176 Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies Let./Vol. 71 (137)
 Št./No. 4/2020
 Str. /pp. 176–189
ISSN 0038 0474 Petar Jandrić
The Postdigital Challenge  
of Pandemic Education
Abstract: This paper briefly introduces key theoretical underpinnings of the postdigital perspective. 
Based on synthesis of 56 articles on the Covid-19 pandemic published in Postdigital Science and Edu-
cation, 2, issue 3, and a selection of related articles, it distils the main themes, problems, approaches, 
and solutions identified in postdigital literature. The paper classifies identified themes into three large 
groups: lived experiences and their responses, politics, and philosophy . It identifies connections between 
research in these different, often incommensurable areas, and points towards postdigital and postdi-
sciplinary nature of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper brings these insights together in the concept 
of viral modernity, explores its theoretical and practical limitations, and develops recommendations 
for postdigital research in the age of Covid-19. It concludes that it is our duty as educators to move 
beyond edu-techno-problems and edu-tecno-fixes characteristic for mainstream journals and research 
approaches, and to address human problems in their entirety.
Keywords: postdigital, viral modernity, Covid-19, pandemic, research, science, education
UDC: 37.01
Scientific article
Petar Jandrić, PhD., professor, Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, Vrbnik 8, 10000 Zagreb,  
Croatia; University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna St, Wolverhampton WV1 1LY, United Kingdom;  
e-mail: pjandric@tvz.hr

 Jandrić177
Introduction 
Since the World Health Organization (2020) reported the first official case of 
the Covid-19 disease in Wuhan on 31 December 2019, the world has entered into 
a »war against the pandemic« (Wagener 2020). Countries, politicians, and even 
epidemiologists, have advocated radically different responses from full lockdown 
to herd immunity . Researchers have immediately started working on a wide-range 
of Covid-19-related problems in medicine, physics, chemistry, social sciences, hu-
manities, and the arts. Academic publishers opened up their paywalled journals 
to Covid-19-related research (Wellcome Trust 2020). It is still uncertain which 
epidemiological response to the pandemic will yield satisfactory long-term results 
(Gibney 2020), whether science will be able to develop an effective vaccine, whether 
the »utopian dream« of open journal access will permanently remain (Crowe 2020), 
or, indeed, how the newly reconfigured world will look. However, it is certain that 
»[p]ostdigital researchers should read, research, and write about all imaginable 
aspects of Covid-19!—even if that research, at present, does not seem to offer much 
help in getting us through and over the pandemic« (Jandrić 2020 a, p. 236). This
was the starting point for an extensive research effort, both in size and scope, that I 
recently supported as Editor-in-Chief of Postdigital Science and Education (2020).
1
  Following my urgent editorial, Postdigital Research in the Time of Covid-19, 
on 21 March 2020 (Jandrić 2020 a) I published a call for papers entitledThe Day 
After Covid-19 and invited responses to the Covid-19 pandemic—full-length art-
icles, commentaries, testimonies, and reviews. I conducted my own research, while 
closely monitoring the efforts of fellow researchers. The Covid-19-themed issue of 
Postdigital Science and Education has just been published and I feel a strong urge 
to provide a sense of our extensive collective efforts over the last nine months. In 
a cluttered research space where no-one has enough time to read all publications, 
a synthesis of research contributions in the field—even an incomplete one—could 
be highly bene ficial to resea rch efforts to come (see Jandrić 2020 a; P eters et al.
2020a;P eterset.al2020b).
1
 The issue in question, Postdigital Science and Education, 2, issue 3.

178  Sodobnapedagogika/Journal ofContemporaryEducationalStud ies Jandrić
The first part of this article introduces the main theoretical underpinnings 
of postdigital research. The second section distils themes, approaches, problems, 
and solutions relating to the Covid-19 pandemic. The third part brings these in-
sights together to conceptualise viral modernity and provide recommendations for 
postdigital educational research in the future.
The postdigital condition
The concept of the »postdigital« was first described in artistic circles around 
the turn of the millennium. In works such as Kim Cascone’s (2000) article The 
aesthetics of failure: ‘post-digital’ tendencies in contemporary computer music, early 
postdigital authors attempted to explain the complex interplay between digital 
and analogue aspects of the contemporary human condition. In 2018, a group of 
researchers and introduced the concept into social sciences and humanities. We 
published our mission statement article, Postdigital Science and Education (Jandrić 
et al. 2018), and soon after we started Postdigital Science and Education and a book 
series.
2
 So, what is the concept of the postdigital and why is it relevant?
The first sentence in the mission statement article states: »We are increasingly 
no longer in a world where digital technology and media is separate, virtual, ‘other’ 
to a ‘natural’ human and social life« (Jandrić et al. 2018, p. 893). As I write this
article, my biological body engages with digital bits and bytes on my screen. After 
I finish writing, these bits and bytes will embark on digital highways from Zagreb 
destined for inboxes of human editors of Sodobna Pedagogika in Ljubljana. During 
the process of publication, the bits and bytes of this digital article will encounter 
numerous other people including reviewers, proofreaders, and production managers. 
En route between these people, the article will pass through various computing 
machines and software (e.g. routers, switches, wires, word processors, plagiarism 
detectors, graphic design programmes, web publishing programmes, etc.).
Once the article is published, its readers—human beings—will engage with 
the digital text stemming from multiple interactions between the digital and the 
analogue. However, there are other entities, such as automated bots and indexing 
services, that will also »read« this article. Based on their »readings«, these entities 
will classify and index the article before placing it in databases such as Google 
Scholar or Scopus. One may ask, Who cares whether this article is read by bots? 
People care about these automated digital readings, because they have direct human 
consequences. For instance, an article’s positioning in Google Scholar or Scopus 
determines its visibility in search engines, increasing its visibility to human readers 
and citations. Naturally, most authors want their work to reach as many human 
readers as possible. In today’s neoliberal academia, quantitative measures such as 
the number of quotes strongly influence an academic author’s job prospects. 
2
 More about this you can read on webside: https://www.springer.com/journal/42438 (journal) and 
https://www.springer.com/series/16439 (book series).

     179 The Postdigital Challenge of Pandemic Education  
In our postdigital condition, my work (as a human author) is just as important 
as the work of non-human entities (such as academic databases and bots) which 
classify my work. This relationship between human and non-human actors in 
production and publication of academic work can easily be generalised to various 
aspects of the contemporary human condition (see Knox 2019). In our postdigital 
age it becomes ever more difficult to determine where the human ends and where 
the digital begins. 
Developing this thought further , my collaborators and I wrote: »The postdigital 
is hard to define; messy; unpredictable; digital and analogue; technological and 
non-technological; biological and informational. The postdigital is both a rupture
inourexistingtheoriesandtheircontinuation« (Jandrićetal.2018,p.895).This
statement has already been unpacked so many times (e.g. Jandrić et al. 2018 b;
F awns 2019; P eters and Besley 2019; Sinclair and Hayes 2019) that I do not feel
like repeating the same thoughts over again. Yet I do want to stress the rupture 
and continuation aspect of the definition. The postdigital community is aware that 
the world does not begin with our own ideas. As an academic author, I understand 
that my words and ideas in this article are not just mine: they are an amalgam of 
all encounters with colleagues, friends, and people known and unknown that have 
passed through my professional and personal life (Mañero 2020). The postdigital 
condition carries a lot of baggage (continuation) and also dares to introduce new 
theoretical and practical ruptures. It is within this concept of rupture and continu-
ation, that the postdigital community develops philosophy, praxis, and language 
suitable for researching today’s human condition. 
Covid-19 research: themes and perspectives 
Themes and perspectives presented in this section are distilled from 56 art-
icles published in Postdigital Science and Education 2, issue 3, and a selection of 
related publications. 
 
Lived experiences and their responses
At the beginning of the pandemic, many researchers and academic editors had 
the same impulse: to collect lived, real-time experiences of teachers and students, 
and their responses to these experiences. In Postdigital Science and Education, these 
efforts have resulted in a range of publications about teacher experiences (Jandrić
et al. 2020; Czerniewicz et al. 2020), student experiences (P eters et al. 2020 a),  
and response articles with practical recommendations for coping in pandemic 
times (R apanta et al. 2020; Green et al. 2020; Blume 2020; K ertcher and Turin
2020). Postdigital Science and Education is hardly unique in these efforts, and 
worldwide journals of education now often publish similar articles and dedicated 
issues. Frequently this research points towards distinctions between practice (i.e., 
current emergency remote learning) (Hodges at el. 2020) and »proper«, theoret-

180  Sodobnapedagogika/Journal ofContemporaryEducationalStud ies Jandrić
ically founded and meticulously prepared, distance learning. What can be learnt 
from these research efforts? 
First, these articles build an important »history of the present« (Jandrić and
Hayes 2020). It is only through comprehensive understanding of current conditions 
that we can improve them, so global pandemic-related research is hugely important 
for educational theory, policy, and practice. Second, these articles establish a dia-
logue between teachers, learners, administrators, policy makers, and wider com-
munities. Educational systems are integral to their surroundings, and challenges 
facing schools and universities both reflect, and significantly impact, society as 
a whole. Third, these articles serve as powerful reminders of the socioeconomic 
conditions of teachers and learners. For instance, our collection of 81 textual testi-
monies and 80 workspace photographs submitted by 84 authors from 19 countries 
entitled Teaching in the Age of Covid-19 clearly indicates that, within pandemic 
circumstances, the pre-pandemic social class imbalances have become even more 
pronounced (Jandrić et al. 2020). T eaching and learning from spacious home offices 
is much easier than teaching and learning from cramped flats. Individuals with no 
children or grown-up children are advantaged over those who must care for their 
young and elderly . White people have it better than people of colour (Chang 2020);
men have it better than women (Hurley 2020).
W e also witness the return of the »digital divide« (see Jandrić and K uzmanić
2017), as lockdowns have exposed stark inequalities in access to the Internet, di-
gital devices, and even electricity (Czerniewicz et al. 2020). National policies also 
matter. Germany , where strict legislation had forbidden the use many online tools, 
has opened up to employing more digital options during lockdowns (Kerres 2020). 
But this legislation had been developed for a good purpose. Supporting teachers 
and students into using any suitable technology opens up numerous concerns about 
privacy , security , and ownership of data (Kerres 2020). Failure to seriously consider 
these concerns could be very dangerous (Teräs et al. 2020), especially in relation to 
understanding and practice of democracy (Carr 2020). Worldwide education systems 
are responding to pandemic challenges in various ways, yet their early responses 
havebeenrushedandoftennon-systematic(ZhuandLiu2020;K erres2020).
Politics 
Lived experiences of the pandemic cannot be divorced from politics. In the 
20
th
 century , relationships between education and politics have been in the focus of 
the critical pedagogy movement based on the works of people such as Paulo Freire, 
Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, bel hooks, Paul Willis, Shirley Steinberg, and others. 
Critical pedagogy is theoretically well-established but far from mainstreamed in 
educational policy and practice. Actually , its main underpinnings including but not 
limited to the crucial role of education in matters of social justice and democracy , and 
its active struggle against sexism, racism, and other forms of systemic inequality, 
have been tamed by decades of neoliberalisation of global education. 

     181 The Postdigital Challenge of Pandemic Education  
During the past few decades, we have witnessed an increasing shift towards 
the understanding of education as a commodity that can be sold and bought in 
the marketplace (P eters and Jandrić 2018). Such commodification goes beyond 
teaching and learning and reaches all the way to connected »industries« such as 
academic publishing. Consequently, access to the world’s knowledge is controlled 
by for-profit corporations and inaccessible to many (Jandrić and Hayes 2019). Stu-
dents’ and teachers’ lived experiences clearly indicate that the Covid-19 pandemic 
has only exacerbated these problems. While the pandemic has surely caused some 
previously unseen challenges such as psychological and social effects of social dis-
tancing (Sapon-Shevin and SooHoo 2020), many educational problems exposed by 
thepandemichaveexistedforalongtime(seeJandrić2020b).
Reported experiences of the pandemic, as well as many responses to these 
experiences, indicate that messages of critical pedagogy, postmodern theory, fem-
inist theory, postcolonial theory, queer theory, and others need to be taken more 
seriously . In A frica (Czerniewicz et al. 2020) and India (Jandrić et al. 2020), amongst 
other countries, preparing for the next pandemic does not just consist of introdu-
cing new online learning systems. In many cases, it also implies making sure that 
learners have access to broad infrastructure including electricity, running water, 
computers, and Internet connection. This leads to an uncomfortable, but necessary 
conclusion that many critiques of education during the pandemic converge into 
a critique of capitalism. Similar arguments have been put forward for decades by 
members of the critical pedagogy movement and also scholars working in other 
fields (see McLaren and Jandrić 2020). The Covid-19 pandemic necessitates that
we take these arguments much more seriously. 
Due to their frequency in recent Covid-19-related research, two aspects of pan-
demic politics require special attention: fake news and post-truth, and the question 
of the environment. In her work on the negative epistemic postdigital inculcation 
Jennifer Rose writes: »While pandemics and fake news are not new phenomena, 
an unprecedented time in history is presently unfolding when considered with the 
postdigital era [...] Consequently, the ability of humans to discern between fact 
and fiction diminishes. It has resulted in some people making life-ending decisions 
based on their exposure to fake news.« (Rose 2020, p. 814)
Rose makes an important point. Fake news about the latest scandal in Buck-
ingham Palace may be inconvenient, but fake news about possible dangers associ-
ated with Covid-19, and post-truth environment in which it becomes increasingly 
difficult to understand dangers of Covid-19, can literally take human lives. A 
recent example took place in April 2020, when American president Donald Trump 
suggested injecting disinfectant as a potential treatment for Covid-19. Following 
his suggestion, several Americans ended up in hospital because they injected lethal 
chemicals into their bodies (Reimann 2020). Other fake news, perhaps more con-
vincing but still fabricated, could harm many more people.
Perusing the fog of post-truth claims about the coronavirus indicates that 
scientists have reached a consensus about the origin of SARS-CoV-2: it was most 
likely transferred to humans from wild animals such as bats or pangolins (O’Sullivan 
2020). This brings about inseparability of the Covid-19 pandemic (together with 

182  Sodobnapedagogika/Journal ofContemporaryEducationalStud ies Jandrić
many smaller epidemics of the last century , such as avian flu) with human dietary 
customs and modes of meat production. This is why postdigital studies on the 
Covid-19 pandemic call for the development of »an ecology of practices that might 
facilitate re-imagining our relationship with non-human animals« (O’Sullivan 2020, 
p. 594). Analysing Freud’s (1961) typology of the main sources of human misery 
and suffering, Juha Suoranta writes: »In the context of Covid-19, Freud’s typology 
is irretrievably outdated if read dichotomously (human beings here, nature there), 
or fragmentally (as if different entities of the world did not form a whole). In the 
global world of mercurial flows and relations (of viruses, human beings, digital bits, 
material artifacts, and particles), approaches based on fragmentation are unable 
to describe the whole accurately (Peters 2020). As Morse (1993: viii) remarks, al-
though viruses are biological of origin when »the host is human, social factors can 
play a very significant role in both dissemination and expression of disease. On a 
larger scale, many epidemics can be understood only in their ecological context.« 
(Suoranta 2020, p. 538-539)
Lived experiences and responses to the pandemic cannot be divorced from 
larger issues pertaining to collective human decision-making. However, politics 
is not just about deciding how to pick a best strategy for resolving the Covid-19 
(or any other) crisis, because our understanding of what makes a good strategy 
is deeply embedded in philosophical questions such as »What makes a good life?« 
and »What kind of life is worth living?« It is with this understanding, that many 
authors writing about Covid-19 have turned to philosophy. 
Philosophy
Epidemics and pandemics have always been intrinsic to human race; Covid-19 
is merely their latest manifestation. We see our current experience as special only 
because this is the first pandemic in our lifetimes (Jandr ić 2020 c). Thusly , philo-
sophy has an important role in merging our particular experiences with fundamental 
questions such as postdigital nature of contemporary human condition.   
Immediate philosophical responses to the Covid-19 pandemic begin at the inter-
sections of biology and politics, which have acquired their most famous formulation 
in Michel Foucault’s works on biopolitics. Biopolitics refers to the administration 
of life and human populations into a specific economic and political order. In a 
recent analysis, Michael Peters adds the important dimension of bioinformation 
to Foucault’s theory. 
An aspect of this paradigm that is missing from Foucault’s analysis—he died 
before the genomics revolution got under way—is bioinformation, and the bioinform-
ational paradigm where these two forces of new biology and information coalesce, 
overlap, and intermingle in the logic that drives bioinformatics and bioinforma-
tional capitalism that is self-renewing in the sense that it can change and renew 
the material basis for life and capital as well as program itself (Peters 2020, p. 559).
In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, philosophers including Giorgio 
Agamben, Jea n Luc Nancy , Slavoj Žižek, and others, focus on the more practical

     183 The Postdigital Challenge of Pandemic Education  
questions of governmentality (see Foucault et al. 2020). Their central questions 
relate to early government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and whether central 
governments, such as the Chinese Communist Party , or open markets, such as the 
United States, are more rational or more efficient forms of government.
During the pandemic, philosophers also pay significant attention to the notion 
of risk, which Mark Coeckelbergh (2020, p. 549) refers to as »the lived and active 
relation we have to the world, an openness to the world that puts us at risk and 
makes us vulnerable«. According to Coeckelbergh (2020, p. 549), »[t]echnologies 
shape, transform, and mediate this ‘being-at-risk’; that is, they shape our vulnerab-
ility and risk as lived and enacted risk that is neither purely subjective nor purely 
objective. From a philosophy of technology point of view, it is therefore important 
to consider how technologies we call ‘digital,’ and also other technologies such as 
material infrastructures, shape what we know about the crisis and ‘the virus’.« Based 
on these premises, Coeckelbergh concludes that »we have always been postdigital« 
(2020, p. 548). However, technological and material shaping of the Covid-19 crisis 
is a two-way process. In the words of one of the key contemporary critical theorists 
of technology Andrew Feenberg (2002), »technology is not destiny«. It is in this 
dialectic of mutual shaping between technologies and human beings, that various 
philosophies end up with normative conclusions about our own responsibility, as 
citizens, teachers, and students, for our own relationships not only to the pandemic, 
but to technology in general. 
Steve Fuller identifies two main intellectual trajectories for navigating the 
Covid-19 crisis. The precautionary principle is based on the assumption that »hu-
manity is ‘always already’ subordinated by some generic external agent called, say , 
‘Nature’ or ‘Gaia’, in terms of which we might be either in equilibrium or in conflict.« 
(Fuller 2020, p. 555) This principle understands Covid-19 as an external, unchange-
able fact. In practice, it contradicts the idea that the transfer of the coronavirus 
from animals to humans is obviously connected to the ways we produce, transport, 
and consume our food (O’Sullivan 2020). In theory , it also contradicts the idea that 
technology is not destiny . The proactionary principle presumes »a more game-like 
relationship to the opponent, whereby Nietzsche’s Zarathustrian imperative, ‘What 
doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger’, really does apply« (Fuller 2020, p. 555). In 
this context, continues Fuller, »we should never let a good existential threat go to 
waste«. Here, Fuller makes an important point that the Covid-19 crisis – with all 
its negative impacts – is also a moment of opportunity. 
Viral modernity 
Conclusions derived from lived experiences, politics, and philosophy of the 
pandemic significantly overlap. Different, often incommensurable research ap-
proaches ask similar questions and arrive at similar conclusions; for instance, 
authors across the disciplines seem to agree that our individual and collective 
reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic will extend far beyond tackling the current 
crisis and will significantly impact humanity’s future. The Covid-19 pandemic cuts 

184  Sodobnapedagogika/Journal ofContemporaryEducationalStud ies Jandrić
across all spheres of human existence – its crisis, and responses to this crisis, are 
equally biological, technological, environmental, social, philosophical, political, and 
much more. Therefore, it is obvious to revive the decade-old debates about inter-, 
multi-, trans-, and post-disciplinarity and to advocate a more holistic approach to 
studying the Covid-19 pandemic and the world at large. 
However , epistemology of disciplinarity has reached its theoretical peak a while 
ago (Fuller and Jandrić 2019). Humans are not just beings of reason; we are equally 
affected by emotion, myth, and faith. Perhaps it is more appropriate to develop 
a new narrative—a captivating idea—that could provide shape to these various 
strands of thought while still considering each strand with equal importance. A 
possible candidate for such a narrative is Michael Peters’ concept of viral modernity .
Viral modernity is a concept that is based upon the nature of viruses, the an-
cient and critical role they play in evolution and culture, and the basic application 
to understanding the role of information and forms of bioinformation in the social 
world. The concept draws a close association between viral biology on the one hand 
and information science on the other – it is an illustration and prime example of 
bioinformationalism (Peters 2012) that brings together two of the most powerful 
forces that now drive cultural evolution. The concept of viral modernity applies to 
viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education and 
emerging knowledge (journal) systems. Evolutionary bioinformatics indicate the 
conceptual closeness between the two. (Peters et al. 2020, pp. 3–4)
Viral modernity is postdigital, as it erases borders between digital and ana-
logue aspects of human lives. Viral modernity is also post-disciplinary, because it 
erases borders between traditional disciplines such as medicine, politics, and in-
formation science. The concept of viral modernity »insists on the political nature 
of the Covid-19 pandemic, on dialectics between the biological Covid-19 pandemic 
and informational pandemics such as post-truth, and sends a clear anti-capitalist 
message.« (Jan drić 2020, p. 533) However , the concept of viral modernity should
be understood as a useful metaphor, not a silver bullet. »Living in the age of viral 
modernity also does not mean that you and I are real viruses, or that Postdigital 
Science and Education is a real viral host.« (Jandrić 2020, p. 534) While we ex-
plore ways in which the concept of viral modernity can help us to make sense of 
the postdigital human condition, we should be very aware of its theoretical and 
practical limits. 
What does it mean to conduct educational research in the age of viral mod-
ernity? By watching the news, and reading my own and my colleagues’ universities’ 
policies, it is easy to identify an important trend that has already been explored in 
philosophy and education: technologization, or the idea that human problems will 
somehow be magically solved by introducing new technology (Tyack and Cuban 
1995). In the context of Covid-19, the latest generation of technologisation is in 
the field of biotechnology , and consists of a belief that we only need to wait for sci-
entists to develop a vaccine and then life will return to the »old normal«. However, 
critical philosophy of technology outlines a more nuanced view. Even if a vaccine 
soon becomes available, who will be the first to get it? Is it feasible to expect that 
poor countries will get the same access to the vaccine as rich countries? These and 

     185 The Postdigital Challenge of Pandemic Education  
other questions can literally decide who will live and who will die, and radically 
impact global balance of geopolitical power.  
As an average person who just wants to return to normal life, it is tempting to 
technologise the Covid-19 pandemic. Y et this is simply not possible, as technologies 
are always dialectically intertwined with the contexts of their development and 
usage. Working within educational systems, it is tempting to place responsibility 
for pandemic responses to schools and teachers. Schools are an important part of 
the solution to the pandemic, yet they cannot resolve it on their own. Environ-
mentalists rightfully point out that transfer of Covid-19 from animals to humans 
is a clear consequence of our animal-based diet and the industrial production of 
meat. However, even a global transition to veganism would not end the pandemic. 
Abraham Maslow wrote »I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a 
hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail« (1966[2002], p. 15).
3
  
The concept of viral modernity avoids Maslow’s metaphoric temptation be-
cause it posits that the Covid-19 pandemic is at the intersection of natural and 
social forces which has transformed both our research objectives and our research 
subjects. Covid-19 is a virus, a school lesson, a dietary issue, and many other things, 
and all of that at once. Within the perspective of viral modernity, our hammer of 
disciplinary research needs to morph into a large toolbox packed with a wide range 
of sophisticated tools that are compatible with one another. With such a toolbox in 
hand, some problems will lose their apparent nail-like properties and start revealing 
their true form as screws, bolts, or strips of rubber . It is from mutual communication 
and collaboration between these tools, that we can start to develop a more whole-
some understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic and postdigital research at large.
What about the future?
This article classifies the main themes addressed by postdigital researchers 
during the Covid-19 pandemic. It distils conclusions developed over thousands of 
pages of academic material and condenses them into a concise overview . It analyses 
these themes and offers some recommendations for further research without being 
prescriptive. It admits its own shortcomings, such as the limits of viral modernity , 
tofosternewformsofpostdigitaldialogue(Jandrićetal.2018b).
Philosophy is important because it gives us a sense of what is right and 
what is wrong, as well as of our own responsibility. Politics is important because 
it tackles burning problems of collective decision-making in the age of fake news 
and post-truth. Documenting our lived experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic, as 
teachers, learners, and human beings, is crucial for making sense of our postdigital 
Covid-19 reality. In the meantime, it is still necessary to manoeuvre through the 
narrow passageways of neoliberal education – we do need to think of ways we will 
conduct our classes this afternoon and tomorrow morning. However, remaining 
3
 While this quote comes from Maslow’s book, The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance (1966) 
[2002], its many versions can be found in different sources and historical periods.

186  Sodobnapedagogika/Journal ofContemporaryEducationalStud ies Jandrić
within the confines of our current educational systems and social superstructures 
results in missed opportunities. It is our duty as educators to move beyond the 
sweeping edu-techno-problems and edu-techno-fixes characteristic of mainstream 
edu-journals and edu-sciences, and to address human problems in their entirety. 
We must dare to dream, and we must dare to pour our dreams into fresh concepts 
and research ideas such as viral modernity.  
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P etar J ANDRIĆ (Univerza uporabnih znanosti v Zagrebu, Hrvaška; Univerza v W olverhamptnu,  
Združenokraljestvo)
POSTDIGITALNI IZZIV IZOBRAŽEVANJA V ČASU PANDEMIJE
Povzetek: Prispevek okvirno predstavi ključne teoretske poudarke postdigitalne dobe. Članek na 
podlagi sinteze 56 člankov o pandemiji covida-19, objavljenih spomladi 2020 v revijiPostdigital Science 
and Education in nekaj drugih člankov , ki obravnajo podobnotematiko, izriše glavne teme, probleme,
pristope in rešitve, kot jih opredelju jejo postdigitalni viri. Prispevek identificirane teme razvršča v tri
večje skupine: doživete izkušnje in odzivi nanje, politika in filozofija. A vtor prepoznava odnose med
raziskovalnim delom na teh raznolikih, pogosto inkomenzurabilnih področjih in opozarja na postdigitalno 
in postdisciplinarno naravo pandemije covida-19. Spoznanja združuje v konceptu viralne modernosti,
raziskuje njegove teoretične in praktične omejitve ter razvija priporočila za postdigitalne raziskave v
dobi covida-19. Sklene, da je dolžnost strokovnih delavcev v vzgoji in izobraževanju preseči edu-tehno-
-probleme in edu-tehno-rešitve, značilne za osrednje revije in raziskovalne pristope, ter poziva, da k
obravnavičloveškihproblemovpristopimocelostno.
Ključne besede: postdigitalno, viralna modernost, covid-19, pandemija, raziskovalno delo, znanost, 
izobraževanje
E-naslov: pjandric@tvz.hr