GMU Public Sociology Presentation - The Academy & Social Media
Transcript of GMU Public Sociology Presentation - The Academy & Social Media
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Academic Marginalization
@pjrey
PJ Rey
theAge of Social Mediain
University of Maryland
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What is Social Media?
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What is Social Media?
defined by mass participation
contrast with top-down,centrally-produced content of
the culture industry
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Characteristics of Social Media
user-generated content, many speaking to many
prosumption, users both produce and consume
symbolic exchange, sharing is virtuous and expected
ambient production, monetization of content is concealed
augmented reality, digital & physical intertwined
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Social Media = Techno-Social Field
From Pierre Boudieus Distinction, p. 65:
cultural competence *+ is acquired in
relation to a particularfieldfunctioning as
both a source of inculcation and as a market
[and] remains defined by its conditions of
acquisition.
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More on Bourdieu
habitus is the set of cultural
competencies a developed and
expressed within certain field.
hysteresis describes a condition in
which the state of a social field has
changed so that our cultural
competency are no longer relevant
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Hysteresis in the Academy
academics behaveanachronistically in the Age of
Social Media
the academy is not irrelevant,but our antiquated practices
increasingly hinder our ability
to have a broader impact
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Positioning the Argument not techno-determinism: pundits like Andrew Keen,
public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, and classic
theorists like Adorno & Horkheimer have all argued
that the quality of political discourse is a directproduct of the medium through which it is
communicated.
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Positioning the Argument
technology is a site of appropriation not
determination ( la Donna Haraway)
power always part of the story, but the
story is not pre-scripted
the medium is not a crystal chalice that
transparently conveys meaning of content,
choice of medium itself conveys meaning
( la Marshall McLuhan)
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
The practice of using journal articles as the primary criterion
in evaluating an academics productivity (of course, we know
grants are the other major criterion) is an artifact of an
epoch long-passed. In the age of the printing press, journalswere, by far, the most efficient and enduring form of
communication. They enabled disciplines to have thoughtful
conversations spanning decades and continents. They also
facilitated the transmission of the knowledge producedthrough these conversations to younger generations .
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
Because journals were the sole site of communication, all
contributions to the field came in the form of journal
articles.
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
In fact, it is nearly impossible to imagine the emergence of
Modern science without existence of this medium. Thus, in
the beginning, journals become symbolically and ritually
important because they were functionally necessary. (Whilejournals were medium du jour during Durkheims productive
years, he surely would have recognized the reason behind
their status in the cult of the academic.)
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
However, fifty years ago, the democratization of commercial
flight made face-to-face communication between
professionals in various disciplines a reality. Conferences
becomes a more rapid and efficient method ofcommunicating ideasbut, this form communication was
not durable. Thus, the conference proceeding emerged as a
supplementary medium to compensate for the shortcomings
of face-to-face communication.
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
In some younger or more progressive disciplines,
proceedings have been elevated to a status akin to that
journals. These proceedings are printed, circulated, and
come to occupy the shelves of offices and libraries acrosscountry, if not the world. And, for many decades, this was
the only way to transmit and store the content of
conferences.
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
In the proceeding two decades, however, the practical
justifications for the production ofprintjournals or
conference proceedings has evaporated in light of the
Internets emergence. These vestigial organs of the academyshould have slowly withered away, becoming fossilized in
archives. Yet, print media remain firmly entrenched,
retaining all their symbolic significance, while lacking any of
their earlier practical import.
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
the logic of prestige in academia:
practical rationality (zweckrational) value rationality (wertrational)
so, for historical/ritualistic reasons, print journals remain
more prestigious
online journal is interpreted as second-rate journal,
despite the fact the most scholars access articles online
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
this is reminiscent of Veblens (1899)
observation that decadence and waste
however impracticalcan be effective
markers of status
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
Continuing with our genealogy
journals were made possible through the invention printing
press and this made communication more efficient
however, the formatting and printing of journals was such a
time- and resource-intensive process that academics found it
necessary to outsource these tasks to commercial publishers(with whom we often hold conflicting values)
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
somewhat ironically, publishers do nothave an interest incirculating our ideas as widely
in fact, they benefit from a system artificial scarcityalmost
all journal content is hidden behind pay walls
publishers are not even accountable to regular market forces
because they have captive (student) audiences and are able
to engage in de facto price-fixing (e.g., the markup ontextbooks are extraordinary when compared to other
industries)
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
in most cases, a single journal article (in digital form) costs
more than a popular paperback (in any form)
yet, for all practical intents and purposes, we can distribute
the same digital content on the same scale for nothing (or, at
least, no more than it costs a freelance copyeditor to layout
and upload the content)
the publishing industry has, in fact, become an obstacle to
publishing
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
and, while peer-reviewed journal-length articles remain an
important mode of intra- and even inter-disciplinary
communication, they are almost wholly ineffective when it
come to extra-disciplinary communication
the fact is that more peopleeven important figures in the
field such as Patricia Hill Collinshave read and responded
to my blog post on the topic of this presentation than will
ever do so for any journal article I may produce
A Genealogy
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Power & Prestige in the Academy
newspaper editorials, magazine articles, interviews, blogs,
and even Tweets are far more effective in engaging broad
audience and, thereby, translating ideas into practice
yet, these publications are universally ignored hiring
practices and may even be viewed as a liability
the effect is to systematically disincentivize public
engagement
A Genealogy
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Does Public Engagement Matter?
Certainly many sociologists intrinsically value praxis.
They find resonance in Marxs famous words:
Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world
in various ways; the point is to change it.
Others are motivated by the pursuit of abstract ideals.
For the benefit of these folks, I will take a moment to
argue that public engagement in not a luxury for thesocial sciences, it is existential need.
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From the Coburn Report
do *the+ social studies represent obvious nationalpriorities that deserve a cut of the same pie as
astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth science, physics,
and oceanography?
NSFs mission should be redirected towards truly
transformative sciences with practical uses outside of
academic circles and clear benefits to mankind and the
world.
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The Argument
Academics position of privilege vis--vis traditional
media has tended to make us conservative with respect
to new media.
We often prefer to resist changes to a social field rather
that try to adapt them, because in the latter case, we
risk losing our privileged position
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Social Media: A Non-Optional System
However, because we academics have abdicated our
responsibility in shaping discourse on social media, the
vacuum is being filled by those who are more
entrepreneurial.
Try as we might, the academycannot escape being part of
the changing media
landscape.
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The Cost of Political Irrelevance
The research informing debate is less rigorous and tendsto reinforce dominant ideologies
Books written by business folks and blogger/journalist-
turned-guru-types have become ubiquitous.
Because they go unchallenged in mainstream discourse,
they have the last word (and the only word) in the
marketplace of ideas.
Th F il I i i li N M di
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The Failure to Institutionalize New Media Who benefits from the status quo?
- established academics who are set in their ways
- publishers
Who is disadvantaged?
- young and publically-oriented academics
- the discipline as a whole (loss of influence, funding)
- society (which is unable to benefit from findings that
are never broadly communicated)
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Discipline - What is to be done? prioritize public engagement alongside intra-disciplinary
contributions
- first and foremost, this mean revisiting our incentive
structure
break our dependency on private publishers, kill print (wehave nothing to lose but our chains)
do better PRthe medium is the message
- When department/journal/conference websites look
like they were designed in 1995, it says to the public:
we dont give a fuck about you
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Individual - What is to be done?
in near term, public engagement will be
underappreciatedfor now, it is something you do in
addition to you job as an academic (but it is still
possible!)
- do view a project complete until you have
translated it for a mass audience in various forums
become technically competent
infiltrate hiring committees
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What is to be done?
Infiltrate hiring committees