Make visible the production and reproduction with digital hybrids in lifelong teacher education

Abstract

This article analyses the obscure mix of productive and reproductive functions in today's digital hybrids: smartphones, tablets and laptops. The goal is to address concerns regarding the dissimilar educational benefits that these devices may provide in the contexts of teaching by distinguishing between those that promote good mental processes and those that are only used to reproduce discourses. Apart from identifying these roles in audiovisual advertising, a strategy is analysed that would train teachers to be able to identify these functions in the tangled morass of situations where they are employed, and in this way avoid using these hybrids as mere reproductive devices. Reflections by a discussion group on the content of a selection of advertising spots has been a good basis for training a teacher to perceive this dual functionality. Using two previous conceptual categories of analysis as a starting point, the technical-aesthetic aspects and the production-reproduction functions, three conceptual categories were found that helped identify and differentiate between the uses of these hybrids as either producers or reproducers in a diversity of situations where the two functions were hidden. The categories that provided elements that proved to be valuable in the distinction of the two are: editing, the use of audiovisual languages and reassigning meanings to digital hybrids.