Journal of Global Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies Volume V, Issue I, February 2019, pp. 772-805 Facebook Literacies – an ethnographic study in Hong Kong Winnie Siu-yee Ho,* PhD Hong Kong Program Syracuse University Syracuse, New York
[email protected] Abstract: The core aim of this research is to explore how the everyday self-generated literacy practices and the interactions of adult volunteers at an aviation-centred uniformed youth group are shaped by new technologies, with a particular focus on a social networking site, Facebook, as the most popular social virtual world in Hong Kong. These adult volunteers are all Cantonese speakers who interact in English as L2 online. The study is grounded in the framework of literacy as a social practice (Barton & Hamilton, 2012) and the community of practice (CoP) learning theory (Wenger, 1998). Taking a CoP perspective, this chapter also views the uniformed group as a community sharing common knowledge, ideas and practices. The research was conducted using a linguistic ethnographic approach. Based on the analysis of multimodal texts on Facebook, interviews and participant observation, this study contributes to the understanding of new practices in social media and other technologies, which will become more prevalent in volunteering environments. The significance of online literacy practices cannot be considered in isolation from their unique sociocultural context. *Winnie Siu-yee Ho obtained her PhD in Applied Linguistics at Lancaster University, U.K. She teaches Cantonese at the Syracuse University (Hong Kong Programme) and Applied Linguistics at the Open University of Hong Kong. ISSN: 2168-1333 DOI: 10.32674 ©2019 773 Siu-yee Ho /JOGLTEP V(I) pp.