Figure and ground are analytical concepts used to discuss how some elements of a lived situation dominate perception, while others remain in the background. This applies not least to media and research from the medium theoretical tradition as well as later scholarship on media infrastructures, which have been keen to explore the taken for granted or invisible aspects of the media landscape. In media education, however, there is still a tendency to focus on the figure of digital media by treating media technologies as tools or to focus on the critical evaluation of media content. This article draws on McLuhan’s co-authored textbook City as Classroom to suggest a pedagogical turn towards the ground of the internet. Based on concrete examples from middle school digital citizenship education, the article shows how a focus on the ground of digitalization actualizes topics such as environmental concerns, global inequalities and data privacy. These topics are conceptualized and discussed through the environmental/spatial metaphors clouds, exhaust and architecture.

Digital conversation spaces have the potential to generate powerful collective intelligence, but only when users are thoughtful, reflective, and have experience interacting with diverse ideas. To be able to engage in online conversational spaces in this way, though, is not inherent or natural: it must be practiced. This article will argue that it is essential to have adolescents practice engaging in challenging and professional conversations online with peers in classroom settings. Utilizing a New Media Literacy framework, this article will share impactful classroom practices that help adolescents develop effective online conversation skills. Essential to this pedagogy is a cycle of reflection, where students are asked to revisit their contributions to prior digital conversations and consider the impact that that prior contribution had on the conversation and the community. Asking students to reflect not on how to be kind (as most fear-based "digital citizenship" curriculum does) but rather on how contributions inform, persuade, and otherwise move the conversation forward, helps adolescents to develop a powerful online conversational presence.

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