gmu public sociology presentation - the academy & social media

8/3/2019 GMU Public Sociology Presentation - The Academy & Social Media

1/31

Academic Marginalization

@pjrey

PJ Rey

theAge of Social Mediain

University of Maryland

[email protected]


2/31

@pjrey

What is Social Media?


3/31

@pjrey

What is Social Media?

defined by mass participation

contrast with top-down,centrally-produced content of

the culture industry


4/31

@pjrey

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


5/31

@pjrey

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.


6/31

@pjrey

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


7/31@pjrey

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


8/31@pjrey

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.


9/31@pjrey

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)


10/31@pjrey

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


11/31@pjrey


Because journals were the sole site of communication, all

contributions to the field came in the form of journal

articles.

A Genealogy


12/31@pjrey


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


13/31@pjrey


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


14/31

@pjrey


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


15/31

@pjrey


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


16/31

@pjrey


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


17/31

@pjrey


this is reminiscent of Veblens (1899)

observation that decadence and waste

however impracticalcan be effective

markers of status

A Genealogy


18/31

@pjrey


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


19/31

@pjrey


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


20/31

@pjrey


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


21/31

@pjrey


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


22/31

@pjrey


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


23/31

@pjrey

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.


24/31

@pjrey

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.


25/31

@pjrey

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


26/31

@pjrey

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.


27/31

@pjrey

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


28/31

@pjrey

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)


29/31

@pjrey

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


30/31

@pjrey

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


31/31

@pjrey

What is to be done?

Infiltrate hiring committees

gmu public sociology presentation - the academy & social media

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