The Hashtag #CharlasEducativas as a Teacher Affinity Space on Twitter

Abstract

Twitter has positioned itself as one of the social networks most used by teachers, generating teacher affinity spaces for them to share and collaborate. This study analyses the hashtag #CharlasEducativas, to explore whether it represents a teaching affinity space on this social network. It is a hashtag linked to an educational project created in Spain and related to all educational stages in a cross-cutting manner. Using a mixed methods research, 6073 tweets with the hashtag #CharlasEducativas, published between January 2020 and July 2022, were analysed, including a total of 761 Twitter profiles. Using the software MAXQDA, a category system was developed to classify the most frequent topics in the interactions and to study the tone of the discourse. The social network analysis software Graphext was used for in depth analysis of the profiles with the highest participation. It was confirmed that the characteristics of affinity spaces (collaboration, horizontal nature, creation of community, existence of hierarchy and source of informal learning) were met. The interactions linked to this hashtag are positive, friendly and with a close and relaxed tone, which favours the generation of a group feeling, facilitating informal learning. In addition, the space has a strong hierarchy with leadership roles that allows the information to flow and be fed continuously.