On blogging
Before I get to any subjects of great import, I cannot resist the impulse to first get a little meta. In this, my inaugural post to the HASTAC blog in the official capacity of HASTAC Scholar, I have to immediately come clean. I am fairly terrified of mass written electronic communication: blogs, listservs, the news ticker in Times Square. I am especially terrified of this blog. Not because of the possibility of sounding ignorant in front of the large, whip-smart audience HASTAC might afford me, although that is more likely than not. It also does not scare me to know that my ideas will cease to be mine once they are released into the digital ether. But rather, Im scared because with blogs its just so easy to fall prey to the dark side of discourse: sarcasm, irony, derision, slippery slopes, post hoc ergo propter hocs and the like - not at all out of spite, but out of passion for the subject at hand. In a community that is trying to push the very boundaries of knowledge, it can sometimes feel that so much is at stake. For those of us in Academia, it is often difficult to express passion in formally valuable ways, so cathartic electronic expression becomes that much more tempting. If I was really being honest with myself, however, I would just admit that I think I'm right most of the time, and that when I read something online I dont agree with, I must remind myself of that famous axiom, "If you cant say something nice...".
I was honored to be offered a formal role in HASTAC. This network represents many of the things I have written about and worked for in other contexts: collaboration across disciplines and institutions, civic engagement through technology, the advancement of new literacies, social action in the Academy. Indeed, the ideals for which HASTAC stands are the same ideals that propelled me to pursue life as an Information Scientist (that, and the prospect of a cool business card). Basically, this is stuff that matters to me. Using technology to increase our understanding of each other is my raison d'tre.
This is also stuff that matters a great deal to the other people here, which is why it was such a fantastic idea to form this consortium in the first place. However, when I logged into HASTAC tonight, I was reminded of the fact that collaboration can be incredibly difficult work when everyone is coming from different backgrounds but invested in the same goals. I read a post about a project that struck me as having an ethically problematic methodology, although it was clear that the project had the potential to effect many unquestionably positive outcomes. My first impulse, of course, was to shout, "You're doing it wrong!" in the comments. Which wouldn't have been all that productive.
So, I have some questions/challenges for myself as a HASTAC Scholar, which I want to enunciate right at the outset so that I hold myself accountable to them: How will I bridge my differences with others in this interdisciplinary community of interest in positive, constructive ways in order to advance our mutual goals? What can I learn from those with whom I disagree that will make my ideas and my practice stronger? Can I work collaboratively with the very people with whom I disagree, and could our outcomes be better than anything we could have produced from our siloed perspectives?
Anybody have any good research on disagreements?
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We Are Playing Catch-Up To Ourselves
Hi, Mike, This is a marvelous blog post. I've had a recent foray into disagreement when I posted about my "This Is Your Brain on the Internet" which, among other things, is about teaching online discourse. I decided to try an experiment in evaluation, where each team of students was responsible for deciding whether or not the students blogging that week had done a satisfactory job, and then a new team would be in the evaluation role. The first part of each class will be about evaluation, feedback, standards, analysis, and other forms of constructive collaboration on line. (I happen to be writing that exact book chapter right now, btw.) I had no idea anyone would be interested---but it was picked up by CHE and Inside Higher Ed and, in both, was the most read and/or commented on piece of the month. And, as you suggest, many of the comments are just snarky and ill-informed, not simply critical. That interests me because positive contribution to the Web is also collaborative, from Linux, Netscape, and Mozilla, to Wikipedia or Trip Adviser. So both polls exist in tandem. And maybe that's the greatest alternative aspect to refereed, traditional journalism.
Without a filter, there are extremes on both ends. With a filter, there is often a covert "message" by a traditional form of medium and, whatever the subject, that "message" exists not far below the surface. I flipped quite randomly to the NY Times this morning and found this headline: "Advisers to Obama Divided on Size of Afghan Force." HASTAC isn't allowed to indulge in party politics--because many state universities and private universities that receive state funding (as in, virtually all) have strict rules on the matter--and that's not the point. It's if the meme is "whatever we do, from the right or the left, let's emphasize that there is disarray, incompetence, deceit, and nefarioiusness in this administration," then the deep structure of headlines, the "message," is "division," not "Advisors Carefully Weighing Options." In online discourse there is no one clear, single filter over all news. Maybe the inevitable result is both good and bad . . . and every imaginable point across the spectrum? One function of HASTAC (like my course) is to help us all learn new modes of discourse online.
There is relatively little on snarky online discourse in terms of actual research yet. There is a lot on the limits of collaboration and HASTAC has pioneered what we call "collaboration by difference" as an online version of collaboration that emphasizes what Denis Hancock of Wikinomics calls "uniquely qualified minds." If a collective of uniquely qualified minds co-contributes, that is a relatively new form of collaboration. If it is anonymous, there is no bar in the form of prior credentialing needed, if it is multinational and multilingual (as Linux or Wikipedia are), and if it is editable, then we're in a different realm and we're all learning the skills to master a realm that already exists.
We are playing catch-up to ourselves! A major change in communicative styles and access is already full underway, has been for three decades, and we're only now starting to study and try to understand a change we've all been through as if it weren't significant. But as social and intellectual marker, the change is huge. Your blog signals that. We'll all be teasing out the implications throughout the year.
Now, I have to finish this book! I won't comment on every HASTAC Scholar post but these first ones (ah, this is so Web 2.0) on how you translate online discourse to actual participation in communities and how we interact civilly and productively on line get absolutely to the heart of what HASTAC and the HASTAC Scholars program is about. Thank you! And welcome!