Nano-Influencers Edutubers: Perspective of Centennial Generation Families in Spain

Javier Gil-Quintana,Sara Osuna-Acedo,Carmen Marta-Lazo,Emilio Vida De León

doi:10.17645/mac.v10i1.4760

Javier Gil-Quintana, Sara Osuna-Acedo + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i1.4760

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Abstract

In recent decades, the incipient technological development has generated a radical change in the way people access and transmit knowledge. Educational institutions must have a teaching staff adapted to new forms of consuming information. The purpose of this research is to know the media competence of Spanish teachers, from the perspective of families of schoolchildren in primary education. This analysis is based on the investigation published by 50 renowned international experts in media competence, which revolves around six major dimensions. In our analysis, we focused on the processes of interaction, production, and dissemination of content by teachers on YouTube. A questionnaire has been devised with a sample formed by 1228 families, a personal interview with a sample formed by 20 families, and a comparative analysis of the productions and interaction of amateur teachers on YouTube platform and of recognized “edutubers,” as well as the use given to the dissemination of content on social networks. In the results obtained, the profile of a teaching staff that is increasingly disseminating and producing on social networks stands out, becoming content creators through their own YouTube channels, which also proposes tools for an interaction adapted to the centennial generation, using different digital communication tools. Differences were found comparing the three dimensions involved in this analysis, with teachers obtaining more positive evaluations as producers and as interactors in private schools than in subsidized and public schools. Likewise, differences were found between nano-influencers and macro-influencers in the use of aesthetic elements that make up the videos analyzed among the “edutubers.”

Highlights

The families of the centennial generation play a highly relevant role in supporting students at the earliest ages in access‐ ing digital spaces (Sánchez et al, 2018), from their posi‐ tion as agents involved in the educational processes of future generations and as possible consumers, active or passive, of the content generated around social net‐ works (Dans et al, 2019)
There are many e‐learning models that have been developed in recent decades to give consistency to virtual learning envi‐ ronments as a result of technological advance, among them we can highlight the five‐stage model of Salmon (2002, 2004), the virtual learning environment model for higher education institutions (Alhogail & Mirza, 2011) or the learning technology system architecture developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Barr, 2017)
In the other two items we found val‐ ues slightly lower than the intermediate value M = 2 of our Likert scale; the families do not fully agree that the teachers broadcast on their YouTube channel adequate academic content, especially in specific periods as was the confinement for Covid‐19 (X5), and a critique is evi‐ dent for not offering other YouTube channels of other edutubers to deepen the certain contents of the learning process (X6)

Summary

Introduction

The contemporary society requires the availability of teaching theories appropriate to the learn‐ ing ecologies arising from the new digital spaces in formal and informal educational settings (Monsalve & Aguasanta, 2020) These must be forged in response to the demands of the new generations, character‐ ized by their dependence on and close link with digital technologies from their earliest childhood and known as centennial generation or generation Z (Manzanares, 2020). The families of the centennial generation play a highly relevant role in supporting students at the earliest ages in access‐ ing digital spaces (Sánchez et al, 2018), from their posi‐ tion as agents involved in the educational processes of future generations and as possible consumers, active or passive, of the content generated around social net‐ works (Dans et al, 2019) This way of proceeding in learning within virtual contexts provides the basis for forming a citizenship prepared for responsible action in digital environments, enabling it to act within and out‐ side the contexts of formal education, socially commit‐ ted and involved in lifelong learning. The new generations stand out for preferring visual supports to text formats (Navarro Robles & Vázquez Barrio, 2020), finding in YouTube con‐ tent adapted to their consumption habits, where in Spain more than 5.5 million minors regularly consume content on YouTube, which translates into more than 15% of users in this territory (Min Shum, 2021)

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