Wealth of Networks follow-up

Following up on The Wealth of Networks, Crooked Timber has put together a "virtual seminar" on the book, in which a number of scholars are writing pieces on it and its implications. Interesting reading if you've already gotten into the book.

Talking "politics" in communication courses

I'm one of the people who teaches the J-School's huge survey course, J201 "Introduction to mass communication." (I gather that Comm Arts has a similar course -- or courses.) We break our survey into three units -- entertainment, strategic communication, and journalism -- while paradoxically trying to get across to our students that all three professions and industries are intimately related, in both the "old media" of print and broadcast, and the "new media" of digital netcast. And in an attempt to be relevant, we rely not on a $100 textbook, but on a xeroxed course reader that changes substantially each semester. After all, we reason, this class should provide students with the historical background, structural analysis, and critical thinking skills needed to grapple with the biggest communication issues of our day -- for example, debates over the individual and social effects of television, new political-economic patterns of media convergence, the performance of our media system in times of natural and/or technological disaster like Hurricane Katrina, and the responsibilty of our media system during a global "Long War" (formerly known as the "War on Terror").

So far so good. Most students understand that communication studies should, by definition, engage with the most contentious public debates of the day -- debates which seep into our entertainment, our political and commercial speech, and of course our news. But each semester I get a small but vocal minority of student evaluations which stridently disagree with this construction of the course -- and, it would seem to be, of the entire university itself. For example, with the three-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war occurring during my J201 course this semester, we used communication examples about the US relationship to the Middle East, the Arab world, and the Islamic world throughout the course -- in all three units. It was by no means the only thing we talked about. But to my mind, having such an extended and relevant case study -- supported by lectures, readings, films, assignments, quizzes and exam questions -- allowed students to slowly build competency in an issue while slowly understanding the various communication research and practice angles on that same issue.

Here's how some of my students reacted, however, to talking "politics" in a communication course:

"Strongly biased ... normally wouldn't matter, but a large portion of the class was spent on a seemingly pointless Iraq rant"

"I didn't like the focus on war, although it is a current event, I felt like I was in a poli sci class much of the time."

"The subject matter had a lot to do with politics and I did not like that."

"I thought it was too focused on politics."

"It was very biased."

"Good class, however some aspects of the class, such as the parts referring to politics, seemed to be a forum for the prof to express his views."

"Political discussion w/the war - too much complaining."

"At times seemed very political and war oriented. Does sort of fit -- but maybe covered too much?"

"Downey, stop using the course packet as a form of liberal propaganda!"

The charges of "liberal bias" don't actually surprise me ... just like the charges of "liberal bias" in the media, the acts of questioning and critiquing are now too-easily equated with rejecting and criticizing. (The web site Free Exchange on Campus is a good resource for more on these debates.) We don't duck these accusations in J201, but instead spend a fair amount of time in class talking about media watchdog groups on both the right and left, analyzing studies of political opinion related to news-watching habits, and exploring admissions by journalists and editors themselves of poor reporting. In fact, my goal is to get my students to leave behind the simplistic charges of "liberal" vs. "conservative" and instead concentrate on (a) how each of those two blanket categories can encompass many contradictory values and beliefs;(b) how a journalist's personal ideals might matter less than their professional values, constraints, and reward systems; and (c) how the real test of quality for any journalism is whether it is clear, transparent, rational, convincing, and useful in helping readers understand their world.

What really worries me, though, is the equation of charges of "bias" to charges that the course is simply "too political." How in the world could one teach about communication without contextualizing that communication within the "political" (or, "political-economic and social-cultural") realities of any particular time and place? Now, out of about 350 student evaluations returned, only the nine excerpted above mentioned such interlinked complaints of "too political" and "too biased". The vast majority of written comments on the evaluations -- hundreds of them -- revealed that most of our students really appreciated our approach in the course. Yet the fact that a small minority could so misunderstand what our course was for -- and what, I think, their university education is for -- really bothers me.

A recent article in the American Association of University Professors journal Academe dealt with some similar issues. In "Fomenting Dissent on Campus", author and associate professor Terri A. Hasseler asks "Do we teach students to disagree with dominant positions and to use their political franchise? Do we speak openly about problems at our institutions?" and concludes, "Too often, we fear that we will be seen as insubordinate or disloyal to our colleges or universities, and thus we neither model nor teach the importance of dissent." She continues:

How do we create a system that allows for a healthy exchange of competing ideas? First, we need to consider some of the obstacles to creating (or re-creating) an engaged academic community in a culture in which corporate, commercial, and capitalistic practices have been naturalized into the university structure. The new corporate academy relies on a highly managed workforce and a clearly defined clientele. Anna Marie Cox, in her study of the rise of the corporate university, quotes John Sperling, the chief executive of the University Phoenix: “This is a corporation, not a social entity. Coming here is not a rite of passage. We are not trying to develop [students’] value systems or go in for that ‘expand their minds’ bullshit.” What he dismisses as nonsense, however, is the stuff that allows for dissent as opposed to docility, control, and uniformity.

To Hasseler, a corporatized university helps reproduce a consumerized student. She cites an example from her own experience:

Not long ago, I asked students in a first-year class to write an essay applying principles of the new urbanism we had been discussing to buildings on campus. Recent construction has made my campus attractive and greatly improved the environment. I wanted to see if students could analyze whether the institution had responded to a particular ideological approach to urban planning. I thought the essay topic would give them a chance to apply some critical-thinking skills. Most, if not all of the students, however, ignored the instructions and came back with what I can only characterize as promotional statements for the campus; they seemed to think that was what I wanted.

Perhaps I did a poor job in preparing them for this exercise, but what struck me very hard, even after classroom discussion, was their hesitancy to critique the campus in any way. They saw criticism as disloyalty and tried to convince me that nothing needed improvement. The essays echoed what they had heard on campus tours. These newly admitted students were heavily invested in the brand name of what they had purchased. Such investment made it difficult for them to accept or to engage in critique.

This echoes what some of my students seemed to feel was their loyalty to "brand America" in talking about the Iraq war. In fact, at no point did I ask my students to provide and defend their own opinions about the war itself, its goals, or the way it has been conducted. Instead, we tried to wrestle with whether our media system encourages or enhances or even allows such debate -- and under what circumstances. Perhaps the distinction is too subtle for many college sophomores. Or perhaps they don't feel that they are "purchasing" a discussion of politics when they spend their tution dollars on a communication course.

Hasseler ends with a call to faculty to do a better job at "modeling" dissent -- showing how responsible professionals have an obligation to articulate and defend the knowledge that they trust, utilize, and themselves produce in a civil and productive manner, even if that knowledge leads them to question and critique existing power structures. (I might call this the "definition of good journalism" or the "definition of good scholarship".)

I don't currently express my own dissent in the J201 classroom (unless my oft-expressed snarky dissatisfaction with local TV news counts). In fact, I'm not actually convinced that, in my role as the first professor whom students in the J-School encounter, I should model dissent in my class by taking time to articulate my own beliefs about Katrina and Iraq, about Google and Microsoft, or anything else for that matter. But I do believe that communication departments and courses have a particular responsibility to help students understand the practices of dissent and the structures which enable or constrain that dissent. Dissent is by definition a form of communication directed toward -- and also to the side of -- existing power. Even if we don't choose to model the practice of dissent in the classroom ourselves, we should insist upon retaining the right to reveal and analyze the process of dissent for our students.

I'd be very curious to hear how other faculty, staff, and graduate students have encountered and/or dealt with such issues in their communication classrooms.

Virtual land-grab grabs headlines

It's begun -- a gamer has filed a lawsuit over a disputed sale of "virtual land."

Second Life lets players buy land and build structures that can then be leased or sold on to other players, often for a profit. The game's currency, Linden dollars, can be easily exchanged for real cash.

Marc Bragg, an attorney from Pennsylvania, US, filed the suit against the company behind Second Life, Linden Lab based in California, US. He accuses the company of deactivating his account after he discovered a loophole that enabled him to buy virtual land cheaply within the game.

The suit, filed in a local district court, seeks financial restitution for Bragg who claims he invested around $32,000 in the virtual land. "This is probably the first dispute of its kind," Bragg says in a statement posted online. "This suit challenges the legitimacy of a virtual intangible purchase of an asset."

Bragg adds that the dispute could test the relevance to virtual worlds of existing laws. "Linden Lab is still obligated to honour real-world contract law and consumer law, even if their world doesn't really exist," he says.

Linden Lab, however, asserts that Bragg's suit is unfounded. "We intend to contest this in the appropriate forum," general counsel Ginsu Yoon told Wired News. "We believe the suit to be without merit."

Somehow, this guy reminds me of the kids that would run and whine to their parents whenever they lost some marbles.

AEJ travel/lodging exchange

This is an open thread for making travel and/or lodging connections for AEJ. For reference, the important details can be found at aejmc.org. If you're looking for people to share a room or car*, or if you have extra room to offer, post in the comments section.

* Assuming you're crazy enough to drive all the way to San Francisco, that is.

NES seeks new questions to test

The American National Election Studies will be conducting a pilot study of new questions this coming November and is seeking proposals:

If you want particular questions to be asked in future ANES surveys, now is the time to offer evidence of how the questions perform in real surveys. The Pilot Study is an ideal way to gather such evidence.

You can submit a proposal through the ANES Online Commons (go to www.electionstudies.org). The firm deadline for submitting proposals for the Pilot Study is June 15, 2006.

Full details at the ANES site.

Cheating in communication schools

An article in the New York Times today talks about the new "high tech" cheating in colleges and universities:

At the University of California at Los Angeles, a student loaded his class notes into a handheld e-mail device and tried to read them during an exam; a classmate turned him in. At the journalism school at San Jose State University, students were caught using spell check on their laptops when part of the exam was designed to test their ability to spell.

And at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, after students photographed test questions with their cellphone cameras, transmitted them to classmates outside the exam room and got the answers back in text messages, the university put in place a new proctoring system.

These anecdotal examples may be part of a widespread (but not necessarily new) pattern: "In a survey of nearly 62,000 undergraduates on 96 campuses over the past four years, two-thirds of the students admitted to cheating. The survey was conducted by Don McCabe, a Rutgers professor who has studied academic misconduct and helped found the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke."

I think this is interesting with respect to all of us in the J-School and in Comm Arts, not only because the same new information and communication technologies which many of us study are being mustered into the cheating war on both sides, but because the very discipline of "communication" in all its forms -- especially the professional practices of both journalism and strategic communication -- demands an ethic of truthfulness and a norm of trust that is undermined by cheating, plagiarism, and the like.

I wonder how fellow students, TAs, staff and faculty have been dealing with this. In the nine big exams I've given for my 400+ student class J201 since I've been here, I've never caught anyone cheating. But we demand that all cell phones and computers be put away, and we do stroll the aisles to let the students know that they're being watched. And when we find a review sheet left behind after the exam, I have to wonder if anyone was sneaking a peek during their test.

More troubling to me have been instances of Web-based cut-and-paste plagiarism. I encounter at least one of these incidents a year -- sometimes small and sometimes large, sometimes (in my best judgement) inadvertent and sometimes calculated, sometimes from undergraduates and sometimes (shockingly) from graduate students. It's relatively easy for me to notice when an essay changes "voice" and then Google a suspicious phrase to check for this kind of cheating. And I even explain to students at the beginning of each class how adept I am at such checks, and how many students I've caught plagiarizing over the years. Yet the practice continues. On one hand I'm annoyed that I have to even mention this to students paying thousands of dollars for a supposed education. On the other hand I feel like, in the context of "communication ethics," perhaps I don't talk about it enough in the classroom -- or don't link it to wider debates over the social norms and poltical-economic structures of knowledge production in journalism and business, in academia and government, like I should.

Any suggestions from other Vilas Hall folk?

The Daily Show Effect

Two political science professors at Eastern Carolina have published an article called "The Daily Show Effect: Candidate Evaluations, Efficacy, and American Youth" that purports to show the negative effects of Jon Stewart on young voters:

We test the effects of a popular televised source of political humor for young Americans: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. We find that participants exposed to jokes about George W. Bush and John Kerry on The Daily Show tended to rate both candidates more negatively, even when controlling for partisanship and other demographic variables. Moreover, we find that viewers exhibit more cynicism toward the electoral system and the news media at large. Despite these negative reactions, viewers of The Daily Show reported increased confidence in their ability to understand the complicated world of politics. Our findings are significant in the burgeoning field of research on the effects of "soft news" on the American public. Although research indicates that soft news contributes to democratic citizenship in America by reaching out to the inattentive public, our findings indicate that The Daily Show may have more detrimental effects, driving down support for political institutions and leaders among those already inclined toward nonparticipation.

I haven't read the whole piece yet, but I find their conclusions to be a little foolish -- their conception of how media work is particularly odd. And for full context, check out the lead author's pro-war and pro-authoritarianism site.

Vilas Hall before its time? Or past its prime?

Am I the only denizen of Vilas Hall who thinks the architecture of this place is straight out of Logan's Run? I mean, I know UW-Madison had its little brutalist architecture phase in the 1970s and all, but Vilas just seems to capture that "futuristic" aesthetic a little more than, say, the Humanities Building (which evokes more the feel of a prison, or perhaps the original Battlestar Galactica, for me).

There are indeed some things about Vilas I like. The big accessibility ramp from University Avenue lets me park my bike up away from the street, and the wide useless entry plaza allows me to bypass the bike racks and instead steal some covered space to lock it up. I like the fact that we can open our own windows when diesel fumes come through our HVAC system, unlike in, say, Helen C. White Hall (another Logan's Run candidate). But the fact that the building basically sits on stilts confuses me. What is that promenade for, exactly, besides smoking and not skateboarding?

The awkwardness of the design is easily seen in the fact that even the newly-revised internal map signage by the elevators is hopelessly confusing (especially the second floor map, which inexplicably reproduces some but not all of the other floors as well). At least our new Journalism Reading Room is looking both functional and comfortable right now, and this has had the spin-off benefit of moving some tables into the 5th floor waiting area which were immediately appropriated for ad-hoc group projects.

This brings me to the question I was going to ask of Vilas folks, both student and faculty/staff: Where do you prefer to work? Out in the open? In your shared or solo offices? In our computer labs? In the JRR? In the Nafziger? Other secret places? Where should we be directing our limited technological and architectural humanization efforts? Where do our communities grow?

Laptops being banned in classrooms

AP:

As the professor lectured on the law, the student wore a poker face. But that was probably because, under the guise of taking notes on his laptop, the student actually was playing poker — online, using the school's wireless Internet connection. The scenario is not uncommon in today's college classrooms, and some instructors want it stopped. So they have done the unthinkable — banned laptops.

The move caused an uproar at the University of Memphis, where law professor June Entman nixed the computers in March because she felt they were turning her students into stenographers and inhibiting classroom debate.

Students rebelled by filing a complaint with the American Bar Association, although the organization dismissed it.

At the University of Pennsylvania, law professor Charles Mooney banned laptops from his classes two years ago for similar reasons.

If this were to happen at all universities, Facebook would have to close up shop the next day.