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On the Research Road again!

| April 3, 2011 2:17 pm

My 2011 six-month research leave thus far most rewarding! In January spent time at UC Santa Barbara working with colleague Chela Sandoval on a book project, Legacies of History of Consciousness (HOC). Gave a talk at UCSB on “Truth Effects and Digital Dissent” at Ctr for Information and Technology (CITS) [watch here] Then to LA, giving another talk at USC to Henry Jenkins and his Civic Paths research group.

In February, joined a non-profit Media Delegation to Havana, Cuba–met with dozens of people working in media, technology, culture and film throughout Havana–amazing, learned *so* much about Cuba on the brink of much change. My “Report on Havana” almost complete!

Now headed to American Ed Research Assoc. in New Orleans where I will participate in 5 sessions, including The John Dewey Symposium Reimagining Critical Hope: Situated Perspectives Across North-South Contexts (a panel that will include lovely South African colleagues and my former colleague Graham Smith now CEO Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi in New Zealand); Reverence, Listening, and Humor in Education and Informal Learning and Sociable Media in Children’s Culture.

End of April, to UC Santa Cruz for first interview for HistCon book project, with Hayden White, renowned historiographer and semiotician, and key founder of HistCon in late 1970s.

Last major research trip will be again to UC Santa Cruz in June, to attend Donna Haraway’s retirement party and for our book team to conduct interviews with HOC professors including Donna Haraway and Jim Clifford.

Tomorrow–a small keynote at the Worldviews Pre-Conference, an event dedicated to building bridges between journalists and academics!

Finally, great news this week–was awarded a SSHRC 3-year grant to study Youth Civic Engagement through Social Media!

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DIY Citizenship Conference Web Archives!

| November 22, 2010 10:09 am

Sessions and Plenaries from the DIY Citizenship Conference: Critical Making and Social Media, Nov 11-14 are now available online:

Nov 11 Opening Event: Henry Jenkins and Corynne McSherry, “Supporting the DIY Citizen”
http://epresence.kmdi.utoronto.ca/1/watch/859.aspx

DIY Citizenship Conference: Sessions held in CCF (all plenaries, and one panel during each concurrent session)

Nov 12: http://hosting.epresence.tv/MUNK/1/watch/198.aspx

Nov 13: http://hosting.epresence.tv/MUNK/1/watch/200.aspx

Nov 14: http://hosting.epresence.tv/MUNK/1/watch/199.aspx

Other Concurrent Sessions:
http://itube.ischool.utoronto.ca/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folder={%22ID%22%3A%2283e5a623-06d6-4172-bc14-23469bbba492%22%2C%22Name%22%3A%22DIY%20Citizenship%22%2C%22Role%22%3Anull}

Twitter Archive: http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/diy10

Western Tech High School Student Videos and blogposts:

1. Hack space DIY conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ9IkvYHBhw

2. What is DIY citizenship to you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XexymRaMKlw

3. Women’s representations online
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zl_CGr9VU

blog Youth Journalists @DIY http://diycitizenship.com/youthjournalists

Finally, here is the concluding text from my Plenary talk at DIY which I had to cut for time: “Despite Stewart and Colbert denying the Internet’s role in mobilizing 400,000 people to travel to D.C. to rally for Sanity, Malcolm Gladwell’s critique is relevant to the rally’s outcome.  As he writes, “Because networks don’t have a centralized leadership structure and clear lines of authority, they have real difficulty reaching consensus and setting goals. They can’t think strategically; they are chronically prone to conflict and error. How do you make difficult choices about tactics or strategy or philosophical direction when everyone has an equal say?”

Gladwell is talking specifically about the weak ties of online social networks. However, from the extensive evidence of ongoing counterpublics engaged in follow-up political engagement to the Rally—such as the Facebook site one finds postings to date every few minutes with ongoing political debates, countless other online sites and blogs and within TV and news culture such as Jon Stewart’s interview by Rachel Maddow on November 11–it is clear to me that Gladwell makes again the error of too strong a distinction between on- and offline activism which my own and others’ research confirms to be increasingly inaccurate.

So I leave you with these questions, and one final clip intended to reflect the creative diversity of “ironic citizens,” which might be promising save their embrace of “moderation” which raises many political concerns in the current climate, and the fact that rally-goers by and large refuse an identification as “political” or activist—despite the fact that they traveled in many cases thousands of miles to express criticism of news media such as FOX.

  • What sense do we make of [thus far leaderless](DIY?) massive civic engagement catalyzed by political satire?
  • What kind of citizens/subjects are we, “made” through the confluence of popularized target audience in combination with net/grassroots bodies taking to the streets?
  • What is the significance of a populist public desire for a new, creative politics under a pluralist banner of ‘moderation’?

The last clips I share reflect the spectrum of what seems possible through this paradoxical form of coming together within the empty square of irony that is neither about fixed meaning nor apathy, but a plurality that defies summary: [final clip—btw, some of the clips now up on YouTube Never been to Rally Before; Why Did you Come to Rally?]

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