The Revolution on Facebook: Political Education on Social Media through Nonformal Andragogical Communities of Practice

Abstract

This paper considers political education through nonformal communities of practice on social media. While formal and informal classroom environments remain important in the 21^st century, most adult learning occurs in the nonformal context. Communities of practice on social media provide substantial knowledge dissemination and identity-defining communities of practice, also furnishing the opportunity for praxis. Communist Facebook groups provide communities of practice through knowledge dissemination, community membership, and praxis. This paper defines who these groups are, what they do, how they differ from other groups, their education and tools, how they exist outside of state control, and how they fit inside theoretical frames of communities of practice, specifically Hoadley's (2005) C4P framework, presenting the theory of digital andragogical nonformal educational communities of practice. This paper concludes that in order to understand 21^st century education, nonformal communities of practice on social media require further investigation.