Conference Agenda

The first contribution invites reflection on how digital educational materials, interventions and practices – though often considered democratic and empowering – can perpetuate hidden hierarchies, normative assumptions, and exclusion. Adopting a power-theoretical lens (based on Foucault 1977; Butler 2015), we interrogate “democratization” and “participation” not as a neutral good but as a situated practice entangled with educational policy, institutional accountability, and local classroom ecologies.

We would like to demonstrate how various guiding structures in music pedagogy (lesson plans, OER and teaching guidelines, developed by educators, researchers, and policy institutions- may be conceived as sociotechnical interventions whose impact depends on their accessibility and inclusivity, capacity-building and on how teachers and learners are able to repurpose them in practice (UNESCO, 2019; Hodgkinson-Williams & Trotter, 2018). Underlying tensions are foregrounded: open pedagogical values versus specific platform cultures; opportunities for agentic and co-creation versus unequal digital access, and accessibility and inclusion versus ability-related exclusion. The authors will present specific examples of diverse digital contexts, and a Southern European digitization initiative for the creation of OER for classroom use.

The presentation will feature how power circulates through such digital participatory infrastructures, curricula, platforms, OER ecosystems, to shape which forms of participation are emphasized, which perspectives are excluded, and what counts as musical and other knowledge in the digital field (Hodgkinson-Williams & Trotter, 2018). In doing so, it will critically examine how the proposed concepts are designed to foster a democratic disposition among students – how “democratic attitudes” are framed, taught, and normalized. By uncovering these implicit assumptions and power dynamics, this paper aims to de-construct the epistemic structures and blind spots that shape what counts as democratic, participatory, and empowering in contemporary digital educational discourse.

The circulation of cultural products is characterised by the penetration of technical infrastructures, economic logic and rules typical of digital platforms (Bonini & Magaudda, 2024, p. 42). In the platformisation of music and making, algorithms are crucial in shaping musical tastes (Fernández, 2024) or for music creation (Haenisch et al., 2023). This poses challenges for music education.

At first, there is a danger of adopting a technologically deterministic narrative of digitalisation-induced democratisation, which appears to mirror the promotion of digital music technologies in algorithmic culture (Ahlers & Wernicke, 2024; Keith et al., 2023; Striphas, 2015). Moreover, platforms are giving rise to the music-driven dissemination of anti-democratic agendas and war propaganda. Despite the moderation and filtering mechanisms designed to keep extremist content off platforms, these measures get bypassed: viral sounds are being hijacked, extremist messages embedded, and spread by algorithms (Geboers & Bösch, 2025). Such strategies are observable in far-right movements, as when lyrics are rewritten and spread through social media. Furthermore, music memes (e. g., Sigma Boy) and trend dances are also key to the platformisation of war (Bösch & Divon, 2024; Wickström, 2024).

This raises the question of what stance music education adopts within platform culture in times of weakened democracies and ongoing wars. Research within music education has paid little attention to the socio-political agency of algorithms, often tending towards an affirmation of the participatory potential of musicking on YouTube (Cayari, 2025) or learning within online communities (Veblen & Waldron, 2023). Opportunities may include fostering a critically reflective algorithmic hyperawareness in creative practice (Godau et al., 2025), as well as exploring forms of musical (cyber-)artivism (Reily, 2024; Silverman, 2022; Tolmie, 2020). We propose this as a starting point for a joint discussion on desiderata in music education research and on the role of music education within platform culture.

The internet offers both freedom and economic constraints, a fact that requires to discuss the degrees of freedom, criticism of wellbeing as utilitarianism and capability approaches (Ballet et al, 2014; Robeyns & Byskov, 2025). DIY- (do-it-yourself), DIWO- (do-it-with-others) and DIFO-disposition (do-it-for-others) enhance online and musical literacies and support skill development for online musicking and performance (Cayari, 2021).

Students use the internet as an open learning space during their free time as a space where they can discover, acquire, try out, share, and reflect on music – mostly outside of formal learning structures. In doing so, they develop not only musical skills, but also media and communication skills. When students use the internet as an open and participatory space to explore, create, and share music, they engage in self-directed and collaborative learning processes that transcend institutional boundaries. Such practices not only democratize access to musical and cultural knowledge but also cultivate key democratic competencies – critical thinking, media literacy, communication, and participatory agency – thus fostering inclusion, cultural diversity, and active citizenship in the digital age.

Young people with an agentive musical identity are able to use various musical sources (peers, devices, the internet, etc.) in such a way that they not only increase their own knowledge and skills, but also actively contribute to the further development of the respective music culture – only a few students actually do this (O'Neill, 2017). It is therefore necessary to look at what prerequisites young people need to have, or what skills they need, in order to actively participate in the complex music culture on the internet.

This contribution will discuss opportunities for informal “internet-learning” and the associated prerequisites for developing integrated approaches for music education in schools.