MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: HOW FORUM THEATRE CAN REVEAL THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ALGORITHMS ON LOCAL AND GLOBAL JUSTICE ISSUES

What is the connection between the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar, the rapid spread of mis-and dis-information and the rise of mental health and attention difficulties? Whilst seemingly disparate, each of these issues have been exacerbated by the widespread use of engagement-based algorithms on social media platforms. Engagement-based algorithms are designed to captivate our attention to keep us engaging with the platform for longer, thereby raising advertising revenues for the companies. These algorithms pick up on content which is showing strong engagement and suggest it to users. Engagement means interaction with the content, such as ‘likes’, sharing the content, or commenting on the content. Engagement can also simply be the amount of time the user spends looking at content. As well as the adorable kitten videos, extreme content holds our attention, inducing algorithms to promote this material. There is a lack of awareness amongst the public about how these social media algorithms are amplifying alarming content, causing polarisation and driving inequality. To highlight these issues, a theatre group working with Creativity and Change in Munster Technological University (MTU) explored the local and global impact of social media engagement-based algorithms. This took place through a mentorship with Brazilian theatre practitioner, Julian Boal. In this article, we explore algorithmic awareness as an important missing aspect of global citizenship education (GCE), before illustrating what we learned from exploring this topic through forum theatre. We conclude by drawing some lessons for GCE on using socially engaged theatre to explore complex, invisible topics. We also draw on the links between forum theatre and Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed, including forum theatre as a form of praxis, conscientisation and collective action that makes invisible power structures visible.