In The Machine is Changing Us, anthropologist Michael Wesch tried to show that new media could counter our society’s narcissistic trends and promote new ways for people to find their authentic selves. He claimed since we know ourselves through our conversation with others, and new media increases conversation, then new media is a Good Thing.
What he showed were people recording themselves on webcams as if they were in confessional, after being nervous due to “context collapse”, because they were talking to a camera, and by extension an unknown audience. It made me wonder whether the effect might be different if someone were manning the camera, filming these people. Now, in our case for this class, we created videos, but had an idea who we were creating them for: our classmates (though others may view, of course). As I was filming, I wasn’t in a confessional, I was talking to my colleagues.
I noticed the second and third parts there was emotional music added to the clips. We watched people in real life giving free hugs in a mall, then MadV. Like Jennifer Hall, I thought this was interesting. But Jennifer became more optimistic as she watched, and liked MadV having people hold up their hands with positive messages written on them. I noticed that MadV him/herself had “One World” on his hand, and the others seemed to follow suit with messages of peace and love. Would our reaction be different if he had a less positive message, and others followed suit?
Angela Byrnes wrote on her blog, “We are all connected and I think social media can be used as a tool to help make the connections authentic and in the process, as we learn from each other, we learn more about ourselves!” I very much agree — social media CAN do this. But I was not convinced that it in any way tips the scales toward good. I still see the narcissism, the intense focus on self and getting oneself noticed.
So what I learned was that I have to read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, and that I felt somewhat manipulated at the end — I was supposed to feel that all this online connection was positive. I tend to react against such manipulation, I’m afraid, which colored my response.
I also watched A Portal to Media Literacy. I got far more out of this lecture in terms of perspective and concrete techniques I can use, although in some ways it seemed like an extension of the argument (it’s a mistake, I think, not to see these as arguments) presented in A Vision of Students Today from 2007.
As implied by my post on the Wiley/Hilton article, I do not see the traditional classroom and web-based learning as opposites, nor do I think either needs elimination. The claim is false that if students had access to the web or their cell phone in class they’d be able to quickly look up a factual answer — I’ve tried it in class. But Wesch is correct that the issue is “How can we create students who can create meaningful connections?” That isn’t about venue or format — it’s about goals.
As Danielle Stinson put it on her blog:
While they are willing to spend hours talking over their Playstations, Skyping, BBMing and texting, posting to YouTube, communicating on Facebook etc., once you try to take their classrooms to these environments they become uncomfortable.
So how and why and where do we want them to use these for learning, and how can we help if we think it’s a valuable thing to do? (Which I do, of course.)
From a professional development standpoint, getting teachers past their fear is crucial (see Dianna’s post on the effect of this lecture on her fear and doubts). Wesch’s idea that there are no digital natives is helpful:
Wesch’s own class examples were inspiring to me — I came out of the video with a whole new idea for my final project as a design for a new class, and a feeling that a No More Lecturing decision I made earlier this week was wrong. Students need to be taught skills; we can’t assume them. So yesterday I printed out Cornell notes forms and instructions, and I taught my students to take notes before my lecture, reviewing them afterward. Not high tech, not online, but useful immediately.
When Wesch acts like an anthropologist, I have no trouble — it’s when he becomes an apologist that he loses me. The implications that web connectivity can save the world, and the implication that student engagement means academic quality, just aren’t supported by research. But advice for leveraging a social tool, and descriptions of the online world we live in, were really worthwhile for me.
First, you write wonderfully Lisa. I really appreciate your insight & critique here. Additionally, your ability to weave the comments of your classmates throughout the post provides excellent modeling for others.
Picking up on the ‘manipulation’ is quite interesting. How much of that, I wonder, is implicit in what we do (generally) as educators to sway viewpoints, or perhaps, at least, to bring attention to areas of research loosely aligned with the more utopian ideals. I’m likely, at some level, guilty of similar, so your point resonates.
And you should read Postman. And McLuhan while you’re at it.
I’d like to comment more, but I’ll stop for now – really should get home tonight.
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Hi Lisa, I’m so glad you could see through the hype in that presentation and come out with a balanced view that recognizes that social media “can” be a part of creating a better world, but that it is also a danger. The unrelenting optimism you see in those presentations is more a reflection of context than what I really believe. The Anthropological Introduction to Youtube was presented at the Library of Congress to an audience that included many who were highly skeptical about anything digital. I felt like I had to open them up to the idea that there is something of positive value there. And overall I’m happy with the success of that video in that regard. It has inspired many people to become more active creators in the digital world, which is a nice step toward greater media literacy.
But full media literacy has to come with a recognition that we do not just use media, media “use us” as well. So in other contexts (such as TEDxNYED) I find myself changing sides, sounding more like the stodgy old traditionalist, because I think there are people in that group that need to become more aware of the other side.
Much of my work is inspired by Edmund Carpenter. I’m sure you would find his work very interesting. He was a good friend and colleague of McLuhan at Toronto. He left Toronto just before McLuhan became famous, but they kept writing back and forth. Many of their writings were merged together into McLuhan’s books, so you will find Carpenter’s words in there, though they are not attributed (since neither of them really cared about authorship as much as they cared about the ideas).
Carpenter went to New Guinea in 1969 to study media change among native populations. This is what he had to say:
“The dilemma I faced in New Guinea was this: I had been asked to find more effective uses for electronic media, yet I viewed these media with distrust. I had been employed by government administrators who, however well-intentioned, sought to use these media for human control. They viewed media as neutral tools & they viewed themselves as men who could be trusted to use them humanely. I saw the problem otherwise. …. I think media are so powerful they swallow cultures. I think of them as invisible environments which surround & destroy old environments. Sensitivity to problems of culture conflict & conquest becomes meaningless here, for media play no favorites: they conquer all cultures. One may pretend that media preserve & present the old by recording it on film & tape, but that is mere distraction, a sleight-of-hand possible when people keep their eyes focused on content. …. I felt like an environmentalist hired to discover more effective uses of DDT.”
Carpenter gave me permission to post the entire book online, which I did way back in the days of HTML (so pardon the crazy frames setup) here:
http://mediatedcultures.net/phantom/phantom.html
@Alec: Thanks, and although I’ve read The Media is the Massage, I confess to having only skimmed Understanding Media. Or is there something else I should look at?
@Michael Wesch: Thank you, Michael, both for your gracious reply to my critique and your mention of Carpenter, of whom I haven’t heard.
There is no question that your work is highly successful in inspiring people — I have seen your Vision of Students Today video at several conferences. I understand better now the purpose of what we viewed. At my institution I am frequently in the same role, of trying to move those who are cynical and resistant, and usually reacting emotionally from a base of no experience with technology. I will very much enjoy viewing your “countering” videos, and I love the Carpenter quotation! I’ll have to use that somewhere….
Thank you also for inspiring me with your class techniques. I plan to adopt a number of them for my Honors class next year, and am very grateful to you for providing a road map.
[ Way back in the days of HTML? almost every day I get stuck in something where I have to use it! That probably makes me a stodgy old traditionalist at a whole other level....
]
“Students need to be taught skills. We can’t assume them.”
That is something I learned the hard way as a new teacher. I assumed students in my 11th grade class had been exposed to tons of technology at that point and that they would at least be able to type a Word document. Not so! I found myself scrambling during the lesson teaching how to use the technology, how to print, how to search a database, rather than the research lesson I had planned. Our students come from many different backgrounds and homes, many of which don’t have computers. They need this sort of tech literacy for survival and employment and if teachers don’t take the time to model safe and effective uses of technology, they will leave high school without those very necessary skills.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. Your skepticism about emotional rhetoric in presentations is something we should model for our students. It’s easy to be sucked in by the happy music, the touching images, and lose sight of the message. Seems like the beginnings of a fun media analysis lesson.
An utterly fascinating discussion (especially given Micheal’s arrival/response).
Really value this point you made early on: “So what I learned was that I have to read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, and that I felt somewhat manipulated at the end — I was supposed to feel that all this online connection was positive. I tend to react against such manipulation, I’m afraid, which colored my response.”
True of everything a teacher does, one imagines…regardless of form/medium. Although Marshall’s “medium is the message” certainly pokes a finger in a new piece of the pie here given the ability for educators to use film (or whatever they call it these days — wink) to edit together a more emotional narrative (where the content might be otherwise void of emotion if only ‘written’ or ‘typed’ for the audience).
My problem does not lie w/ Michael’s video (although from a distance the manipulation bit is certainly a healthy question to pursue), but in the low-hanging-fruit spin-off’s that teachers began creating en masse soon after. The # of pander-to-the-choir vids that were passed around the edu-blogosphere (like crack to addicts) — showing sour-faced children in desks/classrooms begging for attention due to their “school doesn’t value my hyper-connected instincts” — just proved that form ran rough-shod over substance (and always will).
The original questions that Michael (and his students) asked in that vid (and related ones) were worthy of exploration. But those that simply forced younger kids to hold up ‘political’ signs arguing against the ‘system’ were suspect at best.
Great reflections. Thanks for the post.
Christian, the enthusiasm engendered by the hype can be useful in bringing some of the uses of technology to people’s attention. It can also bring along those who see such uses as too “cutting-edge” to adopt at their institutions. For some people, if it isn’t hyped, it isn’t mainstream enough to consider. But yes, the black/white, traditional/technology-based, good/bad dichotomies are wearing on me, as you can tell.
As for the emotions (this is a response to Mary too), I admit to finding it distressing that so many people in our society require emotion to become engaged in material. But that’s a topic for another post, isn’t it?
Historically, all ‘things written’ were passion-based on some level –> tapping into the roots of ‘storytelling’ and the need for long-term memory when most didn’t have the ability to read. Emotion allowed one to remember, on some level. It is only in the last few centuries that we’ve amped up an expectation that a majority of writing should be void of passion/emotion, that the left-side of our brain and our analytical processes should dominate on the writing side of the fence. Perhaps reinforcing the fence line between these theoretical ‘opposites’ is not the ideal in terms of the long-term power of writing, esp. as we move more and more into a multi-media ‘reading’ landscape. Do any of us think that a century from now that the average person will ‘read’ in the left->right/top->bottom manner, analyzing layers of words alone, trying to discern meaning via only one layer of ‘text’ or ‘expression’? While I am not a fan of reading that does not require analysis or at least thoughtfulness, perhaps we’re being invited to see ‘writing’ as far more multi-layered than we have for the last few centuries, and not kick emotion/passion to the door at the expense of elevating logic-based writing strategy. Just thinking out loud here. Not necessarily an answer I’m trying to use to ‘win’. Just thoughts.
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