You may not have heard me mention this before, but I'm using wikis in my composition classroom.
Sorry, had to say that for the 87th time. Anyway, there're a lot of good reasons for using wikis and (to a lesser extent, blogs) in composition, but the main reason is that I believe that new media is consistent with the goal of first-year composition (FYC) in preparing students for college-level and post-collegiate writing--and I tend to focus a lot on the post-collegiate, as my class might very well be the last writing class some of my students take before their two upper-division "Writing in the Major" courses (or before they drop out, as about 20% of my students will). In other words, I stress digital writing because I'll probably be the first, and may be the last, instructor to introduce students to a form of writing that, while gaining a great presence in composition classrooms as a whole, is not being critically discussed as often as it's being used (Lundin 434); this tells me that assumptions are being made about students' capabilities to compose new media, or their preparation for such, that may be based more on generationalist narratives than on any hard evidence.
And I've made these assumptions too. When I first started teaching English 101 (last semester, but still...) I assumed my students knew how to at least look up information on Google Calendar. Or create a blog on Blogspot.com. Or that they all could (and would) use Microsoft Word. These technologies, especially the third, seemed so rote collegiate material to me that I didn't waste a second thought that anyone might not have encountered them before, or at least gained the literacy to quickly learn them. But I'm not the only one; only two weeks ago we read an article by Stephanie Vie that argued that our students are more technologically literate than us instructors, and that, born to a generation immersed in technology, we needed to incorporate their technological knowledge into the classroom in order to utilize it for composing texts (Vie).
However, my experience has been anything but; too often, I find myself tripping over these assumptions and having to schedule days in the AML to allow students to acclimate to the technology (which reminds me, right after this I need to book the AML for my first few weeks next semester). More importantly, I've encountered an incredible amount of resistance from my students, who often express vocal opposition to wikis, blogs, e-portfolios, and *gasp* reading each others' work. Like most high school graduates (I expect), they come to the university fully expecting to write papers as exercises exclusively for teachers who won't read them (or take them seriously), and the real work doesn't begin until they declare a major.
By incorporating new media and digital writing into my curriculum, I not only get to experience the sheer joy of shattering (and/or dodging) these expectations, but my students also begin to view writing as a public activity, rather than a private one--as Lundin describes it, "wikis can challenge the practice of single authorship and help overcome the spatial and temporal hurdles to produce collaborative writing" (438)--which prepares them for the immense amount of collaborative (group) work and diminished individualism they are certain to encounter in the academy and the workplace.
In my experience, the best way to ease them into this potentially new and frightening dynamic (I may enjoy shattering expectations, but I'm not a sadist!) is to use Gee's 36 learning principles as a guide, but especially #6, which Gee refers to as the Psychosocial Moratorium Principle but I prefer (in less academic cadence) to call "The Newbie Zone Principle." The key is to make sure that students are aware (and perhaps the instructor too) that they are not being graded on their ability to adapt to the new technology (not immediately, anyway; think portfolio-grading), and to provide them opportunity to "play" with new media.
For example, a significant portion of course grades for my classes are peer-reviews, which must be completed in their wikis. Students are prepared for this (admittedly) techno-literacy-required activity by writing other class assignments and exercises in their wikis, including multimodal assignments, and by forming into small peer-review groups rather than being required to peer-review everyone in the class (unlikely) or selecting a few wikis at random (without much in-class interaction with their peers) for comment. I also try to give them a significant amount of time (more than necessary, imho) to complete the peer-reviews, including at least two AML workshop days for the first two peer-reviews (one for each) so that students can play at using the technology while sitting right next to each other in the lab (to discuss any problems they may have). Finally, I also highlight examples of exceptional peer-review work on the overhead projector (in my tech-equipped classrooms) that not only points out what content constitutes great peer-review, but also how the author(s) use the medium of the wiki to offer peer-review in novel ways.
Much of this may be new to you. Much of this may be familiar, especially coming from me. However, I would argue that the most important point you could take away from this week's readings and my blog is this: Remember, your students already enter your classroom knowing how to compose a "paper" paper--albeit with or without knowledge of citation styles or other important things--and if you don't at least introduce them to a new medium, you're playing it safe and letting them compose inside their comfort zone. They may thank you for this now, but I guarantee that in five years we're going to start hearing about a new, academic, Digital Divide--one where college graduates are woefully unprepared for writing in new mediums.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Generating Generationalism
After peeking at my profile for the first time since I entered grad school (when, like many [I think], I went through a massive "cleanup" of my facebook profile), I decided that I'd have to latch on to Stephanie Vie's description of "Generation M" before I could deal with any other issues between my profile and the readings.
Apparently, I first identify myself by my generation, which was a bit of a surprise considering it's become something of a moo point to me over the past year or so. Must've been a passing phase or something. Next, I identify myself as someone fairly involved with political affairs, including a dog-whistle reference to Bill Hicks fans. The last chunk of my "bio" identifies me as a fairly regional, urban person shaped largely by local affairs. My profile picture, leftover from summer, of my dog both identifies me as a dog owner and perhaps as more mainstream or professional than the rest of my profile (including my latest post), but the only other indication of a professional (as opposed to personal) identity is my friends list, composed almost entirely of grad-school friends and acquaintances. The box below my picture is significant because, in the genre of social media profiles, the "caption" box is meant to frame a quotation or phrase that essentializes one's identity; in my case, I've opted for a rather offensive quote that seems to reinforce the abrasive language of my "bio."
The audience for this little performance would, by most observers, appear to be either young adults or adults situated in a non-professional space. While my friends list seems to indicate that my audience is, in fact, composed of professionals, the remainder of my viewable profile seems to indicate to my audience that I view Facebook as a space outside of the office--and my online communication (I'll get into that later) reinforces this perspective.
Anyway, as a self-identified member of Generation X, I do feel that there is a generation gap between myself and "Generation M," or the Millenials as I know them, but not when it comes to technological ability (12). I've been able to engage with computer technology (let's be clear about what Vie's really getting at--Gen X had Walkmans [Walkmen?] and CB radios, those primitive versions of modern distractions; the iPod and the iPhone are only significant because they incorporate computer technology and interfaces) since I was 13, and since I began teaching I find that I'm far more adept at it than the so-called Generation Media that I primarily work with and teach. For example, I thought Wikispaces had an intuitive enough interface that I was able to figure it out in 10 minutes; two weeks into the course, I was still explaining to students how to create an account, get set up, and start posting their profiles and other homework assignments. Far from being one of the instructors who're a generation behind their students in technological and media prowess, one of my greatest complaints is that my students are incapable of using "basic" (to me, of course) technologies and interfaces.
Vie's study is flawed because, aside from being terribly outdated (2006? Facebook and Myspace were barely off the ground), it relies on a very selective and very small sample set for its data--127 instructors and 354 undergraduates responded to a "nationwide survey" (17). So her argument that instructors are a generation behind their students is, at best, unsupported by any credible evidence, and I'm certain that if NCTE were to conduct a similar survey, in 2008 or today, we might see some very different results. Furthermore, far from being the panoptical surveyers of their instructors' private lives, my encounters with students on Facebook (I don't own a Myspace account; long story) have been either quiet (am I lurking in their friend lists, amongst the Farmville players they never talk to either?) or they have engaged with me as they would with a respected family member or older sibling--occasional props and agreement, always with some level of deference (19).
I mentioned earlier that my profile seems to advertise my online identity as existing in a non-professional space, and I believe that this allows me to interact with others--especially my colleagues--in ways that I would never interact with them within professional spheres. For example, I wouldn't just walk into class and announce "I think it's stupid that Rowling's publishing two more Harry Potter novels! What more could she have to say after 'and his scar never hurt again?'" I mentioned once in Dr. Butler's 512 course last year that Dumbledore is gay, which launched a long off-topic class discussion that Dr. Butler had to try very hard to shut down; since then, I don't mention Harry Potter when I'm at school/work unless a professor brings him up first. However, on Facebook, that conversation would likely have gone far further than it ever did in class. In this respect, social media allows me to interact with my colleagues in a way that I certainly wouldn't in-class, and most of us tend to keep that distinction between professional and personal spaces (prompting me to ask Kristin, a few weeks ago, if she minded the intrusion were I to message her on Facebook about my book review).
Also, considering that trying to find time to interact with each other in academia is like trying to lean out of your car window to have a conversation with others stuck in traffic--we're all going different ways, and don't really have a chance to say much more than "Hello," and "I've got to get to class!" or "I've got to finish this paper."--social media seems perfectly suited to the types of asynchronous bursts of conversation that we academics tend to use to stay in touch and socialize. Since we're all familiar with the image of the overworked grad student, surrounded in their home or office by piles of articles and books (and empty energy drink cans or half-filled cups of coffee), the beauty of social media is that it still allows us workaholics to socialize outside of office functions.
I've now been writing this post for three hours, without multitasking (though I've done a bit of daydreaming and made a quick trip to the gas station for another energy drink), and so I think I'm going to leave it here. My last thought: wouldn't it be cool if we could do this with seminar papers too?
Monday, October 25, 2010
#11 - Gee and curriculum design
A few of the principles I consider "core" in the composition classroom (from Gee):
4) Semiotic Domains Principle
Leaning involves mastering, at some level, semiotic domains, and being able to participate, at some level, in the affinity group or groups connected to them.
5) Meta-level thinking about Semiotic Domain Principle
Learning involves active and critical thinking about the relationships of the semiotic domain being learned to other semiotic domains
6) "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle
Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered
14) "Regime of Competence" Principle
The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge of, his or her resources, so that at those points things are felt as challenging but not "Undoable"
I could list more, but if I had to narrow my classroom design down to only a few "core" principles, these are the ones I'll stick with for now. Let me explain how I see this working:
The most important principle that I can see in the composition classroom is #14, the "Regime of Competence" principle. Students will get bored if asked to do things that are too easy or rote, and will usually lose interest in both the activities and the classroom (consequently leading to failure or lowered performance when they could easily achieve higher marks); conversely, students will collapse in frustration if what they're being asked to do is too far outside their abilities (I call this insufficient preparation). Now, as teachers (or future teachers) we know this already. What this principle asks us to do is to take this knowledge into account when we design activity sequences, and writing sequences, so that each one pushes students "to the next level," rather than fulfilling a few unrelated genres (for example, the "reflective" hand-turkey paper). With this principle, each paper in a writing sequence teaches students a skill they'll need in the next paper--such as a paper focused on critical analysis of sources so that students become familiar with working with sources, which they'll need for the next paper which (among new tasks) asks them to work with a number of sources.
The second core principle is #6, the "Psychosocial Moratorium" principle. In an earlier post on the Angel discussion board, I referred to this as the "newbie zone" (a place where students/players can learn the rules of a system in a safe environment). Of course, the portfolio grading system is an example of this principle, but I think that this also applies to other class assignments and activities. For example, grading students on the quality of online discussion posts before they've learned the genre violates the "newbie zone." For similar things (I don't use online discussion posts), I grade each activity on only a few criteria that I feel students are capable of (though they may find it challenging). However, the principle of the "newbie zone" is that once they've learned the rules, they need to get out into the "real world;" the "newbie zone" should only apply to the new skills they are learning. A video game example would be the first 20 levels or so of World of Warcraft, where even after players leave the official "starter area," they continue to play in an expanded "newbie zone" that incrementally tests their new skills and knowledge, and introduces them to new skills and challenges only when they're ready.
The third and fourth principles are actually only one principle to me. In order for students to begin to write for academia, they have to realize that academic writing is not a single genre, but a convoluted mess of different discourses all taking place within incrementally isolating communities (for example, Humanities->English->Literature->20th Century->Postmodern Analysis). However, as I know many of you are about to point out, there are many similarities between literary postmodern-analysis and different fields of rhetoric, history, women's studies, and comparative ethnic studies--to name a few; that's where principle #5 comes into play for Gee, and for me is just the flip side of these two (one) principles. In other words, students must recognize that academic writing is conducted within a semiotic domain that's isolated into a small community, but that these semiotic domains also "talk to each other," and otherwise borrow, steal, or influence each other. What they need to discover is what we already know: scholars are fish who swim in many different lakes and streams.
4) Semiotic Domains Principle
Leaning involves mastering, at some level, semiotic domains, and being able to participate, at some level, in the affinity group or groups connected to them.
5) Meta-level thinking about Semiotic Domain Principle
Learning involves active and critical thinking about the relationships of the semiotic domain being learned to other semiotic domains
6) "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle
Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered
14) "Regime of Competence" Principle
The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge of, his or her resources, so that at those points things are felt as challenging but not "Undoable"
I could list more, but if I had to narrow my classroom design down to only a few "core" principles, these are the ones I'll stick with for now. Let me explain how I see this working:
The most important principle that I can see in the composition classroom is #14, the "Regime of Competence" principle. Students will get bored if asked to do things that are too easy or rote, and will usually lose interest in both the activities and the classroom (consequently leading to failure or lowered performance when they could easily achieve higher marks); conversely, students will collapse in frustration if what they're being asked to do is too far outside their abilities (I call this insufficient preparation). Now, as teachers (or future teachers) we know this already. What this principle asks us to do is to take this knowledge into account when we design activity sequences, and writing sequences, so that each one pushes students "to the next level," rather than fulfilling a few unrelated genres (for example, the "reflective" hand-turkey paper). With this principle, each paper in a writing sequence teaches students a skill they'll need in the next paper--such as a paper focused on critical analysis of sources so that students become familiar with working with sources, which they'll need for the next paper which (among new tasks) asks them to work with a number of sources.
The second core principle is #6, the "Psychosocial Moratorium" principle. In an earlier post on the Angel discussion board, I referred to this as the "newbie zone" (a place where students/players can learn the rules of a system in a safe environment). Of course, the portfolio grading system is an example of this principle, but I think that this also applies to other class assignments and activities. For example, grading students on the quality of online discussion posts before they've learned the genre violates the "newbie zone." For similar things (I don't use online discussion posts), I grade each activity on only a few criteria that I feel students are capable of (though they may find it challenging). However, the principle of the "newbie zone" is that once they've learned the rules, they need to get out into the "real world;" the "newbie zone" should only apply to the new skills they are learning. A video game example would be the first 20 levels or so of World of Warcraft, where even after players leave the official "starter area," they continue to play in an expanded "newbie zone" that incrementally tests their new skills and knowledge, and introduces them to new skills and challenges only when they're ready.
The third and fourth principles are actually only one principle to me. In order for students to begin to write for academia, they have to realize that academic writing is not a single genre, but a convoluted mess of different discourses all taking place within incrementally isolating communities (for example, Humanities->English->Literature->20th Century->Postmodern Analysis). However, as I know many of you are about to point out, there are many similarities between literary postmodern-analysis and different fields of rhetoric, history, women's studies, and comparative ethnic studies--to name a few; that's where principle #5 comes into play for Gee, and for me is just the flip side of these two (one) principles. In other words, students must recognize that academic writing is conducted within a semiotic domain that's isolated into a small community, but that these semiotic domains also "talk to each other," and otherwise borrow, steal, or influence each other. What they need to discover is what we already know: scholars are fish who swim in many different lakes and streams.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
"OK, I will witness the disaster." (best comeback ever)
So, I was unable to meet for even a disasterous, non-physically-spaced, online class discussion due to a dead car battery. I'm not going to go into details, but I literally had no other choice than to get the problem fixed immediately.
That said, I got a recap from several of you, and having read over the transcript I have a few observations to make that are directly related to the questions Kristen has posed to us:
That said, I got a recap from several of you, and having read over the transcript I have a few observations to make that are directly related to the questions Kristen has posed to us:
- Online, synchronous discussions are incredibly language- and socially-biased. They are definitely semiotic domains (Gee) that follow a rule system that will be quite familiar to insiders and perhaps very shocking, or at least a bit off-putting, to outsiders. This rule system is quite different from those that govern other forms of written speech and other situated speaking speech; manners and politeness follow different norms, behavioral expectations are quite different, and the whole notion of turn-taking (nevermind limiting conversations to one topic) gets blasted to hell.
- They are often merciless to non-native speakers/writers of the discussion's primary language. Online discussions often require reading massive amounts of text in a short period of time, and while non-native speakers may be used to this with spoken speech, it's quite likely that they have not often encountered it before with written, synchronous discussion. Also, the subtleties of language (accompanied body language, tonal inflections, speech elongation/shortening, etc.) that are so abundant with spoken speech are completely missing from written speech, thus providing even fewer clues and context for non-native speakers. The emoticon just isn't enough :/
- Anna's (and Jill's) points about silence are thought provoking. While it might be clear in the transcript--who participated, who didn't, and at what times, etc.--it's usually not something one can easily be aware of. At least in classroom discussion, people talk slow enough and usually one-at-a-time, so one can take a moment to consider who hasn't spoken and who has, who's falling asleep and who's leaning on the edge of their seat (waiting for their turn to talk).
- What I enjoyed most (from the transcript) was the multiple attempts, by multiple participants, to allow someone to focus the conversation on one question or topic--followed immediately by the failure of most of these same participants to do so. It's sort of like everyone in a bumper-car rally trying to stop and work together without purposely ramming anyone else. What frustrated me (to the extent I could be frustrated by a transcript) is all the side comments, jabs, comebacks, non-sequiturs, jokes, statements of agreement, and descriptive language that we would all be terribly ashamed of inside the classroom (at least when it reaches this extent and derails the conversation so thoroughly). Had I been there, I probably would have been quite silent (I tend to behave antithetically to how the group is behaving; if everyone's quiet, I talk a lot, if everyone's talking, I shut up and listen closely).
I've seen these discussions before, in many classrooms (though not as an instructor), and the only real difference between this one and others I've seen is that, since everyone's full (real) name appears next to every post, the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory was not at play here. For those who are still unaware of this phenomenon, I'll link the relevant diagram below:
Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Dickwad
Thankfully, I think the interface removes that one key component: anonymity; however, it should be noted that anonymity is only an amplifier. Anyway, I certainly won't be using synchronous online discussions as an instructor--for all their problems, where's the benefit?
Monday, September 27, 2010
It's the Hybrid Economy, Stupid!
Two questions I'd like to pose about the Lessig reading are:
1) Is the vast majority of remixing just pure crap and a waste of time? (91-7)
Lessig's answer is both a "yes" and "no," for several reasons, and I'm not quite clear whether he's advocating for both answers.
One of my thoughts is that "yes," a lot of remixes are a waste of time--but not necessarily on the part of amateur creators. I cite J.J. Abram's Star Trek as an example, as well as the Scary Movie parody series; Star Trek alienated many fans, and showed little imagination in the storyline (big bad Reman comes to destroy the Federation with a planet-killing ship--wasn't that the premise for the last failed Star Trek film?), and the Scary Movie franchise is unabashedly hackneyed in its mockery of classic horror films through common-denominator stereotypes (the weed-smoking black man, the virginal starlet, the rapist gay guy, etc.). Both are professional remixes, and both have strong arguments for why they're utter crap.
But there are other remixes, both professional and amateur, that are arguably better than the original. For example, the 1998 film Go featured a remix of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" that seems better to me than the original. Listen to them both, and see if you agree: original and remix. I rarely hear the original except in soundtracks, yet I've listened to the remix at least once a week for the past ten years.
So I tend to think of remixes in the same way I think of "originals": on a case-by-case basis. The best example of this, I think are the "Talent Show" programs that invite people to sing or dance or otherwise try to get famous; American Idol is pure crap to me, but there are some folks out there who practically worship Clay Aiken (and are actually over the age of 13!). And I'm not going to watch the British version, but I have to admit that Susan Boyle is an excellent singer (and that's about as far as I'm willing to discuss her). Of course, what these examples have in common is that they're all working off original content, sung or presented in a new way.
2) Are hybrid economies sustainable?
One of Lessig's examples of a hybrid economy is craigslist. According to Newmark (189), the site is paid for by job and apartment listings in major cities (where a posting fee is required), but anyone who's turned on their television, opened a paper, or had their fingers in the vicinity of the pulse of the mainstream news could tell you, craigslist also runs an "adult services" or "erotic services" category that also charges a posting fee (I guess that could be a job listing, but that's not where I'd go looking for the category if I was interested). Of course, all the negative press has forced craigslist to shut down this revenue source, but that's my point: how many more categories must now charge a posting fee in order to keep the service afloat? I've got no figures for how much income craigslist pulled in from the now-censored category, but I can hazard a guess that it was at least equivalent to the revenue from NYC apartment listings (although I may, in all likelihood, be lowballing that figure, if you'll pardon the pun).
This is just one example, but I've gotta ask: are these hybrid economies going to last, or will they end up as the next Pets.com?
----------
Finally, I think Lessig is right in valuing the creativity of remixes, and in laying out a case for the update of copyright laws. I'm among the generation who view remixes as new creative arts, even though I absolutely hate the autotuner (it makes singers out of the tone-deaf, and it sounds like shit to me. I blame Cher). I don't think that children (and adults) should be criminalized in the way they are now, or that universities should become de facto policemen for the RIAA. Having been an (innocent) victim of WSU's war on file-sharing, I certainly don't see it as the role of 20yo kids in the IT building to enforce copyright law.
[The story, as I'm sure everyone wants to hear it now, is rather uninteresting: in 2004, my university network account was suspended for suspected file-sharing activities due to a large amount of up-bandwidth (uploads to other people) usage, across different countries and even continents. This looks like illegal file-sharing, as one might question why I'd upload 50mb worth of data to someone in Sweden while downloading another 20mb from someone in Toronto. And it was file-sharing: I was participating in the World of Warcraft beta, and downloading the game client using Blizzard's downloader. Blizzard's downloader uses bit torrent technology (file-sharing); the idea is that if I download 50% or more of the client from other people, Blizzard's bandwidth won't get overused, and downloads will be optimal for everyone. However, the IT guys declared it a violation of the university's network use policy, and I had to attend a workshop on copyright law where the university's copyright protection lawyer lectured to me that I was hurting Eminem by downloading music illegally. It's one of the very few occasions where I've gotten in an argument with a university administrator so heated that he called me a "thieving shitrag."]
I think Lessig has some good ideas for reforming copyright law in a way that benefits everyone. However, I don't think it's gonna happen. On the internet, individual people may have power and authority, but in the halls of Congress the RIAA and other interested lobbyists write the law. Even Lessig admitted, in the video we watched Thursday, that going to the government was a failed idea. So the law ain't gonna change in any way that favors remixers, and will likely only go further towards increasing the power of the individual (or, rather, corporate) owner of a copyright. And, IMHO, this will continue until the current system reaches such a crisis that the recording, film, and publishing industries will crumble, and something else will take its place. Lessig, being a lawyer, thinks that it will be replaced by the Creative Commons license. But I think it will be replaced by an ethic of no-copyright (I'm one of the extremists that Lessig mentioned); like marijuana and speeding laws, I think that copyright laws will be largely ignored by amateur culture, though increasingly punished by professional culture (as it implodes). The incentive to publish or create remixes, professionally, will also suffer; why try to sell an amateur remix when it costs $40,000 for licensing rights? So, I see a crisis coming, and I don't see traditional copyright surviving; but I also don't see it being reformed through the law (I think Lessig's main weakness is that he's a law professor, and therefore has far too much faith in the law).
1) Is the vast majority of remixing just pure crap and a waste of time? (91-7)
Lessig's answer is both a "yes" and "no," for several reasons, and I'm not quite clear whether he's advocating for both answers.
One of my thoughts is that "yes," a lot of remixes are a waste of time--but not necessarily on the part of amateur creators. I cite J.J. Abram's Star Trek as an example, as well as the Scary Movie parody series; Star Trek alienated many fans, and showed little imagination in the storyline (big bad Reman comes to destroy the Federation with a planet-killing ship--wasn't that the premise for the last failed Star Trek film?), and the Scary Movie franchise is unabashedly hackneyed in its mockery of classic horror films through common-denominator stereotypes (the weed-smoking black man, the virginal starlet, the rapist gay guy, etc.). Both are professional remixes, and both have strong arguments for why they're utter crap.
But there are other remixes, both professional and amateur, that are arguably better than the original. For example, the 1998 film Go featured a remix of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" that seems better to me than the original. Listen to them both, and see if you agree: original and remix. I rarely hear the original except in soundtracks, yet I've listened to the remix at least once a week for the past ten years.
So I tend to think of remixes in the same way I think of "originals": on a case-by-case basis. The best example of this, I think are the "Talent Show" programs that invite people to sing or dance or otherwise try to get famous; American Idol is pure crap to me, but there are some folks out there who practically worship Clay Aiken (and are actually over the age of 13!). And I'm not going to watch the British version, but I have to admit that Susan Boyle is an excellent singer (and that's about as far as I'm willing to discuss her). Of course, what these examples have in common is that they're all working off original content, sung or presented in a new way.
2) Are hybrid economies sustainable?
One of Lessig's examples of a hybrid economy is craigslist. According to Newmark (189), the site is paid for by job and apartment listings in major cities (where a posting fee is required), but anyone who's turned on their television, opened a paper, or had their fingers in the vicinity of the pulse of the mainstream news could tell you, craigslist also runs an "adult services" or "erotic services" category that also charges a posting fee (I guess that could be a job listing, but that's not where I'd go looking for the category if I was interested). Of course, all the negative press has forced craigslist to shut down this revenue source, but that's my point: how many more categories must now charge a posting fee in order to keep the service afloat? I've got no figures for how much income craigslist pulled in from the now-censored category, but I can hazard a guess that it was at least equivalent to the revenue from NYC apartment listings (although I may, in all likelihood, be lowballing that figure, if you'll pardon the pun).
This is just one example, but I've gotta ask: are these hybrid economies going to last, or will they end up as the next Pets.com?
----------
Finally, I think Lessig is right in valuing the creativity of remixes, and in laying out a case for the update of copyright laws. I'm among the generation who view remixes as new creative arts, even though I absolutely hate the autotuner (it makes singers out of the tone-deaf, and it sounds like shit to me. I blame Cher). I don't think that children (and adults) should be criminalized in the way they are now, or that universities should become de facto policemen for the RIAA. Having been an (innocent) victim of WSU's war on file-sharing, I certainly don't see it as the role of 20yo kids in the IT building to enforce copyright law.
[The story, as I'm sure everyone wants to hear it now, is rather uninteresting: in 2004, my university network account was suspended for suspected file-sharing activities due to a large amount of up-bandwidth (uploads to other people) usage, across different countries and even continents. This looks like illegal file-sharing, as one might question why I'd upload 50mb worth of data to someone in Sweden while downloading another 20mb from someone in Toronto. And it was file-sharing: I was participating in the World of Warcraft beta, and downloading the game client using Blizzard's downloader. Blizzard's downloader uses bit torrent technology (file-sharing); the idea is that if I download 50% or more of the client from other people, Blizzard's bandwidth won't get overused, and downloads will be optimal for everyone. However, the IT guys declared it a violation of the university's network use policy, and I had to attend a workshop on copyright law where the university's copyright protection lawyer lectured to me that I was hurting Eminem by downloading music illegally. It's one of the very few occasions where I've gotten in an argument with a university administrator so heated that he called me a "thieving shitrag."]
I think Lessig has some good ideas for reforming copyright law in a way that benefits everyone. However, I don't think it's gonna happen. On the internet, individual people may have power and authority, but in the halls of Congress the RIAA and other interested lobbyists write the law. Even Lessig admitted, in the video we watched Thursday, that going to the government was a failed idea. So the law ain't gonna change in any way that favors remixers, and will likely only go further towards increasing the power of the individual (or, rather, corporate) owner of a copyright. And, IMHO, this will continue until the current system reaches such a crisis that the recording, film, and publishing industries will crumble, and something else will take its place. Lessig, being a lawyer, thinks that it will be replaced by the Creative Commons license. But I think it will be replaced by an ethic of no-copyright (I'm one of the extremists that Lessig mentioned); like marijuana and speeding laws, I think that copyright laws will be largely ignored by amateur culture, though increasingly punished by professional culture (as it implodes). The incentive to publish or create remixes, professionally, will also suffer; why try to sell an amateur remix when it costs $40,000 for licensing rights? So, I see a crisis coming, and I don't see traditional copyright surviving; but I also don't see it being reformed through the law (I think Lessig's main weakness is that he's a law professor, and therefore has far too much faith in the law).
Monday, September 20, 2010
Johndam Johnson-Eilola:
Writing and texts are increasingly being thought of as chunks rather than long, composed works. The ways in which authors connect these chunks are not only becoming more complex, but are also texts themselves. Search engines and hyperlinks are rhetorical compositions in and of themselves because, like traditional texts that incorporate the voices of other authors and texts, they create an amalgam of ideas and thoughts that are presented to the reader in a specific way.
Sorapure, Inglesby, & Yatchisin:
Revolving around the question, "should web sites be used in research papers?", Sorapure et. al. attempt to answer a pressing problem for composition instructors at the dawn of the internet age. While many of the examples Sorapure et. al. present have either disappeared or grown in complexity and sophistication ("Joe's 20 Coolest Sites of the Day" has now become the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report--or Google), the importance of judging a webpage's ethos in academic and any other contexts remains an important lesson for the composition classroom. Sorapure et. al. conclude that, following proper evaluation, web sites can be critical resources for academic research.
Sidler:
In order to teach students how to access the web, they must first recognize the web as a collection of spaces, and picture how to navigate those spaces. Sidler's focus on websites as spaces is especially important due to the disembodied (digital) nature of these spaces; without paper and ink to hold a document together, how can it be recognized as a real thing? Sidler suggests that students should think of the internet as a city, where certain types of sites represent different buildings or neighborhoods; personal web sites represent residential neighborhoods, whereas pornography-related websites might represent the seedier establishments within a city. The need for this kind of metaphor to describe digital places is the same as Sorapure et. al. confronts: the need to establish the ethos of a particular site.
The Big Picture
The obvious connection between these three readings is the need that these scholars feel to situate the Web within more traditional concepts--authors, texts, spaces. Furthermore, the need to establish, identify, analyze, qualify, and pick to death the ethos of any work is common to these readings; in order to accept the Web, at least in the academy, a hierarchy must be established--one that recognizes "Joe's 20 Coolest Sites on the Net" as being on the same publishing tier as The National Enquirer, and ProQuest or Lexis-Nexis as residing in the same gated community as the Princeton University Press. In this case, Weinberger might easily make a snarky comment about the new, digital Dewey Decimal Internet.
But ethos is important (so put your pitchforks and torches down!). The problem is not so much one of sifting through the major sites (to go through all the minor ones would be an endeavor best left to the immortal), letting some within the gates of the academy while shutting others out ("Hey you! Yeah you, Wikipedia! Beat it!"), and thereby forming a taxonomy of the acceptable. The problem is that, as Weinberger points out, there's simply too much information to filter in the third order of order (which, until digital spaces came along, we didn't have to think about or cope with) for any system other than dynamic filtering (tagging). How long can we, as educators, read our students' "Works Cited" pages and simply accept or reject sources based on the ethos of their sites? Surely, if we simply hide behind the "academic sources" gate, we'll be robbing our students of opportunities to use valid sources (primary and secondary) as they pursue their research (Sorapure et. al. 333).
My inclination is to, tenuously, evaluate the research presented by these new sources--as well as how students are using that research. In other words, I want to pursue Johndam Johnson-Eilola's model of approaching texts as chunks, rather than entire works; obviously, this is an old solution to a new problem, as scholars have long since used chunks of ideas and texts in order to form new ideas and texts. I don't think we need a taxonomy or hierarchy of the "reliable websites" in order to evaluate our students' research sources; a definition lifted from Dictionary.com is usually going to be a waste of print (let the student define the word, damn it!), but perhaps a definition of "santorum" from Urban Dictionary might be needed in a paper on how politics and internet culture affect each other (since the definition of "santorum" is quite specific, and is likely not to be found in the OED). IMHO, context is the answer to ethos.
Writing and texts are increasingly being thought of as chunks rather than long, composed works. The ways in which authors connect these chunks are not only becoming more complex, but are also texts themselves. Search engines and hyperlinks are rhetorical compositions in and of themselves because, like traditional texts that incorporate the voices of other authors and texts, they create an amalgam of ideas and thoughts that are presented to the reader in a specific way.
Sorapure, Inglesby, & Yatchisin:
Revolving around the question, "should web sites be used in research papers?", Sorapure et. al. attempt to answer a pressing problem for composition instructors at the dawn of the internet age. While many of the examples Sorapure et. al. present have either disappeared or grown in complexity and sophistication ("Joe's 20 Coolest Sites of the Day" has now become the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report--or Google), the importance of judging a webpage's ethos in academic and any other contexts remains an important lesson for the composition classroom. Sorapure et. al. conclude that, following proper evaluation, web sites can be critical resources for academic research.
Sidler:
In order to teach students how to access the web, they must first recognize the web as a collection of spaces, and picture how to navigate those spaces. Sidler's focus on websites as spaces is especially important due to the disembodied (digital) nature of these spaces; without paper and ink to hold a document together, how can it be recognized as a real thing? Sidler suggests that students should think of the internet as a city, where certain types of sites represent different buildings or neighborhoods; personal web sites represent residential neighborhoods, whereas pornography-related websites might represent the seedier establishments within a city. The need for this kind of metaphor to describe digital places is the same as Sorapure et. al. confronts: the need to establish the ethos of a particular site.
The Big Picture
The obvious connection between these three readings is the need that these scholars feel to situate the Web within more traditional concepts--authors, texts, spaces. Furthermore, the need to establish, identify, analyze, qualify, and pick to death the ethos of any work is common to these readings; in order to accept the Web, at least in the academy, a hierarchy must be established--one that recognizes "Joe's 20 Coolest Sites on the Net" as being on the same publishing tier as The National Enquirer, and ProQuest or Lexis-Nexis as residing in the same gated community as the Princeton University Press. In this case, Weinberger might easily make a snarky comment about the new, digital Dewey Decimal Internet.
But ethos is important (so put your pitchforks and torches down!). The problem is not so much one of sifting through the major sites (to go through all the minor ones would be an endeavor best left to the immortal), letting some within the gates of the academy while shutting others out ("Hey you! Yeah you, Wikipedia! Beat it!"), and thereby forming a taxonomy of the acceptable. The problem is that, as Weinberger points out, there's simply too much information to filter in the third order of order (which, until digital spaces came along, we didn't have to think about or cope with) for any system other than dynamic filtering (tagging). How long can we, as educators, read our students' "Works Cited" pages and simply accept or reject sources based on the ethos of their sites? Surely, if we simply hide behind the "academic sources" gate, we'll be robbing our students of opportunities to use valid sources (primary and secondary) as they pursue their research (Sorapure et. al. 333).
My inclination is to, tenuously, evaluate the research presented by these new sources--as well as how students are using that research. In other words, I want to pursue Johndam Johnson-Eilola's model of approaching texts as chunks, rather than entire works; obviously, this is an old solution to a new problem, as scholars have long since used chunks of ideas and texts in order to form new ideas and texts. I don't think we need a taxonomy or hierarchy of the "reliable websites" in order to evaluate our students' research sources; a definition lifted from Dictionary.com is usually going to be a waste of print (let the student define the word, damn it!), but perhaps a definition of "santorum" from Urban Dictionary might be needed in a paper on how politics and internet culture affect each other (since the definition of "santorum" is quite specific, and is likely not to be found in the OED). IMHO, context is the answer to ethos.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Information Monopolies, Panopticism, and Utter Nonsense
Note: I've been working on this prompt all weekend, and I'm still not finished with it. In fact, it's likely I might use this as the basis for a paper. Therefore, if my ideas seem to lack a certain finality, it's because I'm not settled on any of this, and what follows is only a sketch of my ideas for using Foucault's Panopticism in some published fashion. Also, some of you may recognize some of these ideas from previous conversations--I've been mulling them over for about two years now.
Foucault's allegory of the panopticon as a system of control both problematizes and illuminates issues in Ohmann's "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capitalism." In one fashion (certainly the dominant interpretation I've come to understand), panopticism demonstrates how technology can serve to extend and reinforce the values, beliefs, and systems of power of a culture (Ohmann 26, Foucault "Eye of Power" 148-150). As Ohmann observes, "literacy is an activity of social groups, and a necessary feature of some kinds of social organization. Like every other human activity or product, it embeds social relations within it;" however, Ohmann also recognizes that technology and literacy "[are] malleable; [they do] have liberatory potential" (29-30). While panopticism (as an ideological system of control) is focused in Foucault on surveillance and the application of power, Ohmann's argument can still be applied: in short, panopticism can be just as much a liberatory system as it is a disciplinary system; panopticism can be used to further democratic goals and extend power to the historically disenfranchised.
I prefer to distinguish these two systems of control as tyrannical panopticism, where a culture of surveillance serves the traditional or hegemonic interests of those in power, and democratic panopticism, where a culture of surveillance instead serves the interests of minorities and those without power. The former is often regarded as altogether a bad thing (and relatively unpopular), especially in the humanities, while the latter is enjoying a surge of popularity and is often thought to be a good thing, even when it goes largely unrecognized. For example, I enjoy watching Jon Stewart every night on the Daily Show, where the first segment of the show usually consists of video clips that expose a lie or contradiction by forces in power; I equally enjoy Stephen Colbert's occasional spotlighting of police abuse of the Taser (a supposedly nonlethal technology that allows police to subdue suspects with a 22 volt burst of electricity). Both of these examples can be attributed to democratic panopticism, where the focus of surveillance is on the elite and powerful and serves the interests of everyday citizens.
To illustrate these examples further, go to YouTube and search for both of these terms: "police abuse" and "fox news caught lying" (other search strings come to mind, but for the sake of simplicity I'll stick to these). The "caught on camera" phenomenon has already had an impact on the way police respond to crimes in public (by means of an awareness that others may see their actions replayed on video), and while twenty years ago it was possible to confiscate the lone cameraman filming acts of repression or abuse, the widespread availability of recording (in high definition!) virtually any event and computer software that can edit video clips of mainstream news events to highlight contradictions makes repression of this sort of democratic panopticism difficult at best (example: Iran's elections and subsequent protests in 2009).
The technological capability to record video, edit video clips, and publish to the world without traditional means of filtration (news editors, lawyers, censors, bureaucrats and police, etc.) allows everyone a chance to become the guard in the panopticon. Whereas surveillance cameras, news cameras, and other means of surveillance that Western society has grudgingly become accustomed to have traditionally served the interests of governments and powerful organizations, democratic panopticism can shift the power of surveillance into the hands of the people, therefore constituting one of Ohmann's literacies of liberation.
Foucault's allegory of the panopticon as a system of control both problematizes and illuminates issues in Ohmann's "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capitalism." In one fashion (certainly the dominant interpretation I've come to understand), panopticism demonstrates how technology can serve to extend and reinforce the values, beliefs, and systems of power of a culture (Ohmann 26, Foucault "Eye of Power" 148-150). As Ohmann observes, "literacy is an activity of social groups, and a necessary feature of some kinds of social organization. Like every other human activity or product, it embeds social relations within it;" however, Ohmann also recognizes that technology and literacy "[are] malleable; [they do] have liberatory potential" (29-30). While panopticism (as an ideological system of control) is focused in Foucault on surveillance and the application of power, Ohmann's argument can still be applied: in short, panopticism can be just as much a liberatory system as it is a disciplinary system; panopticism can be used to further democratic goals and extend power to the historically disenfranchised.
I prefer to distinguish these two systems of control as tyrannical panopticism, where a culture of surveillance serves the traditional or hegemonic interests of those in power, and democratic panopticism, where a culture of surveillance instead serves the interests of minorities and those without power. The former is often regarded as altogether a bad thing (and relatively unpopular), especially in the humanities, while the latter is enjoying a surge of popularity and is often thought to be a good thing, even when it goes largely unrecognized. For example, I enjoy watching Jon Stewart every night on the Daily Show, where the first segment of the show usually consists of video clips that expose a lie or contradiction by forces in power; I equally enjoy Stephen Colbert's occasional spotlighting of police abuse of the Taser (a supposedly nonlethal technology that allows police to subdue suspects with a 22 volt burst of electricity). Both of these examples can be attributed to democratic panopticism, where the focus of surveillance is on the elite and powerful and serves the interests of everyday citizens.
To illustrate these examples further, go to YouTube and search for both of these terms: "police abuse" and "fox news caught lying" (other search strings come to mind, but for the sake of simplicity I'll stick to these). The "caught on camera" phenomenon has already had an impact on the way police respond to crimes in public (by means of an awareness that others may see their actions replayed on video), and while twenty years ago it was possible to confiscate the lone cameraman filming acts of repression or abuse, the widespread availability of recording (in high definition!) virtually any event and computer software that can edit video clips of mainstream news events to highlight contradictions makes repression of this sort of democratic panopticism difficult at best (example: Iran's elections and subsequent protests in 2009).
The technological capability to record video, edit video clips, and publish to the world without traditional means of filtration (news editors, lawyers, censors, bureaucrats and police, etc.) allows everyone a chance to become the guard in the panopticon. Whereas surveillance cameras, news cameras, and other means of surveillance that Western society has grudgingly become accustomed to have traditionally served the interests of governments and powerful organizations, democratic panopticism can shift the power of surveillance into the hands of the people, therefore constituting one of Ohmann's literacies of liberation.
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