The Bird and the Bee “Polite Dance Song”
The Long Daily Show Now
I am not very interested in topicality in the narrow sense; I’m more interested in the long now, the big picture, slow technology. That’s why I don’t try to write straight out of the news, and I never try to keep up. Those things are interesting in themselves, but they are also largely commercial processes that I think we should ignore whenever we can.
Still, over the last week or more I have been fascinated to watch the Daily Show take on CNBC’s financial and social recklessness, rightfully accusing them of abandoning the traditional journalistic role of watchdog. Stewart’s proximate target is the Jim Cramer, of the show “Mad Money,” but he also has bigger fish to fry.
The week before, of course, the topic of the moment was Rush Limbaugh’s role as de facto leader of the Republican party. On the one hand the media seems to be very defensive about Stewart, claiming that he can’t ‘have it both ways.’ He’s a comedian or he’s a lefty cultural critic; he can’t do that liminal dance that puts him somewhere neither here nor there.
On the other hand, Limbaugh, who’s much more of a demagogue than Stewart, and so by any measure has less credibility, if any at all, seems to be welcomed as a legitimate spokesperson. Limbaugh’s bombastic nonsense seems to go in one ear and out the other, to many media folk, but he’s still great news. Stewart, on the other hand, has to be brought down.
Stewart has a legitimate satirical and political problem. He built his empire by ruthlessly attacking the Neo-Conservatives. He’s credible because he’s funny and well informed. Now that Bush is history—until the trials—he has to figure out what to do next. Hypocrisy bashing has always been a strong suit; media hypocrisy bashing is proving to be both funny and insightful
Wikipedia Wins Again!
And what has been surprising in students’ attitudes toward Wikipedia? Though my evidence is anecdotal, in the years of teaching with Wikipedia I have found almost no difference in the range of opinions about Wikipedia held by student writers and those held by their – mostly – older teachers. I find that roughly the same proportion of people have concerns about reliability, open access, and information literacy among students and faculty, just as I find roughly the same number of enthusiastic adopters among teachers and students. But when I query reluctant students about how and where they formed their negative opinions about Wikipedia, they usually point to a classroom environment where they were penalized for using it as a source. They almost never have had an experience which encouraged them to move from simply using Wikipedia to writing for it. As we move from seeing Wikipedia as only a resource to an online intellectual community, students are more than ready to accompany us.
Are We Ready to Use Wikipedia to Teach Writing?, March 12, 2009, Robert E. Cummings
The case against Wikipedia, like too many things in academia, is more than a little specious, often dependent on a kind of willful ignorance. I knew a professor once who hated Wikipedia so much that he learned to post to it, just so that he could put in false information.
He’d then give his students a simple research task, knowing that most would go to Wikipedia and get the false information he had planted. When they told him what they had found, he’d go, “A HA! You went to Wikipedia didn’t you!” He had nothing to teach, just “don’t use Wikipedia.”
Cummings presents a clear outline of why this sort of thing– besides the ethical implications– represents a wasted opportunity in several directions. Most importantly, it misses a chance to teach students about writing, the production of knowledge, and audiences, among other things.
It also misses the opportunity to continue to develop Wikipedia as both an source of knowledge and a community of writers and knowledge builders. I think some students might find this process so compelling they would become committed Wikipedians. That’s a social good in itself.
I think, though, that Cummings (and the rest of us technology and writing lovers) have to go further than developing arguments in favor of new writing forms. We need an entire range of critical judgments that would allow us to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I think someone like Cummings should write a piece called, “Why I Don’t Have Students Compose Videos in First Year Writing,” or “Why I Don’t Think Twitter is Appropriate in Advanced Composition.” We don’t have to agree on every point, of course, but we need the debate if we are ever going to defeat the Luddites.
Lou Reed and Jonh Cale: Work