Bridging the gap between policy and practice: Unpacking the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education

Abstract

This paper unpacks the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education. Through the analysis of information published on the official Google for Education website, the paper seeks to make visible how this service promotes and reproduces certain ways of talking, thinking about and doing education. The aim is to contribute to a critical discussion of the potential implications of allowing major commercial players to take the lead in the development of digital infrastructure in education. Guiding the analysis is the notion of ‘problem’ understood as central for Google for Education’s success story. The case of Sweden, in which Google for Education has become widely used, forms the vantage point for this discussion. The study makes visible how Google for Education, in the commercial rhetoric, is constructed as the solution to problem representations by being positioned as a much-needed bridge, in the shape of digital information infrastructure, between digital policy and educational practice. However, Google for Education is far from simply a practical solution to a set of expensive and urgent problems. To uncritically embrace Google as the information infrastructure of education is to hand over power to one actor, which closes doors to alternative paths of doing and knowing in education.

Introduction

In 2011, Salem proudly announced itself to be the first municipality in Sweden to implement the cloud-based service Google Apps for Education. Although Salem’s decision initially raised some controversy, this expansion of the Google universe into the educational sector has since become a common ICT solution in Swedish schools. Today approximately 70% of Swedish municipalities use Google Apps for Education or the updated version G Suite for Education (Lim, Grönlund and Andersson, 2015), a service offering a combination of front-end tools and cloud-based storage targeted directly at schools. A possible reason for this popularity is that Google’s services for education (hereafter Google for Education) provide solutions to a number of practical and technical problems that the intense process of digitization of the Swedish school system in recent years has given rise to, such as lack of common format standards and data storage capacity (see Lindh and Nolin, 2016). Additionally, Google for Education is practically free of charge, ¹ which of course is appealing to municipalities with limited resources and strained economies. Setting these practical and economic benefits aside, implementing a commercial service in the public sector has also raised some concerns related to surveillance, data mining and privacy issues (Lindh and Nolin, 2016; Williamson, 2015a, 2015b). A further issue, which has not yet gained the same amount of attention, concerns the underlying norms, values and assumptions pertaining to education that Google for Education embodies and potentially reproduces when entering educational practices and settings. To make visible these underlying assumptions is the aim of this paper.

Several researchers have emphasized how Google is not a neutral lens but an actor in its own right, produced and acting in a particular, time, place and culture (see Vaidhyanathan, 2012; Mager, 2012; Haider, 2016; Noble, 2018; Haider and Sundin, 2019; Zuboff, 2019). Equally, researchers of information literacy (see Sundin and Carlsson, 2016; Andersson, 2017; Haider and Sundin, 2019) as well as education (see Svendsen and Svendsen, 2020) have pointed to how examples of digital technology in the classroom are not neutral, objective sources of information and learning, but complex phenomena that reproduce and reconstruct values, relations and the construction of knowledge in educational settings. Building on these strands of previous research that critically investigates the role of Google as well as digital technology in education, this paper seeks to deconstruct the commercial rhetoric related to Google for Education in order to unpack underlying assumptions and presuppositions that shape this service. Through the analysis of information published on the official Google for Education website, the paper seeks to answer the following questions: What ways of talking, thinking about and doing education are promoted in the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education? What potential material, social and cultural implications, focusing on Swedish conditions, may those underlying assumptions articulated in the rhetoric have? In answering these questions, a second aim of the paper is to contribute to a critical discussion of allowing major commercial players, such as Google, to take the lead in the development and digitization of educational information infrastructure.

The country of Sweden, briefly mentioned above, makes for an interesting vantage point for such a discussion. For one thing, Google for Education is widely used among Swedish schools. The country is further interesting in that education here has been positioned at the heart of the rhetoric about digitization expressed in national policy. In the case of Sweden, the present overall objective of the Government’s digital policy ‘is for Sweden to become the world leader in harnessing the opportunities of digital transformation’ (Swedish Government, 2020), which echoes similar goals of a competitive nature on a European level (European Commission, 2020). One important area pointed out to reach the goals of Swedish policy is to foster digital skills by ‘modernizing the education system’ (Swedish Government, 2020). These ambitions are also reflected in the national curricula (Lgr 11, 2018), which were recently updated to strengthen the digital emphasis. However, as indicated by Maria Lindh and Jan Nolin (2016), the policy rhetoric has not been accompanied by the technical and financial support required to realize the high ambitions of the Digital Agenda. Furthermore, as pointed out by Antti Saari and Janne Sännti (2017), in their study of the implementation of Finnish digital policy for education, there are major differences in how policy may and can be implemented due to local conditions. Obliged to reach such high goals, school administrations and local politicians in Sweden have in recent years been faced with a number of problems related to digitization of education, which they have had limited resources to solve (see Lindh and Nolin, 2016). These problems include issues of information sharing and storage, often combined with lacking interoperability and usability of the digital services offered. The popularity of Google for Education in Sweden has coincided with this development, and makes Sweden a suitable scene both for exploring the potential material, social and cultural implications of the commercial rhetoric and for grounding the critical discussion, which forms the second aim of this study.

Perceived ‘problems’ with digital technology in educational settings could be understood as crucial for Google for Education’s success story in Sweden. Thus, the notion of ‘problem’ is central to the present analysis of the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education. Building on the work of Carol Bacchi (2009), ‘problems’ are here understood not as neutral constructs but as representing underlying assumptions and presuppositions about a certain issue. An analytical focus in this paper then is to make visible how certain aspects of digital technology are constructed as problems in the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education. Equally, another is to discuss in what ways Google for Education is constructed as the solution to these problems.

Education, digital technology and Google

This paper builds on and draws together findings from several areas of research in order to further knowledge and critical discussion about the role of commercial players, such as Google, in the development of educational information infrastructure. The implementation of digital technology in school settings has been subject to critical investigations by researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds and from various perspectives. In educational research much attention has been paid to the use of digital technologies in the classroom. Jesper Tingaard Svendsen and Annemari Munk Svendsen (2020) identify two major directions within this area of research. The first is concerned with issues arising when students look for information using digital resources, including concerns about students’ ability to critically evaluate and use information online (e.g. Buckingham, 2006; Julien and Barker, 2009). The second reflects issues related to the use of social media in the classroom (e.g. Leyrer-Jackson and Wilson, 2018; Loredo e Silva et al., 2018; Paulsen and Tække, 2009; Pedro et al., 2018) and generally how the addictiveness of these technologies changes the dynamics in the classroom (Svendsen and Svendsen, 2020). An additional third direction, represented by Svendsen and Svendsen’s own work, focuses on issues of governance, privacy and third party use of personal data when implementing digital technology in educational settings (see also Williamson, 2015a, 2016a, 2016b). The results from these studies point to the material, social and cultural consequences of information infrastructural change in educational settings, on which this study seeks to further knowledge.

Several studies, including the work of Svendsen and Svendsen (2020), raise concerns about how digital technology is often uncritically embraced when used in educational settings. Many of these studies are conducted within library and information studies and the field of information literacy. In a focus group study with teachers in primary school, Olof Sundin and Hanna Carlsson (2016) found that Google was perceived as a neutral tool, and that a high amount of trust was put in Google’s ranking and ordering of information. This led to information searching being treated as practical and utilitarian, rather than a political and critical issue. Sundin and Carlsson (2016) further point to how the ease of using Google’s services hides the complexity and bias of the technologies at work. These findings concur with those of Lindh and Nolin (2016) who investigated the use of Google Apps for Education in the context of a Swedish school organization. They found that the service was mostly perceived as convenient and well-functioning. Issues that might be of concern, such as privacy issues, the influence of a commercial actor in public settings, and the favouring of Google-based services (and thus certain types of behaviour on digital platforms), tended to be ignored or modulated. In a similar study Lindh and colleagues (Lindh et al., 2016) examined the implementation of Google Apps for Education in a Swedish school organization and found several issues of concern, such as the lack of critique, the perceived neutrality of the technology and the domestication of pupils into a ‘Google citizenship’. These studies point to the perceived neutrality of digital technology in educational settings, in particular Google, findings that this study builds on and seeks to critically investigate further.

Concerns about the development of a ‘Google citizenship’ in a broader context than education have been raised by several researchers. In his book with the telling title The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry), Siva Vaidhyanathan (2012) paints a broad picture of the rise of Google, how the company has come to dominate the contemporary information ecology, and by extension politics, business and culture on a global scale. For Vaidhyanathan (2012) the power of Google lies in its invisibility and ability to become a seemingly necessary and natural part of everyday life. Using Google to find, store, spread and handle information has, according to Vaidhyanathan, become the way of doing things. This means that Google executes a kind of soft power, not merely over the content of the web and how it is represented, but also over practices and expectations of using it (Vaidhyanathan, 2012). This silent domination by Google is also noted by Ken Hillis, Michael Petit and Kylie Jarrett (2013: 3), who claim that ‘Google has become so naturalized it no longer seems to have an origin’. This study follows this line of research by investigating the potential consequences of this silent power as Google’s influence grows in educational settings.

Like the present study, a number of researchers have sought to unpack the hidden cultural and ideological underpinnings of ‘the Google way’ (Hillis, Petit and Jarrett, 2013; Vaidhyanathan, 2012). Lindh and Nolin (2016) investigated the metaphors used by Google (among others) pertaining to cloud computing and found arguments for a promising utopia of empowerment through new technology, hiding negative effects of surveillance and privacy issues. Astrid Mager (2012) investigated how capitalist ideology (see also Fuchs, 2011, 2012, 2014) gets inscribed in Google’s search algorithms by way of social practices and how website providers and users comply with and stabilize this dynamic. In her book Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble (2018) convincingly shows how Google’s algorithms are not objective decision-making tools but value-laden propositions with racist and sexist biases, often determined by economic imperatives, power and values. Shoshana Zuboff (2019) demonstrates how Google in particular has worked effectively to employ digital technology for the logic of what she calls ‘surveillance capitalism’. Zuboff illuminates how technology is always an expression of, and not equated with, particular interests. In Google’s case the interest of capital is to turn human behaviour into profit. This study builds on and develops findings from these previous studies through a deconstruction of the commercial rhetoric pertaining to Google Apps for Education.

Unpacking problematizations

The study reported in this paper is a text analysis, seeking to unpack underlying norms, values and assumptions pertaining to education in the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education. This is done by means of a particular form of discourse analysis that centres around the notion of ‘problem’ as a construct, and makes use of analytical concepts from actor network theory. This focus was chosen partially for empirical reasons, as ‘problems’ play a central part in the analysed material. It was also chosen because the construction of shared interest and problems, what Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose (2008: 34) refer to as ‘intéressement’, is recognized as prominent feature of governing processes of persuasion and rhetoric (Miller and Rose, 2008). Drawing on the work of Michel Callon (1986), ‘intéressement’ could be viewed as a process whereby networks of actors translate their goals and practices to each other in order to form alliances. Such alliances, in this case between networks of actors involved in the communication of commercial messages, has to be formed in order for problematizations to be mutually accepted, that is for the rhetoric to work. It is a form of governing process, in the Foucauldian sense, in which problems and interests become accepted as shared and mutual without the exertion of violence or force. Rhetorical strategies, then, are techniques for articulating problems ‘in such a way that the audience can recognize the realization of their own interests in it’ (Saari and Säntti, 2017: 446) – in other words, to make the problems into their own. Following this, the analysis has sought to reveal strategies in the text whereby the interests of Google are translated into problems and goals that the Swedish educational sector can relate to. An important strategy of ‘intéressement’ and the forming of alliances in commercial rhetoric is to produce senses of identification and recognition. Another central part of the analysis has been to identify how well-established narratives about digital technology and technological development, in- and outside education, are used for such purposes in the commercial rhetoric for Google for Education.

‘Problems’ are in this paper perceived as constructs. This does not imply that these problems are not lived or ‘real’, but rather acknowledges that they are agents in their own right, situated in a particular context. Drawing on the work of Carol Bacchi (2009), an analytical quest is then to unpack problematizations in the analysed material. This suggests an approach of teasing out what kinds of ‘problems’ are assumed to exist and how they are reasoned about in the commercial rhetoric pertaining to Google for Education. Analytically, these services are not perceived as reactions to a set of problems but rather as being part of constructing problem representations. Focusing on how particular aspects of digital technology in education are constructed as problems, and equally how and in what ways Google for Education is constructed as a solution to these problems, becomes a productive way of making visible those underlying assumptions and presuppositions that form the commercial rhetoric.

To be able to situate and discuss potential material, social and cultural implications of this commercial rhetoric, Sweden and Swedish education are used as an example and delimitation. Discussing potential implications is a way of situating and understanding the power and construction of the rhetoric by connecting it to ‘the world outside text’. It is also used as a way to go beyond the deconstruction of discourse and discuss its potential effects. In this sense the study aspires to ‘address matters of concern’, not simply ‘matters of fact’, in the Latourian sense (Latour, 2004).

Method and material

The focus of data collection was the content of the Swedish official Google for Education website: https://edu.google.com. The website was accessed on 24 occasions, starting December 2016 and ending December 2018. During this period the content and structure of the website changed multiple times, but not in such a way as to change the general message of the information presented on the website. Fieldnotes of both descriptive and reflective character were taken on each occasion of data collection. The first time, 70 so-called ‘case studies’ were downloaded from the website. The case studies constitute a very rich material, and therefore the major part of the analysis has been based on them, complemented by the fieldnotes for providing a wider context and background. The case studies, all written in English, are of schools, universities or other organizations related to education, mostly, but not exclusively, based in the US, that have introduced Google for Education (see Appendix). The length of the case studies varies between two and four pages and the text describes why the school or university etc. has chosen to use Google for Education, as well as the results it got from implementing the service. It is not clear who has written the texts. Although it appears as if representatives from the school or university in question are behind the case studies, copyright is attributed to Google and it is evident that the texts have a commercial agenda of marketing Google for Education. Hence, in the process of analysing the case studies, Google has been treated as the source of the message that the case studies convey. As such, the case studies are approached as expressions of the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education.

The data was analysed using a method inspired by problem-driven analysis developed by Bacchi (2009). This post-structural approach of ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) is normally used for policy analysis. Although this is not a policy study and it should be recognized that website content differs from the policy genre in many respects, not least in respect of its impact and influence, these different genres also share many characteristics, which makes the WPR approach also a suitable analytical tool for commercial rhetoric. Building on Foucault, Bacchi perceives policy documents as discursive ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (Foucault, 1972: 49). Similarly, the website analysed here consists of documents that give shape to Google for Education and digital technology in school settings in particular ways. To make this visible is an important part of the analysis.

An analytical frame drawing on WPR but slightly adjusted to better support the purpose of the present study guided the analysis of the website content in general and the case studies in particular. The case studies were initially subjected to repeat readings in order to get an overview and establish common themes. The coding of themes was done manually. The following questions, inspired by WPR, guided the readings: What problems and challenges, that are believed to be solved by Google for Education, can be identified in the texts? What presuppositions or assumptions underlie these problem representations? What is left unproblematic in these problem representations? How and in what ways is Google for Education constructed as the solution to these problems and challenges? The questions were used to unpack ‘problematizations’ in the texts. At the second step of analysis, particular attention was paid to expressions of strategies of ‘intéressement’ and ‘translations’ in the texts.

These questions from WPR were chosen as they draw attention to what is assumed or taken for granted about digital technology in education and, correspondingly, make visible what fails to be problematized in the website content and in the case studies. They seek to uncover the assumed thought that lies behind the problem representations as well as to identify deep-seated cultural premises and values within those problem representations. Furthermore, they point to the material, social and cultural effects of using a particular problem representation by focusing on potential consequences that may come from this way of framing a problem (see also Bacchi, 2009).

Findings

In this section four key problematizations articulated in the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education are discussed: the ‘problem’ of visible technology; the ‘problem’ of communication breakdowns; the ‘problem’ of fragmentation; and the ‘problem’ of fixed time and space.

The ‘problem’ of visible technology

Throughout the case studies, digital technology is portrayed as playing a vital role in contemporary education. These circumstances are not put forward as something new. However, the degree of dependency where ‘students expect constant access to information from any location’ (CS18) and where demands on data storage capacity are increasing, is described as a novel, unfamiliar situation. Many of the case study schools and universities are depicted as being in the middle of a technological transition that they need to respond to in order to maintain the quality of education.

. . . a first class learning environment, which increasingly involves meeting the demands of its tech savvy student population. With students accustomed to using smartphones and the latest technologies in their personal lives, the university needed to tackle existing IT constraints and improve its technology capabilities. (CS15)

The nature of this transition is articulated differently for different schools, either as a transition from paper to digital technology or, as in the statement above, as an intensification in the use of digital technology. Either way, digital technology is portrayed as something fundamental, necessary and omnipresent in educational practice. It is somewhat of a paradox then that the case studies simultaneously are ingrained with a continuously expressed desire for technology to withdraw and disappear into the background. Visible technology is turned into a problem.

One of our goals is that technology in the classroom should be as invisible as the chalkboard. With Google, the technology is not only invisible, it’s as adaptable and flexible as any tool that has ever been available in a classroom. (CS9)

Invisible technology is a recurring concept in the case studies, often associated with notions of flexibility, adaptability and efficiency. Google for Education is categorized as one such imperceptible technology that will promote more efficient learning: ‘With Google for education tools, students are working more efficiently since technology becomes invisible’ (CS23).

One characteristic of Google that has been identified in previous research is its capacity to blend in and become a necessary, seemingly natural part of everyday life. Moreover, the more Google is used and expands its territory, the more naturalized and less visible it becomes (Vaidhyanathan, 2012; cf. Sundin et al., 2017). Google in a sense fits the paradox identified by media scholars David Bolter and Richard Grusin (1999) of the intimate dependency between immediacy and hypermediacy in late modernity. For Bolter and Grusin, late modern western culture ‘. . . wants both to multiply its media and erase all traces of mediation’ (Bolter and Grusin, 1999: 5). By this they mean that in human interactions with media technologies (often digital technologies) there is a constant desire for the medium itself to disappear. However, in order to make possible such a sense of immediacy, increasingly more technologies are required, a condition they refer to as hypermediacy. Drawing on well-established cultural practices and values in the process of constructing a problem is one expression of ‘intéressement’ (Miller and Rose, 2008; cf. Callon, 1986) in the case studies. The duality of immediacy and hypermediacy is quite present in the texts. Under the heading ‘Invisible technology’ one of the case studies describes the benefits of Google for Education in the following way:

The first thing teachers noticed about the Chromebooks is how fast they boot up. Students simply open the devices at their desks and they’re ready to learn. Whether they’re accessing information online or in Google Classroom, students can seamlessly transition from one to the next without having to re-enter login credentials. ‘Since the process is so seamless and quick, teachers are using technology in their classrooms more often’. (CS61)

The quote exemplifies how the case studies aspire to an intensification of technology use with the aim of making technology blend into the background. The invisibility norm pertains not only to communication but also to how storage of information is described in the case studies. As mentioned at the beginning of the paper, Google for Education is not merely a new set of potentially invisible tools for education but also a cloud-based data storage service that literally moves the artefacts of information storage off site. The local servers previously used get associated with an array of problems, particularly linked to their physical, material presence at the school or campus. Introducing Google for Education is in turn described as a way of using digital technology for reducing costs and saving or reorganizing time in order to become more efficient, as exemplified in the following statement:

‘I needed to re-licence our Exchange server and really didn’t want to invest in a new server and licences that I had to spend a vast amount of time looking after. I read an article on hosted systems and saw a way to free up my time for more valuable projects, such as how to transform the learning experience using technology’. (CS4)

A hierarchy between material and abstract information is in this statement connected to different types of work. Hardware maintenance is something portrayed as less valuable than teaching, which calls for a more clear-cut division between these different activities.

Choosing Google Apps also allowed Wesleyan to redirect in-house UNIX staff to opportunities that went beyond email server maintenance. ‘We needed those people to focus on more important things that would make a real difference on campus – after all, it’s not as if our group was going to design a system that was better than Gmail.’ (CS1)

This hierarchy also refers to classroom activities:

Chromebooks let teachers focus on the curriculum, rather than the distribution of technology. Teachers have seen a paradigm shift – students are learning technology skills at a younger age, so teachers can focus on more advanced content in their lesson plans. ‘By the time students are in middle school, I spend less time teaching them how to make graphs and presentations and more time digging into the data and content’. (CS61)

Work pertaining to digital storage of information stands out as something that demands not only time but also specific knowledge and a well-developed infrastructure. Running through the case study corpus as a whole are thus arguments for a professionalization of hardware maintenance. Underlying this argument is, on the one hand, the hierarchy discussed above that stresses a division of labour. On the other hand, there is also a problematization implying that current digital development in educational practice has reached a certain point where handling the amount of information stored and transferred is first of all a problem, and secondly a problem that requires certain expertise to solve. The solution, turning to Google for Education, is portrayed as a more efficient, secure and rational way of handling information and data.

‘At Boise State, every IT employee is security minded,’ he says, ‘and each staff member consciously implements best security practices. However, we don’t devote any employees solely to securing our technology infrastructure. Google, on the other hand, has entire teams working to ensure security of the infrastructure that houses our data. Whereas Boise State has not pursued data centre security certification, Google has achieved SAS 70 Type II certification of its data centres. In addition, Google provides redundant data centres for critical services such as Gmail. It was easy to make the case that our data was safer “in the cloud” than it could be on campus. The reality is that Google is capable of deploying far more security resources than Boise State.’ (CS63)

In the statement, Google is given an expert position, portrayed as more reliable to be entrusted with local information and data than the university itself. This argument supports a view that the mere size of the Google corporation ensures its trustworthiness and reliability. The assumption that ‘our data was safer “in the cloud”’ could also be interpreted as a way of escaping some of the imagined constraints of the materiality of information and data. When server maintenance is outsourced to Google’s hardware experts, not only the artefacts but also the labour of information storage becomes weightless and invisible in mundane educational activities. The Google for Education tablet directly connected to the cloud contributes to reinforcing this.

‘A lot of time you go to an ICT lab and find that it’s all about the technology when it should be about the teaching. Chromebooks take away this barrier; they are just another tool in the pencil case. This means that teachers concentrate on what they do best – teaching’. (CS4)

Transferring data to the cloud is portrayed as a straightforward and progressive move. To hold on to information locally in a time of cloud computing is described as inefficient and even unreliable. This rhetorical strategy of appealing to reason, combined with invoking a sense of anxiety or even fear, could be seen as another expression of ‘intéressement’ (Miller and Rose, 2008; cf. Callon, 1986). It is an example of how the interests of Google – that is to become the leader in the development of educational digital information infrastructure – are translated into problematizations that the Swedish educational sector can also relate to, such as deficiencies in infrastructure and insufficient knowledge and skills among staff pertaining to information sharing and storage.

The ‘problem’ of communication breakdowns

In most of the stories presented in the case studies, Google for Education is implemented to promote a more efficient information infrastructure for the school or university in question. Typically, the case study narratives start by pointing out the limits of current technical solutions and how they are not keeping pace with contemporary demands and practices of use. The following statement is an illustrative example of this:

With 140 departments and 85 centres, institutes and bureaus, effective electronic communication is essential to manage such a large student body. . . .

Having used Cyrus Mail Store component as its legacy system for all previous student email, with 40 000 accounts, the University found it costly to manage . . .. The service also had limited functionality. Students were restricted by 25MB mailboxes and often relied on independent email addresses instead, meaning bulk email from the university would not reach them. . . .

‘In the age of mobile devices, students expect constant access to information from any location, our existing email simply wasn’t up to the job so we decided to explore online communication and information sharing services from third parties’. (CS18)

In the statement, failing or disrupted communication is identified as one of the main problems caused by the organization’s current, and outdated, information infrastructure. This theme is recurrent in the case studies, in which problems relating to communication – ranging from communication being costly to communication not happening at all – are frequently invoked to legitimize and motivate the move to Google for Education, as in the following statement:

Notre Dame faced a challenge. Its email system was not living up to the reliability standards expected by the campus community, and it did not adequately support its requirements for efficient, dependable communication. Furthermore, its functions stopped at email – and the school wanted a solution for campus-wide calendaring and scheduling. Students were increasingly unsatisfied with on-campus email, and appealed to university leadership for more communications functionality. Gmail was mentioned repeatedly as the preferred choice. (CS12)

In the case above and throughout the texts, ‘efficient, dependable communication’ is repeatedly put forward as a fundamentally important part of the educational practices of our times. Well-functioning communication is linked to efficiency and positive achievements, whereas communication breakdowns are constructed as obstructing organizational development and hampering educational progress. In this way, the case studies invoke what John Durham Peters (1999: 8–9) calls ‘the dream of communication’, that is, the desire for immediacy and undistorted transmission of messages, that he believes to be a prominent feature of our times. According to Durham Peters (Peters, 1999: 1), communication is one of the ‘characteristic concepts of the twentieth century’, put forward as the solution to a wide range of personal and public problems. However, the desire for immediacy and undistorted transmission of messages is of course a practical impossibility to fulfil, from which it follows that contemporary discourses on communication, according to Durham Peters, are characterized by a sense of communication as always breaking down (Peters, 1999). Once again ‘intéressement’ (Miller and Rose, 2008; cf. Callon, 1986) is enacted by drawing on well-established cultural premises and values in the process of constructing a problem.

Although there could be many explanations for communication breakdowns, the case studies reduce this complexity to failures mainly relating to technology and its limitations. The following statement illustrates this argument, where the vision of efficient communication and its positive effects are seen as being held back by unsatisfactory functionality and accessibility of the technology used.

Churston strongly believes in introducing students to digital communication methods, believing this can help engage them, boost interaction with teachers, broaden their learning experience and prepare them for the world of work and further study . . . Churston still had some technical issues with hardware and email communications holding it back from its vision . . .. (CS28)

The statement illustrates how the tensions between the dream and breakdown of communication are expressed in the case studies. As discussed by Sylvère Lotringer and Paul Virilio (2005), such tensions of malfunction and failure are inherent parts, what they call ‘the accidental potential’, of all inventions. In the case study rhetoric, though, Google for Education comes forth as the strange exception that circumvents such failures. The argument running through the case studies is that if technology is the main problem, then technology could also provide the solution.

As the benefits show, Google Apps and Chromebooks have had a transformative effect on the school’s approach to communication . . . By introducing Google Apps and Chromebooks we vastly improved interaction between students, staff and parents. (CS28)

The quote exemplifies how the case studies offer the promise of a bright future where Google and Google for Education represent a technical solution that allows for the ‘dream of communication’ to actually be reached. This echoes what Vaidhyanathan (2012: 55ff.) calls the ‘techno-fundamentalism’ of Google, that is, the belief that advanced information technologies will solve not merely technical issues but most of the problems of human kind. Situating this belief as part of 21st-century North American culture, Vaidhyanathan (2012) points to how Google is both the product of and itself reproduces culturally specific norms and values. Techno-fundamentalism manifests itself in different ways through the case study corpus. This echo of already established norms and values pertaining to technology is an expression of ‘intéressement’ (Miller and Rose, 2008; cf. Callon, 1986) that works by naturalizing the position of Google for Education in educational practices.

The ‘problem’ of fragmentation

This cluster of problems refers to perceived difficulties relating to the use of a multitude of ICT systems, and in particular the problem of staff and students adjusting to new systems, as well as systems adjusting to each other. One of the repeatedly mentioned problems with current technology in the case studies is that of fragmentation and lack of compatibility between different systems. This fragmentation is thought to produce a steeper learning curve and, above all, to disrupt and hinder communication.

Michigan’s schools and colleges operated as autonomous academic units with decentralized infrastructure. Multiple disparate technology systems posed a problem for the IT team, which faced complicated management challenges across different academic units.

In 2010, Michigan conducted an IT study and learned that the schools were using a variety of mail and calendaring systems that provided similar services. These systems were not just redundant – many of them were incompatible with one another.

‘At a decentralized place like Michigan, it’s not uncommon for academic units, particularly those with more resources to pursue new technologies first’ . . . Over the years that tendency had produced a heterogeneous infrastructure.

The IT team at Michigan saw an opportunity to streamline its technology services and introduce a mail, calendar, and documentation solution that allowed for improved collaboration. (CS17)

The statement tells a story of how a heterogeneous network of services has come to organically shape a decentralized information infrastructure. This way of organizing the communication of information through multiple services is not sufficiently efficient and needs to be replaced by a single solution. By also integrating APIs from other companies in the Google for Education service, Google obscures diversity and offers a sense of uniformity. The story told by the case study university echoes a commonly told narrative of Internet history, where an organic multitude is gradually being replaced by monopoly (Hillis, Petit and Jarrett, 2013). One of the leading actors in this narrative is Google, being both a product of the libertarian Do-it-Yourself-Culture characterizing the early commercialization of the web and one of the giants threatening the plurality and decentralization celebrated by this so-called ‘Californian ideology’ (Hillis, Petit and Jarrett, 2013). In the case studies, the libertarian ideas are more present in statements about education and classroom activities than in statements about technological development. The latter statements rather resonate a cautious tone towards organic information infrastructures and the fragmentation that may follow, which is suggested to cause inefficient administration and disrupt information sharing and communication.

People across the university used multiple tools for their calendars, email, and file storage, hindering efforts to work together, schedule meetings, and share information. Many of these tools were also outdated, expensive and difficult to use. . . . the university needed a single solution that could help foster collaboration instead of hinder it. (CS2)

The solution to the problems, that is introducing Google for Education, will foster efficient administration and seamless communication through the use of a single service, in which Google is the curator of the diversity of the Internet.

Abandoning multiplicity in favour of a single service also indicates a certain amount of trust in that particular service. The uncritical faith most people have in Google and how its smoothness and ease of use tend to crowd out potentially better alternatives have been noted in previous research (Vaidhyanathan, 2012; Sundin and Carlsson, 2016; Lindh and Nolin, 2016; Noble, 2018). It is possible to talk about a lock-out effect that is further reinforced by the important role Google has come to play in most peoples’ daily lives (Vaidhyanathan, 2012; Sundin et al., 2017; Noble, 2018). Senses of trust and familiarity are repeatedly invoked in the case studies, particularly in statements explaining why Google for Education was introduced. One school decided to ‘roll out Google apps for education to all teachers and students because of how well Google’s services were already working’ (CS30). Another school points to the ease of introducing Google for Education quickly and smoothly since ‘students were already familiar with Google.com and Gmail’ (CS32). The most telling argument for Google for Education is perhaps how ‘[f]or the majority of our students, using Google Apps wasn’t a big adjustment. It was more like coming back to the norm’ (CS1). In this rhetoric no ‘intéressement’ (Miller and Rose, 2008; cf. Callon, 1986) is needed, rather the strategy is to make use of alliances that have already been established between Google and the wide range of actors using the service.

Arguments for using Chromebooks are also signs of how well Google is trusted. One school argues for Chromebooks as the given next step:

Google Apps had already proved its worth as an extremely engaging and simple learning tool. As it is hosted entirely online, the Chromebooks are the perfect partner for it. (CS49)

The Chromebook is a laptop with no hard drive, which means that information instead is stored online, in the Google cloud. The case studies talk about how diverse types of information now are being entrusted to Google’s servers, ranging from student work and lesson planning to financial information. As previously shown, moving to Google for Education and to the cloud is even described as a more secure and reliable form of storage than previous services. Still, the most often repeated argument for using Google for Education as a single service is staff and students’ familiarity with Google, its supposed ease of use and endorsement of efficient communication. As noted in one case study, ‘[f]or many students, Google technology was already at the heart of their social and academic lives, so it was the obvious route to take’ (CS15).

The ‘problem’ of fixed time and space

Another complex of problems, articulated throughout the case studies, are problems of fixed time and space. These denote difficulties, described in the case studies, that arise when educational practices are bound to be performed at a specific time, in a particular place and space. These difficulties have in common that they in one way or another are connected to a perceived lack of flexibility for teachers, pupils or students. The affordances of Google for Education will provide a solution to the problem. One difficulty relates to digital technology being bound to a particular place, usually a computer lab. Several case studies connect the introduction of Google for Education to a shift in educational practice whereby the role of digital technology has transformed from something occasionally used and situated outside of the classroom, to something always present and integrated into daily learning activities. The following quote is an illustrative example of how the problem is defined and how and in what ways Google for Education is presented as the solution:

Wilson School District could see that a technology transformation was on the horizon. Minimally used computer labs with archaic desktops running old programs, and staff who relied heavily on Microsoft Office software, appeared the norm. Students, educators, and parents were starting to question available technology resources.

. . .

Teachers wanted to take classroom learning to a higher level, and began requesting new technology, such as tablets and laptops, for each student.

. . .

‘The ease of use, collaborative tools and intuitive nature made the response for the Chromebooks overwhelming. Google Apps for Education can be used by anyone at any time from any location on any device’. (CS60)

In the quote, the shift implied is a transformation from a situation where the use of technology is fixed – invoked by the signs ‘desktop’ and ‘computer labs’, which in this context connote immobility – to a new, more flexible solution where digital technology is always at hand and always accessible. The sign ‘archaic’ in turn invokes images of dusty and empty computer halls in a forgotten part of the school. In this sense, the quote also offers a, for the case studies, typical description of the technology status before introducing Google for Education, as further exemplified here:

Before using Chromebooks we had some old computers (45) pieces with a unit and screen, located in two laboratories. Being much older than what the pupils had at home,

. . .

the computer classes were held in a laboratory using a simple projector. . . . Projects were created and saved on old computers . . . Now everybody is creating and working with documents stored on Google Drive, and the students are satisfied with the fact that they can access information from everywhere, which gives them autonomy in their assigned homework. (CS69)

The lack of flexibility for both teachers and pupils associated with the old technical solution is contrasted with the autonomy Google for Education will provide when access to information is no longer bound to particular artefacts situated in a particular place. However, it is not merely the desktops and computer labs that Google for Education is thought to replace. Although not present throughout the case studies, there are many instances where Google for Education is put forward as a ‘shift from paper-based to digital education’ (CS44). Proud exclamations of how the school in question has adapted to 21st-century learning by no longer being ‘a paper and pencil institution’ (CS50) are also present. Talk about the paperless classroom is usually put under the headline ‘Benefits’, put forward as being more cost efficient, flexible and even more environment friendly:

Teachers and students no longer have to print thousands of pages of paper every year. They’re saving money on paper, printers and ink and are decreasing their footprint on the environment with Google Apps for Education. (CS19)

Turning paper into a problem is a very clear expression of a problematization taking place in the case studies. Paper is continuously described as an onerous technology, characterized by limitations of all sorts, not merely in terms of being costly and inefficient, but also as being physically and bodily challenging, e.g. ‘Teachers carried around large, cumbersome binders containing their curriculum, and needed to print out and replace them regularly’ (CS45).

Introducing Google for Education is articulated as a way of circumventing the constructed problems of labour and limitations associated with paper technologies. When material limitations of digital technology are discussed, for instance obvious ones like weight or battery life of the Chromebooks, they are connected to signs that connote mobility and ease, as in the following quote:

Another key advantage to the Chromebook for Paganel is their portability. They weigh just over three pounds and easily fit into a backpack, with battery life up to eight hours, so students can carry them outside the classroom when needed. (CS49)

‘Portability’, ‘backpack’, ‘carry’ are all signs that connote flexibility and contribute to creating a sense of Google for Education as not being bound to either a particular place or a particular person, something that also will have positive effects on student work.

Before we had Chromebooks, a group project would often involve small groups of students working together on one piece of paper, with one of them acting as writer. With the Chromebook the ‘pencil’ is in everyone’s hands at the same time, meaning each student gets a chance to feed in and collaborate . . .. (CS41)

Once again, there is a tendency in the texts to refer to the materiality of information as a constraint and a problem, also in terms of the effects on the environment, when it is associated with preceding or competing technologies. When addressing Google for Education, materiality is most often left unmentioned or concealed, which also helps obscure the massive environmental footprint left by extracting rare metals or cooling the distant server farms, which is needed for Google for Education to work. However, unlike the thousands of papers being printed, this is taking place far away and out of sight of blissfully unaware teachers and students.

The Chromebooks offer yet another solution to the problem of visible technology. Rather than moving the information artefacts out of sight, the solution to the problem of time- and space-fixation is to make these artefacts always present. This does not necessarily mean, though, that the artefacts become more visible. Moving a lesson to a computer lab sends out signals that this is a particular event and something considered to be outside ordinary teaching and learning activities. The use of digital technology, then, is merely required on specific occasions and requires planning, scheduling and an interruption of everyday routines, which puts the spotlight on this event and on the technology used. The artefacts become visible. The continuous presence and the integration of Google for Education in everyday routines, on the other hand, hides the information artefacts in a way that better corresponds with the desire for invisibility present throughout the case studies.

It corresponds with another shift articulated in the case studies whereby digital technology in education is becoming increasingly individualized, personalized and customized. This development, supported by the services of Google for Education, feeds into Google’s business model of extracting human behaviour online as raw material for profit through, for example, advertisement (Zuboff, 2019). Rather than sharing computers placed in a specific classroom, all students should have access to their own personal devices. In the texts, this shift often gets connected to societal changes, putting new demands on students to be trained and able to use digital technology. This expression of ‘intéressement’ also includes the identification of a changed pedagogical responsibility for the school to ensure that pupils get suitable instruction, which requires both regular access to and frequent use of updated tools.

In today’s digital world, students are expected to be proficient in technology; however, many schools and classrooms are ill-equipped to provide the resources to help students achieve this. Hartford High School was no exception. With internet connectivity available only in the computer lab and a limited number of lap-tops and computers, students had sporadic access to technology for day-to-day assignments at school. When [name of teacher] started teaching his Digital History Course, he wanted to change that and provide technology to each one of his students. (CS10)

A general response to the calls for personal devices has been the 1to1 computing initiative or programme, which the case studies frequently refer to. The commercial strategy of Google for Education seems to be to tap into this initiative, by providing a tailored technical solution that fits the demands of the educational sector.

Google apps for education played a critical role in moving Georgetown toward the goal of their technology transformation – creating a connected learning and working environment – spanning the classroom, library, dorm, or office. With Google drive, files are at busy student’s fingertips. They can attend virtual office hours on Google Hangouts and work group projects entirely through Google drive. (CS2)

The quote exemplifies the norm of availability and unlimited access that runs through the case studies. This norm encompasses not only digital technology but also people, in particular students and pupils: ‘If they [teachers] want to log in at night to see a student’s progress, they can. Collaboration never goes to bed’ (CS46). Such possibilities of surveillance make excuses for failing scarce. What becomes visible in the case studies is that Google and Google for Education promote certain types of teaching and learning, from which follows also the promotion of certain qualities in students and pupils. One of those modes of teaching focuses on the supposed benefits of collaboration.

‘Google Classroom has made a real difference to both lecturers and students’ . . . ‘It saves me a great deal of time and has made me think about approaching my teaching differently because of the collaborative potential.’ Teachers who have worked at the college for 20 years say they’ve seen more collaboration and innovative ideas emerge in the past two years than in their entire tenure. (CS19)

Collaboration is not merely portrayed as positive among teachers but also held up as a method for learning that is thought to induce, among other things, innovation and creativity among students and pupils.

One of the biggest advantages of the Chromebook is the ability to work cooperatively and share documents. Students no longer lose their work, because it’s safely stored in the cloud, and have shown a remarkable commitment to working together, accepting responsibility for their own learning and showing a great deal of creativity and initiative. (CS68)

Collaboration, creativity and innovation are phenomena and qualities that are continuously endorsed and encouraged throughout the analysed texts. These are practices and values that are praised and pursued in most parts of contemporary capitalist society and referring to them can be understood as a rhetorical strategy to convey a commercial message. These are also practices and values that are said to characterize the corporate culture of Google, built on norms of ‘network, communicating and sharing ideas’ (Auletta, 2009: 13, cited in Hillis, Petit and Jarrett, 2013). Google for Education enables and accentuates these norms in the classroom and, in this way, reinforces certain ways of teaching and learning while suppressing others. The consequences thereof will be further discussed below.

Discussion

The first aim of this paper was to make visible underlying norms, values and assumptions pertaining to education that Google for Education embodies and potentially reproduces when entering educational practices and settings. The analytical strategy for reaching this aim was problem-driven text analysis. As this analysis has shown, certain aspects of digital technology in education are constructed as problems in the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education. In the case studies, a set of recurring strategies are used to form alliances with the intended receiver of the message, in order to create a mutual recognition of these aspects as indeed being problems in need of solving. Returning to the case of Sweden, one of the strategies of ‘intéressement’ is to mirror some problems the educational sector has experienced when seeking to reach the objectives of digital policy, problems such as fragmentation, communication breakdowns and issues of insufficient information infrastructure. In the texts, Google for Education becomes the solution to challenges posed to education by the digital transformation of society. The commercial strategy of Google for Education seems to be to support or even push the digital transition of the educational sector in Sweden, for instance by tapping into the popular 1to1 initiative, with a tailored technical solution that promises to make this transition frictionless and easy. It also supports Google’s business model of profiting from mining human experience online (Zuboff, 2019). It is argued in this paper that Google for Education bridges a gap between the visions of Swedish digital policy and the infrastructural realities of practice, by both constructing and offering solutions to problems that may or may not have yet been identified by the educational sector in Sweden.

To support the strained Swedish public sector with affordable and flexible tools that assist in meeting the new demands of digital society and education is a commendable initiative. However, what is left unproblematic is how Google for Education is not a passive response to challenges of digital society but plays an active part in moulding the information infrastructure of present as well as future education (see Noble, 2018). The extended use and presence of Google for Education in Swedish classrooms contribute to shaping expectations for education in a digital society. As Google becomes increasingly entangled in educational practice, schools and students potentially become even more dependent on Google’s services as an information infrastructure for teaching and learning, which reinforces the company’s already dominant position in the Swedish informational landscape. Given the often-blurring boundaries between in-school and out-of-school activities the same applies to the routines and activities of Swedish students’ everyday life (Andersson, 2017; Sundin et al., 2017), which is further accentuated by the ideal of limitless accessibility and constant connection, clearly articulated in the case studies.

Another strategy of ‘intéressement’, which arguably reinforces the rationale for Swedish schools and universities to accept Google for Education, is to build the argument for this new service on norms and views of information and digital technology well-established in western culture. Several problematizations, for which Google for Education is constructed as a solution, concern situations when information infrastructures in education become visible or tangible. As pointed out by Geoffrey Bowker and colleagues (Bowker et al., 2010: 98), an information infrastructure is usually something invisible and taken for granted. Despite its pervasiveness, it is more often the spaces, practices and associated social dimensions that the infrastructure enables and forms part of that are experienced and thus recognized. The arguments for Google for Education follow a similar logic of invisible versus visible infrastructural dimensions. However, in the case studies, this logic is not merely something that organically has come to be, but is rather actively sought and reinforced. The shift from pencil to Chromebooks should be as imperceptible as the information technologies themselves, and tedious questions of storing the ever-growing wealth of information can conveniently and safely be left to Google. For small Swedish municipalities with limited resources and lacking tech-savvy staff, and for teachers wanting in digital literacy, such a solution is of course convenient and appealing. Replacing local hard drives and servers with Google’s distant server farms and abandoning paper and pencil for Google docs are manoeuvres that make the information infrastructure and the material dimensions of information, including questions of ownership and power relations, less present and thus more easily forgettable. The rhetorical strategy of using spatially dispersed case study examples to communicate with a Swedish audience also suggests a wish to erase educational context in a traditional sense. The cloud-metaphor further adds to this separation between information and materiality by invoking a sense of immateriality and weightlessness in relation to information. A hierarchy between the server and the cloud, the material and abstract, is present in the case studies, very similar to what Katherine Hayles (1999: 12) identifies as the information/materiality hierarchy present in classic information theory and cybernetics. In How We Became Posthuman Hayles describes the historical takes and turns that made information lose its body and become imagined as an abstract, a substance freed from material constraints (cf. Frohmann, 2004; Day, 2001). The case studies implicitly draw on these culturally established imaginings and hierarchies pertaining to information, digital technology and materiality, further exemplified by the ‘dream of communication’, put forward by Durham Peters (1999), and the norm of immediacy discussed by Bolter and Grusin (1999). Constructing problems around recognizable norms and values in turn forms an important part of constructing the shift to Google for Education as a natural step forward, an argument that underlies the commercial agenda of the case studies. This argument also ties neatly into Swedish digital policy, which is coloured by similar notions of technological optimism and progress (see Swedish Government, 2020).

Whereas the material dimensions of information are hidden in distant server farms or disembodied through the cloud-metaphor, the new spaces for teaching and learning that Google for Education seeks to create are exceedingly visible and present throughout the texts. In this sense context is not erased but reconfigured into Google’s global classroom. In many instances, these spaces are described as abstract arenas where time and sense of place have little or no significance and where values associated with the post-Fordist mode of production, such as efficiency, flexibility and availability (cf. Harvey, 1989) are endorsed and promoted. These values are equally ideologically laden with the Silicon Valley culture of innovation, experimentation, venture capital and risk-taking that set the scene for the rise of the information and communication industries to become the powerful social force they are today, a development that concurrently is crowned by the rise of Google (Castells, 2009). To answer the first research question – concerning what ways of talking, thinking about and doing education the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education promotes – flexibility, creativity, availability and innovative skills are all frequent terms used in the case studies to describe the norms, values and goals to be reached in contemporary education. These are also concepts used to describe the flexible creative work force and ‘cool’ workplace culture of Google, concepts that correspond well with the demands and characteristics of the ‘global, informational, network capitalism’ that Google is both a product of and, according to several researchers (Mager, 2012: 774; cf. Fuchs, 2010; Noble, 2018), indeed reproduces. Vaidhyanathan (2012) points to the soft power executed by Google, not just over content but also over people’s expectations when using the web. In the case studies ‘the Google way’ is extended to inform a whole range of practices, from storing data to perceptions of what and where digital technology should be and what it should bring about in education. As explained in one of the case studies: ‘We continually focus on embedding the culture of technology in learning, and Google is a key partner in this’ . . .. (CS3).

Conclusion

The second aim of this paper is to contribute to a critical discussion of the potential material, social and cultural implications of allowing major commercial players, such as Google, to take the lead in the development and digitization of educational information infrastructure. Using Sweden as an example, Google for Education positions itself as a much-needed bridge, in the shape of digital information infrastructure, between digital policy and educational practice. As does any infrastructure, Google for Education blends into the background and becomes almost invisible. However, this does not imply that the technology is in any way neutral. Instead its invisibility hides the norms, values and the relationships that the infrastructure is based on and reproduces. Google for Education is far from simply a practical solution to a set of expensive and urgent problems. The technology is a both product of and reproduces values, perceptions and practices of late capitalism, reflected in the modes of teaching and learning it facilitates (see Mager, 2012). Google dominates through habit, culture and the naturalization of certain norms and values, from which it follows that certain ways of thinking and living become ‘common sense’ and unquestioned, concealing their cultural and ideological underpinnings (see Noble, 2018). If Google for Education is uncritically embraced and implemented in Swedish schools, as shown in previous research (Lindh and Nolin, 2016), the findings of the present study point to how the material, social and cultural implications may be that Swedish pupils run the risk of never facing alternatives to the biased Google way of handling information and data, the raw material of our time. This does not have to be the case – resistance, critique and renegotiations are available options, and may open up alternative paths to how the digital future of education may unfold. However, uncritically embracing Google as the information infrastructure of education is to silently hand over power to one actor, which closes doors to alternative paths of doing and knowing in education. Hopefully, these doors will continue to stay open in Sweden and elsewhere.