Lurkers versus posters: Perceptions of learning in informal social media-based communities

The growth of social media has given rise to many informal online communities. In these communities, people communicate, make connections, exchange information and transfer knowledge without time or location restrictions. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate both lurkers' and posters' perceptions of learning in Reddit-based education-related communities. A mixed-method approach was used to obtain an overall understanding of how members perceived learning and the differences between posters and lurkers. Eighty-two participants (43 posters and 39 lurkers) were recruited from education-related subreddits and nine of them (5 posters and 4 lurkers) were interviewed. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the perceptions of learning between posters and lurkers. Both lurkers and posters believed that they have learned in these communities, and both defined learning in these communities as changing behaviours or thinking or applying what they have learned to real-life situations. Although both lurkers and posters reported having learned in the communities, qualitative analysis of the interview data indicated that posters demonstrated higher learning levels than lurkers. The findings of this study offer implications for further research into how members perceive learning in informal social media-based communities. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicAlthough informal social media-based communities are not designed for learning, given the large user base and wide accessibility, these communities do provide social spaces for users and promote informal online learning.Research regarding perceptions of learning has thus far been mostly focused on formal learning settings and less on informal online environments.It is difficult to investigate how members, especially lurkers who rarely post, perceive learning in informal online environments. What this paper addsBoth lurkers and posters report that they learn in education-related subreddits, and there is no significant difference between how lurkers and posters perceive learning based on the quantitative data.Both lurkers and posters believe that if they change their behaviours or thoughts, or apply the information they receive in real life, then they have learned.Both lurkers and posters tend to pay more attention to the information itself than to who the information came from.Posters communicate more with other members of the communities and tend to apply, analyse and evaluate information from the community to a greater degree than lurkers. Implications for practice and policyIt may be unrealistic for educators and community managers to encourage every member of the community to be an active poster, but encouraging members to share and interact can increase the likelihood that they will more carefully apply and analyse what they have learned.Instruction from the community managers or moderators could be necessary to provide guidance for members to offer contexts or backgrounds before making a post. This effort does not require members to write down their real names or provide their personal information in the posts but may ask them to provide some background information. The background information is also important to community members in deciding whether to adopt the opinions based on the context information or determine how to adjust and apply the content to their own teaching scenarios. Community managers or moderators may need to provide guidance to members so that members can provide appropriate contexts or background information before making a post. Other community members can use the information to decide whether to adopt the opinions or to determine how to adjust and apply the content.