The political is personal: an analysis of crowd-sourced political ideas and images from a Massive Open Online Course

The analysis of ideology at the vernacular level requires access to peer-to-peer political discussions amongst non-specialists. It is in these discursive exchanges that political views are articulated, refined, and revised. Such exchanges are, however, difficult for the researcher to capture. Here we take c.25,000 learner comments (along with several hundred image uploads) from a Massive Open Online Course, co-produced by the University of Nottingham and the British Library, as a source of such peer-to-peer political discussions. From five topics we have selected 'Freedom', 'Justice', and 'Community' for close analysis. The idea of 'freedom' generated by far the most learner discourse, being both positively appraised and highly personalized. 'Justice' was generally seen as something to be delivered by political institutions, although accounts of injustice were frequently personalised. Accounts of 'community' often focused on the trappings of nationhood, but some comments, and many images in particular, highlighted moments of ephemeral and more personal, self-chosen communities. Overall, both comments and images show that, in their interpretation of the conceptual vocabulary of politics, people frequently frame their understanding through personal experience in a very direct manner. It is not only true that the 'personal is political', but also, for many, that the 'political is personal'.