The discursive electronic self, thirdspace and marketing Australian higher education online
Chinh Nguyen, University of Melbourne
This paper is a theoretical exploration of how universities websites for international students are sites for the development and articulation of electronic identity: complex ways of representing and positioning oneself (the Australian universities) within larger social constructs of globalization and internationalization in higher education in Australia. I draw on Gee's sociocultural discourse theory and urbanist Edward Soja's thirdspace to argue for the significance of websites as the sites where convergence of social, historical and spatial forces takes place in a specific case, to in the constitution of discursive electronic identity.
My cases and illustrations come from the universities' websites for international students and Asian international students' negotiation of websites. Working from sociocultural discourse theory, I argue that this process is evidence of valuable knowledge through the co-constructed way of looking at universities' websites for international students.
Throughout I offer the constructions of website discourses and the comments from Asian international students who negotiate those websites' discourses at two case studies from two universities' websites. I conclude by drawing implications from this study for theorizing and practices in marketing international education's eduscapes.