Facebook, Community Learning and Authority

This presentation reviews ongoing activity in researching villager reactions and preferences in using Facebook as part of the PROTIC (Participatory Research and Ownership with Technology, Information and Change) project in two different areas in Bangladesh. This is a research and development collaboration between Monash University and Oxfam. Findings about villager and community preferences, based on analysis of posts, including photos, text, likes/tags and comments over a one-year period will be discussed. The use of Facebook by a village community raises many issues: * The complexities of implementing community-based research in a traditionally-oriented, gendered, traditional, socially and institutionally hierarchical environment. * The limitations of Facebook as a research platform despite its huge reach. * Issues of power, control and authority as they play out in such a platform as Facebook. * The representation and presentation of 'community' in a Facebook group for the purposes of demonstrating innovation with technology. * The use of Facebook to demonstrate community competency with ICTs.