SIgn, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

So, my obsession with metadata continues. Pragmatisism has only added fuel to the fire. Pragatasits work well with data. Because when you begin collecting data over large periods you begin to see how that data is connected: metadata is then representation of those connectors. Discourse theory is fits perfectly into this model since it is obessesed with public action. My defintion of discourse works like this:





Now, let's look at this from Asen and Brower's perspective on Counterpublics: "one may locate the "couuter" of counterpublics in the identity of the persons who articulate oppositional discourse" (Asen and Bower, 8). They articulate the position of Fraiser and Felski that the counter public has somehow been restricted in access to power and therefore access to certain symbols, thus directly affecting their ability to communicate thier needs and accomplish there goals. This is where I take this conversation fully into discourse theory. It seems that the counterpublic is raging against the public and needs the public to move before the counter public can feel comfortable. I don't think is always the relationship, but we're just gonna run with this example. It seems then that the public would absolutely need access to certain symbols, which I will refer to as genres, in order to move the public becuase the public only react to certain genres. However, the counter public is restricted in thier access to certain genres so they have to use other seen as counterintuitive to the god of the public. Thus, let's redraw the picture:

Just a Few Questions

For the readings this week I found myself asking a lot of questions. Which then encouraged me to submit my response today (Sunday) rather than on Monday so ya'll could maybe think about the questions if you felt so inclined. Also I would like more time to think about the questions and perhaps read the articles further and perhaps gain some more insight. Here goes on the questions:

In Reconfigurations of the Public Sphere it states, "Technologies bring together dispersed persons and extend the reach of the public even further" Does this extend the reach of community as well? If so, what are the implications of that?

I realize that this is a question that is asked quite often now because of the extensive use of social networks, but I feel that it is still very important.

Another question, I felt that Reconfigurations of the Public Sphere used "public" as synonymous with "community". Was this the case or was I imagining it? EXAMPLE: "Many publics arise as well from the demands made by long-suppressed and marginalized groups for the rights and responsibilities of political membership, collective sovereignty, or both."

In A Discourse Theory of Citizenship Asen states that "Citizenship on the decline---in voting, campaign volunteering, letter writing, attendance at public meetings, etc." My question is: does this equal a decline in community? And What about this past election when more youth voted than ever before?

Also while reading this particular piece I was beginning to wonder what "community" looks like in other, non-democratic countries?

If, as Asen states, citizenship=performance not possession. I theorize that, if this is true, then citizenship isn't a right, it is not something you are born into--it is something you earn.

Bruno Latour

Bruno Latour

So what the heck is community, anyway?

So, I'm kind of wondering how in the world to map the definition of community. I started this map and wondered what you all might have to say about it. I'd love to explore this...

Technology and Democracy

"'Invent the printing press and democracy is inevitable.' Add to this: Invent the railway, the telegraph, mass manufacture and concentration of population in urban centers, and some form of democratic government, is, humanly speaking, inevitable" (Dewey 110).

Add to that: TV, cell phones, texting, Facebook, MySpace, blogging, and Twitter.

I think democracy has increased even more with the development of social networking sites and other forms of communication. If Dewey thought information traveled quickly through the telegraph, I'm sure he would probably pass out after seeing how viral all those texts about donating to Haiti became in a short amount of time. News travels faster now, and people have more and quicker access to information.

"Our modern state-unity is due to the consequences of technology employed so as to facilitate the rapid and easy circulation of opinions and information, and so as to generate constant and intricate interaction far beyond the limits of face-to-face communities" (Dewey 114).

We are unified with people all across the world because of Facebook, etc. This forms new communities, and the chance for the opinions of others.

Thinking of this makes me wonder what would've happened had Sarah Palin had been running on the ticket with John McCain before SNL. I think Tina Fey and the SNL team played a large role in sinking Sarah Palin. Those videos were shared after broadcast on Facebook and blogs across the country. Sure, her faux pas would have been printed in national newspapers, but many people wouldn't have had access to that information for days or weeks afterwards.

My point in all of this is that democracy has increased because of technology - like Dewey suggested.

methodology and miscellany

Several years ago, as I was considering PhD work, I spoke with some of my professors. They told me it would be difficult. They said it would be hard to get in. They warned that funding could be hard to come by. They claimed I might not be able to find suitable employment when I was finished. No problem. I’m used to taking long shots. Interestingly, they did not tell me that the purpose of PhD work was to train me to become a researcher. Now that might have deterred me.

Fast forward to last semester. I’m in Bill H-D’s class and I’m supposed to discuss the methodological framework I’m using to approach an assignment. What? I have an English lit undergraduate degree and a master’s in writing with a concentration in rhetoric. I have no idea what the heck he was asking me to do. After many discussions with my bff Melanie, and a trip or two to the Writing Center, I kinda figured it out. Kinda.

This semester, I’m taking 877 with John Monberg, and thankfully, some things are starting to click. Like this part of Dewey’s chapter one:

“But the difference between facts which are what they are independent of human desire and endeavor and facts which are to some extent what they are because of human interest and purpose, and which alter with alteration in the latter, cannot be got rid of by any methodology. The more sincerely we appeal to facts, the greater is the importance of the distinction between facts which are conditioned by human activity. In the degree which we ignore this difference, social science becomes pseudo-science” (p 7).

Nice. So Dewey encourages us to acknowledge that the ideas and concepts we bring to the table affect how we see things. “Fact” may not, indeed be fact. It might be constructed. Interesting...and ridiculously verschränkung. And speaking of verschränkung, this whole idea seems like quantum entanglement to me…

A few other comments:

I wonder what those in disability studies would make of this quote. If we’re lucky, an up and coming name in disability studies will comment on this, as I’ve invited her to follow this blog: “For ideas belong to human beings who have bodies, and there is no separation between the structures and processes of the part of the body that entertains the ideas and the part that performs acts” (p 8).

I still don’t quite get how “the taking of causal agency instead of consequences as the heart of the problem” is “a root of shared error” ( p19-20). Can someone break that down for me? It comes up again and again… (“By thinking still in terms of causal forces, the conclusion has been drawn from this fact that the state, the public, is a fiction, a mask for private desires for power and position” p 21.) I’m not quite sure what the causal forces are…

I LOVE this quote: “The planets in a constellation would form a community if they were aware of the connections of the activities of each with those of the others and could use this knowledge to direct behavior” (25). I recently had a conversation with a friend who is an amateur astronomer about the nebulous in the Orion constellation, and now I like to think of that nebulus as a community within the Orion community. This makes me wonder about the definition of community. Dewey seems to suggest that a group of people who are “aware of the connections of the activities of each with those of the others and [can] use tat knowledge to direct behavior” is (or could be?) a community. Interesting…but that would mean that there is no real decision to become community…that proximity and awareness are the requirements. That seems too simple…

Public vs. Private Conversations

I love to listen to comedians. I happen to think that in many cases they can have some very good insight into human behavior or society as a whole. One particular skit of a comedian that I cannot recall, fits perfectly with this book and the ideas behind it. The skit talks about the comedian being out in public and seeing people on their cell phones talking very loudly (a pet peeve of his). So in this instance he stood very close to the person on the cell phone, and acted as if he was part of the conversation. Of course the man on the phone was not happy with this, so he told the comedian that he was “trying to have a private conversation.” The comedian responded with, “your private conversation is interfering with my public”.

So where does public start? Where does it end? What is public? What is Private?

I would be very interested to read about some reactions to Dewey’s work and how it can be applied now in the time of social networking where “private” conversations can be seen by anyone who has a facebook account. Is it still a private conversation if it is only understood by the person it was intended for?

Dewey states that “in a broad sense any transaction deliberately carried on between two or more persons is social in quality.” Is it also public? Perhaps the only time something private occurs is if it is in your own head, once it is shared with simply one person then it is “social in quality” and possibly “public” in nature.

Susan Blackmore on memes and "temes" | Video on TED.com

Susan Blackmore on memes and "temes" | Video on TED.com

"We take our point of departure from the objective fact that human acts have consequences upon others, that some of these consequence are perceived, and that their perception leads to subsequent effort to control action so as to secure some consequences and avoid others"(Dewey, 1927).

"The moment we utter the words 'The State,' a score of intellectual ghosts rise to obscure our vision. Without our intention and without our notice, the notion of the "The State" draws us imperceptibly into consideration of the logical relationship of various ideas to one another, and away from facts of human activity" (Dewey, 1927).

Pragmatism seems to be beyond both a priori and a posteriori reasoning, though it also seems to be the next logical step from the Scottish and English Enlightenment, which influenced American Modernism and valued empirical reasoning. This seems to be why John Dewey is so focused on finding the public by moving from consequence to cause. His idea is that all social action has a cause. Find that cause and we will find the public. It is empirical and inductive reasoning. Record the most observable object and trace it to its natural origin.

I wonder though what Dewey say of the public, community, the social, and the state in a User-Generated World. Dewey suggests that ideas filter through the public and influence the meta structure of the community. Its metadata if you will. These ideas become instituionalized and determine action. For instance, red means stop. These ideas that become part of our metadata are often referred as memes. These our ideas that become part of genetic community. Memes is ofcourse a play on the work genes. The video above refers to something called temes. Temes are memes but with technology infused. Some refer to them as internet memes.

The Way I See It...

And I could totally be seeing it wrong.

So the way I understand the first two chapters of Dewey is that, as we discussed in class, there is no public. I think he's saying that the the state is confused with the public, and that the state is actually the will of one or two people, so it cannot be public...?

I think that this is an interesting way to look at society, if that is, indeed, Dewey's argument.

I'll come back to this later.

This film explores the idea of a literacy crisis in the U.S. Enjoy! http://ncow.org/browse/video/who/who_is_writer.html

Meandering through Jeff's book...

As I’m reading Jeff’s book, Community Literacy Programs and the Politics of Change, I’m struck by several things:

1. The idea that “the meaning and value of literacy is situated within specific institutions and that in order to change the meaning and value of literacy, features of a given institution must change” (p 4). So this is a book about change…
2. In the first paragraph of the “Institutions” section (p 7-8), it seems Grabill is asking researchers to consider CONTEXT. Duh, right? That seems like a simple idea, but, just as questioning the meaning of “community” might be the catalyst for new ways of thinking, so too would considering context when researching literacy. Really, how could this be considered otherwise.
3. I like the definitions of literate institution: “a space that requires certain literacies to function effectively; and literacy institution: “a space that provides literacy instruction.” As someone new to literacy studies, this terminology will help me make sense of things.
4. Brian Street’s quote really resonated with some of my own questions that have arisen while teaching WRA 150. “The question that concerned us was: if, as we argue, there are multiple literacies, how is it that one particular variety has come to be taken as the only literacy?” (p 17). I guess I struggle with the question of what is literacy, and honestly, before I arrived at MSU, I, like probably 98% of the population—and 100% of my students here—considered literacy as the ability to read and write. I wonder, possibly due to a comment made by a professor I encountered last semester, what happens when everything becomes a literacy? Does that somehow devalue reading and writing? Probably not, though…it probably just puts it in a better place…okay, so much to think about…It kind of helps when Jeff writes later “the important question really isn’t what literacy is but rather how it came to be” (18). For now, I suppose, the pressure is off…
5. I’m interested in “technocratic literacy,” because I think that was the model under which much of my primary and secondary education would fit. I wonder if this is something that must be “overcome.” Often, I realize that my thinking is quite limited. I don’t question ideas, theories, authorities, as much as I probably should, and I wonder if this is a result of the education my generation received. If so, how can I change the way I think? It seems rather foundational…
6. I’d love to explore the idea of literacy as “an object, a possession” (34).
7. I thought it interesting when Jeff indicates that he interpreted the classroom structure as “a limited and limiting set of literacies, the students, in contrast, see a type of liberation, or at least some satisfaction” (43). This makes me think back to teaching a small classroom of basketball players. Although so much of the theory I have read suggests that students don’t learn by rote, but rather, by acquisition, when working with these students, I started with the parts of speech, which they memorized. Boring? Yes. But, the comments I got back from their coach was that for the first time, the players said they felt like they had learned something important, something they assumed the rest of the literate world knew. This sense of empowerment encouraged them to begin thinking of themselves, however marginally, as writers.

Some quote that I found particularly interesting include:

1. “Institutions, in other words, are written, and if they are written, they can be rewritten” (8).
2. “A focus on institutions in the process of understanding literate activity, then, entails a focus on power” (9). It's all about power, isn't it?
   
3. “It is probably impossible to find or design a community literacy program outside institutions” (10). Hmmm…
4. “[Literacy] theory locates the meaning and value of literacy” (p 17). Okay, so that's what it is. Good to know.
   
5. Literacy theory does three things: “It can present an understanding of how people acquire the ability to read and write. It can present a picture of how people actually do read and write. It can and often does present an argument for how one should think about reading and writing” (p17).
6. “By placing literacy in its own box, theorists successfully have isolated literacy as a variable, thereby “neutralizing” it with respct to its various functions in specific contexts” (51).
7. “Freire writes that when one is confronted with the reality of oppression, guilt or rationalization are not appropriate final responses. Rather, one should take a position of solidarity, which ‘requires that one enters into the situation of those with who one is in solidarity; it is a radical posture…[and] means fighting at their side [the oppressed] to transform the objective reality which has [oppressed them]’ (1992, p. 34). Solidarity is an important and complicated principle in liberation theologies…in liberation theologies and for Freire, solidarity is an ethical position and commitment which enable the articulation of a ‘we,’ the construction of a community. A position of solidarity requires that one stop seeing the oppressed in abstract and generalized terms and see them as human beings inhabiting concrete realities and possessed of real needs. Solidarity requires, Freire (1992) writes, that one stop making ‘pious, sentimental and individualistic gestures and risk an act of love’ (p. 35)…Love and solidarity are impossible within a literacy discourse which sees individuals as non-persons or as objects of knowledge (and power). Love and solidarity are possible when individuals are seen as subjects of their own lives and learning.” (52-53)

Types of Literacy

In “Literacy and the Introduction to Ecology of Written Language” Barton defines literacy as “competent and knowledgeable in specialized areas.” Upon reading this definition the idea of computer literacy, political literacy, and so many other areas that we define ourselves as “literate in” couldn’t have been clearer to me.

The idea of literacy in general however is still unclear since one can be very literate in one area but be completely illiterate in others. Though, in my experience one who cannot read properly or at an appropriate level for their age are considered to be the ultimate definition of illiterate. Never mind the fact that they may be very literate in other areas. Today I feel that a shift is being made in that the new marker for illiteracy is being able to use a computer. Though this shift is in its infancy stage, it is there.

The area of computer literacy is one in which there are many gaps between those that could be considered computer literate and those that would not. In my job I often have to provide technical assistance to the many sites (schools) that we have around the state of Michigan. While doing this I have found that many of the people that I speak with do not know how to properly use a computer, many times I have to explain terms that I consider simple such as “window,” “browser,” and “cursor”. And these are the people that are teaching the youth in these areas (mostly low-income areas). In my mind this is just perpetuating the cycle of computer illiteracy.

Each of the readings for this week got me thinking about the different community-based literacy programs, especially when Grabill mentioned that he was surprised by the lack of program diversity. Prior to this I assumed that there were many different programs to promote and teach literacy in almost every community. As a grant writer currently working on a project to teach computer literacy to adults and youth in the Greater Lansing area using broadband stimulus money, perhaps this would be worth investigating and mentioning in the required “statement of need” especially since one of our goals for this grant money is to establish a public computer center for the surrounding community.

NLS

So as I'm reading all these things about New Literacy Studies, I'm viewing them with the lens of a recent College of Ed. drop out. I didn't get far. I only "moved" back to Wells Hall... But I digress.

The lessons I learned during my time in the COE are still fresh in my mind, and I remember very clearly talking about NLS even if we didn't assign that name to it. NLS "represents a new tradition in considering the nature of literacy, focusing not so much on acquisition of skills, as in dominant approaches, but rather on what it means to think of literacy as a social practice" (Street 2003). There is a big shift to recognizing and accommodating students' differences and learning from what they bring to the classroom. This is more prevalent when talking about urban education. I wonder why, since students in upper middle-class schools can also have different types of literacy than what is considered literacy in the education world. Students can be literate in the social practices of different groups and clubs as well as in what I'll call public education literacy no matter what their social background is.

I like how NLS takes into account different types of literacy, but I just wonder why it seems to focus only on the literacy of those groups deemed repressed or marginalized. Street does mention "asking 'whose literacies' are dominant and whose are marginalized or resistant" (Street 2003), but I would argue that public education literacy is dominant in schools, and it marginalizes other types of social literacy. I think that's the case in all schools, regardless of location.

I even found that I marginalized different types of literacy while teaching even though I came from a background that encouraged taking different literacies into account. For example, there were students in my class who were literate in the practices of the football team culture (as was my mentor teacher). I am completely illiterate when comes to football. I didn't understand the concept of a first down until my freshman year at MSU. However, when teaching German, I only focused on literacy in German, and I never really tried to relate it to football. Did these student feel marginalized? I don't know, but it might have been easier for them to learn had I related it to football. Fortunately recognizing different types of literacies came with experience, and I was able to find a literacy that I was literate in, as well as some of my students - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. So I was able to relate my lessons to this, and it seemed to help them learn. And this was in a very wealthy, upper middle-class school district.

I've even had my own type of literacy marginalized. I had someone tell me once that German isn't a different culture because all Germans are white. Since when does skin color alone define a culture? My own personal literacy in this area, I felt, was marginalized by someone from a characteristically marginalized literacy.

So my point is that any type of literacy can be marginalized, and I do like how NLS takes that into account, according to the ideological model of literacy presented by Street (2003), but I don't like that NLS (in my mind) focuses on the characteristically marginalized literacies.

P.S. On a completely unrelated note: What if we tagged our posts with the subject of the post? For example, I'll tag this post as NSL for New Literacy Studies. When we go back later in the semester, it will be easier to find posts related to certain subjects for future reference. Just a thought.

Community Metadata

Briar Hill is the old Italian ghetto on the North Side of Youngstown, Oh. Most Italians in Youngstown either grew up there or are related to someone who grew up there. Brier is aptly named since it is in fact a hill. A fairly large hill. Most of the Italians live below St. Anthony's Parish, and most children who grew up there went to parish school with the mean Italian nuns. For those unfamiliar with Italian nuns, the stereotype is true across the board. At the bottom of the Hill are the mills. If you don't mind my romanticism, God and Steel pretty much define these people.

Must have been the water.

The reason I mention this background is because the people of the Hill can't be talked about as a community without talking the institution that inspired its geography. "Institutions are people; they are the systems by which people act collectively, whether you call that system a school, a particular corporation, or a community literacy program" (Grabill, 2001). An institution are not ambiguous, but they are not clear either. Institutions are not visible, but their shadows are everywhere. Institutions are nothing more than metadata. And their shadows appear when that data is queried and used.

This institution identifies these people as Italian, Working-Class Catholics, and that Metadata gets recalled in their literate actions like in naming and praying. For instance, I have more than one relative who is named either Anthony or Antonio. Whenever I lost my stuffed dolphin as a child, my mother (a student of St. Anthony's Catholic School) told me to say the prayer of St. Anthony, patron Saint of all things lost: Dear St. Anthony please come down. Something is lost and cannot be found.

This mainly refers to souls but it works on stuffed dolphins as well.

The interesting thing about this community is that there has been a mass exodus. But, the institution has carried over as with the Prayer of St. Anthony or saying Salute when toasting to a drink or saying Boun Natale instead of Merry Christmas.

Delanty's reflection on transnational communities works on two levels here. 1. Italian immigrants move to Youngstown. 2. Italian Americans move from Youngstown to the Suburbs. Some followed the jobs. Some fell in love with muggles (non Italian types). Others ran out of room for their kids. "In many ways the original homeland is a very distant memory, especially for the second and third generation who may no longer speak the primary language of the ethic community" (Delanty, 2004). My father once told me I wasn't Italian, I was American. I also have a degree in the Humanities. Talk about falling far from the tree. Do you think anyone in my family has ever said Metadata.