on LinkedIn, the app is curated strictly on successes of jobs and career highlights; if one does not have those different elements on their profile it deems them ‘less’ successful among other connections. Under a system of hegemonic power, it will inherently rob people’s individuality,  people are left to brand themselves in a way where power dominance is seen as the greater good. Pangrazio (2016) stated that “representation of identity through digital media as a type of ‘self-curatorship’” (pg. 165). The self-curationship can be applied to how LinkedIn’s platform is strictly created on the formation of one’s identity of career and skills; meaning your identity is made by what kind of jobs and what school you went to. Power is the driving system that produces these ideologies of the individual, it is this system that creates the reality within the platform of Linkedin and upholds the status quo for working individuals.

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Collective Concerns & Individual Practices 

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Collective Concerns & Individual Practices 

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When using LinkedIn, I am not aimlessly scrolling compared to my other social media apps like Tik Tok. I am deeply invested about the number of connections I have and my peer’s career highlights and updates. The main feed on LinkedIn displays social updates which can be similar to Facebook status updates but instead on LinkedIn, it is often about the recruiting process and highlights of other people’s journey of finding their dream job. When I am there I am constantly internalizing other people’s career journeys and comparing it to my own; this platform can be related to real life like social classes. The hegemonic ideologies are upheld by classist views; for example, not having career successes or highlights or did not attend prestigious school which is rooted in societal inequalities, can place an individual in a ‘lower’ ranking in social status.

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Technical Mastery VS Critical Disposition 

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Technical Mastery VS Critical Disposition 

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Ways of using LinkedIn is different for everyone, I believe that I use it in a way where it is performative and I am only pleasing the digital masses such as job recruiters or simply my connections. Pangrazio (2016) said that people should be able to move between critical and technical mindsets as part of their digital practices; which I agree but I would say that I follow more critical dispositions simply because in real life I am not consistently counting how many people I meet and I do not ask them about their jobs right way, as I would within the digital environment upon LinkedIn. I do not believe that my online presence within these digital spaces have altered the way I value or believe in things in real life; my skills are very much manipulable in terms of socializing in real life and online.

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Pangrazio (2016) found that to be literate  is to constantly challenge the status quo through the consumption of digital texts. I would say that after analyzing Linkedin deeply and thoughtfully, I do not believe I am completely digital literate as Pangrazio describes. When I am consuming media I am aimlessly taking in whatever is on my feed, within the platform of LinkedIn I am not challenging the inequalities of social classes throughout the belief of strong ethical ideologies, but rather internalizing  I am not aware of the influence of historical and cultural ties through the text; I would rather say I am reading most of the text surface level but internalizing those texts against me as I compare myself to others in terms of job prospects. As Pangrazio (2016) states “Self-curatorship therefore emerged as a form of critical consumption in which the axial point was the individual.” (pg. 165)  I would state that I rather take a critical approach to my digital literacy as I highly regard my online identity to my real identity when it comes to career goals and aspirations. When this platform is analyzed with ideologies like hegemonic power, LinkedIn is used in a way where the system wants its users to use it. Power dynamics among this app is how one uses the app and consumes it; I feel like I have bought into that system of wanting to be in a position of power so I will still continue to use the app and not challenge any of the technical mastery approaches when it comes to the functionalities of the app. In summary, digital literacy is constantly changing and it will always continue to be the most subjective when contextualizing digital environments.