This paper explores the potential of using social media channels and digital displays deployed in public places to foster connectedness for Third Culture Kids. Third Culture Kids (TCKs) is a designation that refers to children who spend a significant number of their formative years outside their parents' native culture(s), and who live in several countries other than the one stated on their passport during that time. In order to start understanding the potential requirements for an enabling system, three exploratory studies were conducted: two of these studies focused on the current usage of social media channels by TCKs, while the third study investigated the possibilities of airports as meaningful places to deploy possible communitybuilding technologies for TCKs. The preliminary findings were highly encouraging, providing a basis for us to devise a programme for future work.
among people that they belong to a larger community by virtue of the identity they share online
rather than to where they physically lived or culturally belong. In this sense, social media is
increasingly playing a key role in enabling collective identity, a sense of community, and
supporting collective cultural creation among citizens across the globe. The potential for
creativity in online communities is relevant for migrant communities to whom social media is
becoming a distinctive arena of social life. Accordingly, we argue that it serves as a source of
community-building among people who share social and cultural affinities but with restricted
opportunities for offline meetings.
“Third Culture Kids” (TCKs) is a term popularly referring to children who spend a significant
number of their formative years outside their parents' native culture(s), and who live in several
countries other than the one stated on their passport during that time. While abroad, they acquire
meaningful relationships with other cultures
Material posted on social media is also a source of information on TCKs' personal and social
self-perceptions, interesting enough to be analysed by any researcher who wishes to relate their
personal and collective experiences into issues of cultural identity. Most of this material consists
of personal narrations or accounts but, by applying qualitative and quantitative analysis
techniques, it is possible to identify familiar elements, similarities and patterns from which we
can create a vivid picture of the on-going construction of these community identities.
In relation to other enabling technologies for community-building, situated digital public displays
have the potential to offer networked solutions that enables digital displays to become a
promising medium of communication medium, promoting exchanges of information between the
online and the offline worlds
In this work, we intend to start investigating methods of designing situated digital public displays to support TCK's social media interactions in public places meaningful for them. Considering the exploratory nature of our current efforts, the research project has been designed according to the following initial research questions: a) How is social media being used by TCKs to explore their identity issues and sense of community belonging? b) What public spaces are relevant for the community of TCKs? c) Can situated digital public displays be accepted as a means to promote communication between TCKs? d) Which features should digital public displays have in order to connect TCKs and their meaningful places? e) What contributions can TCKs make to the enrichment of meaningful public places to them using digital displays? However, in this paper, and taking into consideration that our work is in its early stages, the empirical work to be carried out will principally address questions (a) and (b). Questions (c), (d) and (e) will be discussed with respect to future stages of this research.
First exploratory study
According to Schmidt (2013) the main affordances which distinguish Twitter from other forms of
online distribution of messages are the particular ways that it articulates relationships: it builds
up networked, distributed conversations of “micro-content” or “nano-stories”, enabling people to
stay in touch over distance and reassuring participants of shared social bonds
In the second exploratory study (Sch midt, 2016), a wider analysis of 24 open Facebook groups dedicated to TCKs was performed (using text categorization software packages NVivo 11 and Semantria) in order to identify what is important for members to share and discuss within the community. The findings show that sharing experience, community and identity are the most important topics being addressed within the groups. Words like “moved” and “community” were among the most frequently used in the texts written by TCKs. The main themes (so called nodes) identified by NVivo were Group, TCK, and Community. Semantria identified “identity”, “globalization” and “passport” as the most frequently mentioned categories out of a custom category list. The custom query results show TCK, “terms”, and “culture” as the main topics of discussion, followed by “education”, “globalization”, and “identity”. 225 places and countries from all over the world appear in the texts, with France being the most common by far.
Airports are certainly a common reference in most publications about and by TCKs (e.g., Iyer 2000). To determine whether this phenomenon is part of their collective memories, an e-survey has been developed (Colomer 2017). The results confirm that airports are meaningful spaces for TCKs: they are the places in which TCKs’ global mobility occurs, and singularly symbolize the transitional life and their in-flux worlds, the movement and the journey. In heritage studies terms, Colomer (2017) suggests that the potential value of these places of mobility as actual heritage places thus arises from the affection invested in them by this particular community of users who see them as part of their collective memories – assuming here that affect is a form through, and with which, the world is considered, acted, perceived, and consequently remembered. We see the potential of adopting a participatory design approach to engage with TCKs at this level.
The results from the two exploratory studies suggest that TCKs have a strong interest in building their community identity, sharing their experiences, and discussing selected issues regarding their particular identity. Furthermore, it seems that they are keen to use social media in the process of creating community and identity, and that airports might be the best places to locate public displays as they evoke collective memories among TCKs.
Memarovic (2015) provides an analysis of the current and future challenges arising from the design of networked public display systems in community settings and considers it important to frame the research question with regard to the following issues: • Challenges arising from the need to understand the place where the display is located and to be aware of the community's specific characteristics and general situation. • Challenges facing the system design process, and in understanding which approach appears best suited to the location. • Challenges concerning how to define the notion of design for connectedness. • Challenges related to the way evaluation exercises are conducted, which involves understanding the methods that are best suited to investigate the use and adoption of the displays. Furthermore, comparative studies will need to highlight the putative benefits of digital displays and other alternative media.
In the future, with regard to the design of situated digital public displays and the corresponding interactive functionalities for TCKs’ community engagements, we intend to: a) Explore the design space of digital networking tools to help create and maintain a thriving online community of TCKs.
same locations.
b) Explore to what extent it is possible to design situated digital public displays to foster
further engagement with this community and also with other groups that make use of the
With regard to the participatory design approach, we also intend to explore the framework
proposed by
Location of the Display. The location dimension considers the forms of situatedness that result directly from the location of the display.
Spatial Association. The spatial dimension considers the spatial arrangement of the display with respect to its environment.
Activity. The activity dimension considers the way in which a display reflects on-going activities taking place in the display setting. At the most basic level, this may involve raising awareness about those activities.
Community. This dimension considers the ways in which the display can become a reflection of the community that shares a place in which it is inscribed.
Perceived Ownership. The perceived ownership dimension considers the ways in which the perception that a certain entity is responsible for the display is embedded in the display content. Bagnall N (2015) Global Identity in Multicultural and International Educational Contexts: Student Identity Formation in International Schools. New York: Routledge.
Colomer, L. (2017). “Heritage on the move. Cross-cultural heritage as a response to globalization, mobilities and migration”. International Journal of Heritage Studies, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2017.1347890.
Colomer, L. and Schmidt, J. (2015). How Third Culture Kids Build up their Community Identity Through Social Media. Unpublished report for the course "Network Society and Internet Cultures", Social Media and Web Technologies Masters' program. Department of Media Technology, Linnaeus University. (Contact the authors for a copy.) Désilets G (2015) Third Culture Kids as serial migrants’ children: understanding some of the impacts of a highly mobile transnational upbringing. In: Benjamin S and Dervin F (eds) Migration, Diversity, and Education. Beyond Third Culture Kids. Cham: Springer, pp. 143-162. Jose, R., Otero, N., Izadi, S., & Harper, R. (2008). Instant Places: Using Bluetooth for Situated Interaction in Public Displays. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 7(4), 52 –57.
Memarovic, N. (2015). Understanding Future Challenges for Networked Public Display Systems in Community Settings. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (pp. 39–48). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
We would like to thank Laia Colomer for her contribution to earlier stages of this work and the anonymous reviewers that helped us improve our work through their comments.