Platformised Affinity Spaces: Learning communities on YouTube, Twitch and TikTok

Online, informal learning communities bring youth opportunities for learning
that schools cannot offer. Yet, there are concerns about the impact of social
media platforms’ control over online learning. We argue for a re-evaluation of
what an ‘online informal learning community’ is by looking at such active
communities on three platforms: YouTube, Twitch and TikTok. We do this by
reconsidering Gee’s ‘affinity spaces’ and by asking: how can we understand
online informal learning communities in the current sociotechnical context? We
observed and analysed interactions of six learning communities on YouTube,
Twitch and TikTok. Our results show that in today’s platformised online context,
Gee’s concept of ‘affinity spaces’ should be reconsidered in three ways. First,
platforms call for discussion about affinity spaces’ boundaries through the
visibility regimes that play a part in access. Second, platforms challenge the
affinity spaces’ grammar; to maintain a focus on their interest, platforms need to
engage with interests provided by platform cultures. Third, a more fixated
hierarchisation, informed by platforms’ focus on creators, impacts affinity
spaces’ social structures. We introduce the concept of ‘platformised affinity
space’ as a first step to specific dynamics that platforms introduce to online
informal learning communities. We conclude that we only understand these
communities when acknowledging how these dynamics are appropriated as well
as resisted to achieve community goals.