greetings everyone--

just a couple of things to take care of (preferably) asap:

a) if you have not sent me your Banner ID number, please do so by the end of this weekend so that we can get you the required course overrides.

b) if you have not yet registered for this blog, please do so asap by going to watsonblogs.org/signup/class and follow the instructions there.

c) courtesy of Phil Gara, we will be offering two fantastic nights of Final-Cut Pro tutorials. these are not required, but are highly recommended... particularly if you plan on doing any videoblogging, etc. the dates for those are: Thurs. Feb 7 after 6pm and Tues. Feb 12 after 6:30pm. each session should last around an hour. we will update as we learn of final locations and other details. but any questions about the FCP labs should be directed to phil at (phillip_gara@brown.edu)

d) if you still have to complete the entry assignment, copies of the Roland Barthes essay are sitting in office 205 at the Watson Institute (111 Thayer)

e) screenings: it seemed like a lot of people are unable to make the proposed Tues. 3:30-5:30 screening time. while we will hopefully have most (if not all) of the films available online for you (more updates on that in the future), we'd also like to have group screenings. I know classes run until 3:50 on Tuesdays--would a 4pm start time make it easier for people to attend? in the comments below, please let us know what times work for you.

and

f) if you'd like to receive a kind of "digest" for the blog, please sign up on the right side of the screen under "Notify Me." it will send you a fairly regular email containing all of the latest blog posts. again, however, we encourage all of you to check the blog frequently for updates, changes and reminders.

thanks and have a great weekend,
ck

Posted by chk at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Please Let Me into the Class

I’m Rosalinda Pascual. Although once upon a time, my dad was a computer programmer, I still don’t know how to
manage technology. This is my fourth year at Brown and I’m an International Relations concentrator – in the PCI track. Although my fluency in technology is limited, my understanding of media is not. I’ve always been interested in how media covers what society is doing, and how the relationship between the two are interdependent. When I was younger, I wanted to be in Broadcast Journalism. But after realizing I was better at gathering information then presenting, I became obsessed with media analysis.

After taking Violence and the Media here at Brown, I learned how to articulate myself as a critical viewer of media. Taking more classes at Brown, including Global Ethnographies and American Advertising, that emphasize the importance of media has further honed my ability to criticized what is captured, but also note what is excluded from media. I could spend my life doing research on what is not captured in media, particularly in documentaries. Film, especially, can only include so much of what is labeled the truth. If we could focus on what truth is beyond that – on what is left out – we can better understand the subjectivity of the media creator as well as the situation which we are observing. Basically, I want to make a documentary and talk about other people’s documentaries – it sounds like fun.

Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers

In Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers, Roland Barthes writes “For writing can tell the truth about language, but not the truth about reality” (320). Although this is explained near the end of his piece, it created my ability to understand his points closer to the introduction. It is most intriguing how speech is that reality. It captures what is in the moment and what will automatically be insinuated by the speaker’s connotation. If one can understand this, one can began understanding Barthes’ statement, “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (311).

What I can gather from Barthes’ statement is that speech is always influenced by who you are and where you come from. There are certain social, economical, and even emotional judgments that the listeners will imply about the speaker and what he or she is trying to say. That is why a teacher, as Barthes explains it, “must become conscious of the staging imposed by the use of speech” (310). If a speaker does not stage according to the mainstream expectations of language, he will either not be understood or not be credited as a valid speaker. This reminds me of humanitarian activists who claim they are the voice for the disenfranchised. They speak on behalf of those whose voices are not understood- those who are powerless.

It just crossed my mind – how is someone criticized if they have the power to but choose not to? I was taught form a young age to pick and choose my battles – and although, I often snap back, I should hold my tongue for the sake of not creating unnecessary confrontation. Is that what Barthes means by “no innocence, no safety”? It seems the only way one can be protected from the judgments on their speech is if he or she does not speak it all. But then that must create a judgment on ones power. I seem to be going around in circles, but it all leads to Barthes’ main idea – speech (or lack thereof) is never free of criticism.

Posted by Rosalinda Pascual at 01:23 PM | Permalink

just a quick note--I've received a number of panicked emails from people about their blog entires not showing up when they first post(ed) them. no worries--it usually requires a refresh (or several) of the page for your entry to show up, particularly if it's a bigger file or if the site is experiencing a lot of traffic.

Posted by chk at 10:41 AM | Permalink

My name is Amy Tan and I am a junior concentrating in international relations, with a focus on politics, culture, and identity. I have a particular interest in identity politics, and how this discourse is shaped by and how it shapes global media. The formation of identity narratives takes place on a very personal level, but also on a national and international level. I think that by taking this class, I will be able to better understand the mechanism of the interplay between media and identity, and hopefully gain better understanding of the consequences of such a give and take relationship. In relation to this, I want to know what kind of effects the creation of narratives, by the media, has on foreign and domestic politics. For instance, does it matter that whenever someone mentions the Vice President of the United States, I think of the heavy breathing of Darth Vader because I watch too much of the Daily Show? We consume media and it consumes us. How does this affect how we see ourselves and, ultimately, how we determine our behavior towards others?

Now, to Roland Barthes and the student teacher relationship. After reading Barthes’ text on the limits of speech and presentation in the student teacher relationship, and the critical element of style that creates the identity of “teacher,” it becomes at the very least apparent that the teacher is under a lot of pressure. In order to gain the authority in the classroom and the respect of students, the teacher cannot fumble, mispronounce words like pedagogy, and should not give in to “progressive” stereotypes so easily accepted among students, if he or she wishes to retain any form of originality. (In the interest of closely studying language, it is worthy of note that pedagogy comes from the Greek paidaggi, from paidaggos – a slave who took children to and from school). The teacher enters into a contract with his or her students, and in doing so subjects him/herself to psychoanalysis. Barthes notes “it is not knowledge which is exposed, it is the subject (who exposes himself to painful adventures)” (Barthes 313).

Barthes, thus, presents an interesting paradox when describing the power the teacher wields with the ability of speech. This power and the relationship between power and teaching can be discussed in reference to Barthes’ statement: “No help for it: language is always on the side of power, to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (Barthes 311). The first point to take from this is that “language is always on the side of power,” meaning, among other things, that those able to utilize “good” language generally have power or are using such language to obtain power. It also signifies that the prevailing Law of language, which according to Barthes reigns in anyone who deigns to speak, is prescribed by the powerful. This law influences our style, grammatical structure, and our choice of words.

Secondly, and this is more speaking to the paradox, it is important to note that Barthes recognizes no one is safe in the space of speech, since in order for the teacher to speak and thus exercise a will to power, the teacher must also submit to the Laws. Paradoxically, the teacher continues to contribute to the discourse of power as someone in a position of power in the classroom, but at the same time is hampered by the pre-conditions of power present in the Law of speech. Barthes seems to be observing that in the student teacher relationship, either side takes on a performative, prescribed role that has a distinct script that follows rules, which cannot be broken without the risk of losing power.

And yet, Barthes ends his essay with an appeal to students and teachers to enter into a contract defined by goodwill, which is also probably why we were asked to read this particular essay on pedagogy. Instead of our professors being slaves to our silent will, Barthes appeals to us to enter into a truly constructive relationship. In the traditional student teacher relationship we, as students, take, we challenge and we judge, and we compress a professor’s carefully styled message into bulleted lists. Instead of doing this, Barthes seems to be asking that we disrobe from tradition and instead choose to “float” as we meet in “a space of speech divested of aggressiveness” (Barthes 330). In this space we disorient the Law, so we can perhaps get back to what teaching is all about – trying to connect with the art of living. Or maybe, as Barthes seems to suggest in his final paragraph, everyone should be on drugs, which brings us to Heath Ledger.

Heath Ledger’s death, though surely mourned by many, will remain meaningless until someone (other bloggers, US weekly, myself?) chooses a narrative. Related to Barthes, perhaps what we need is a cultural representative to interpret the significance of his death in terms of the axioms of popular culture, and maybe that’s why we were asked to write on this matter. Most of the blogs on this page have begun to do just that, so we are well on our way to figuring out what it all means. Should we grieve the loss of the characters he played and the loss of a great medium for speech or should we mourn the status of young Hollywood and the dangers of depression? Does Heath Ledger the staged character, as some of the blogs seem to suggest, matter more or is it his story as young person under a lot of pressure (neither of these capturing who he actually was)? My guess is we can’t decide on just one, but will choose to place emphasis on the story that fits best within our own particular axioms.

- Amy M. L. Tan

Posted by Amy M. L. Tan at 05:28 PM | Permalink

My name is Marielle Segarra and I am a second-year concentrating in English and heavily involved in journalism. It seems the majority of the students looking to get into the class are seniors concentrating in International Relations, many of whom need a seminar to graduate. Though I won’t need this class to fulfill one of my English requirements, I view a background in political science and international relations as almost indispensable for a journalist. I have been able to learn a great deal about journalism in fairly classic ways – I took an intro journalism class last spring, I write for the Brown Daily Herald, work for WBRU News and interned at a newspaper in Manhattan last summer. In my experience, though what I learned through actual reporting was tremendously valuable in a discipline that is so hands-on, I am lacking a solid understanding of why and how language and media have taken such a position of power in our world. Although I have begun to grasp the practice of news writing, though admittedly at an amateur level, I seem to be missing some of the substance and theory behind the study and practice of media, in all its various forms. With that in mind, I have taken a few political science classes and this fall I audited Global Security After the Cold War, which further piqued my interest in learning more about how world issues, particularly regarding international security, are affected by the media and the internet.
In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” Roland Barthes poses many obscure arguments, such as his idea that speech smells, while writing remains odorless, and that the teacher-student relationship implies that the student “let himself be seduced” into a “loving relationship” with his teacher. As I cannot quite grasp the smell of speech, and I imagine that although the teacher-student relationship in this class will be collaborative and contractual, there will be little seduction involved, I will focus on Barthes’ more universal and relatable concepts of language as a form of power and the audience backlash against this power.
Barthes discusses the teacher’s choice to be either a “conscientious functionary,” essentially a well-organized, rehearsed lecturer, or a more relatable “free artist” who loses the respect of his students by speaking imperfectly. He goes on to say there is “no help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety.” A teacher, or any person for that matter, who is eloquent, informed and unhesitant leaves himself open to attack just as a poorly-versed speaker can be criticized for his lack of knowledge or his inability to express himself. In this sense, as a writer, teacher, or human being, producing language leaves all of us vulnerable.
Barthes later expresses what seems to be a personal experience with such an attack on page 319, discussing the process of question-and-answer exchanges between teachers and students. As “to question is to interpellate,” Barthes says questioning becomes a form of aggression against the speaker. When a student asks a professor “‘What’s the use of linguistics?,’” a question that clearly implies dissatisfaction with the subject, the professor must pretend not to notice the insinuation, or as Barthes puts it, the attack. Again, the audience’s criticism of the speaker is one-way – it seems no matter what a producer of language says, he leaves himself open to the critical whim of the listener.
Barthes’ discussion of the power and vulnerability of speech and language relates to the media, specifically in the way this class produces and presents language in a public setting. In other classes, my work is subject to only the professor’s and my own criticisms. Writing on this blog, however, leaves each of us vulnerable to the opinions and judgments of our classmates. In a similar sense, writing for a newspaper, or performing the even more daunting task of interviewing or being interviewed on live television or radio, for instance, creates a speaker-listener relationship similar to that of the teacher and the student. Though the media seemingly has the power in the relationship, reporters, politicians, and those in the public eye, including celebrities such as (there it is) Heath Ledger must essentially perform for the masses, with the understanding that their words will be dissected and criticized endlessly.

Posted by Marielle Segarra at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Who is Alejandra Piers-Torres? Well, academically you could say that I am currently a senior double concentrating in International Relations: Politics, Culture and Identity and Hispanic Studies: Literature and Culture. My concentrations have allowed me to take courses such as AN128 "Violence and the Media", SP55 "Cultures of Violence" and of course PS40 "International Politics". The combination of these classes has taught me to analyze different modules of media and consider their cultural and often multicultural impact. Not to mention, my concentrations have highlighted the humanization of violence, as it all too often becomes embedded into cultural icons.
On a more personal note, I was born and raised in “Sweet Home Chicago”. It is a city very dear to my heart and one often prone to political scandals, both disclosed and publicized. Chicago is currently trying to compete against Rio di Janeiro for the location of the 2016 Olympics and has therefore taken a greater interest in its “international” image. It has been interesting to watch the city’s international makeover with the inclusion of more cultural events and the occasional globe symbol within the city’s public domain. My mother was born in Havana, Cuba therefore I have always had a general interests in international affairs, especially as they relate to Latin America. More specifically, I have always been drawn to the often “taboo” and “controversial” depictions Cuba within US media and vice versa. I guess I feel lucky that I have been able to travel to Cuba a few times and see that people can relate outside of the exaggerated political separations.
I am interested in studying media not only as an information outlet but also as catalyst towards events. I witnessed this first hand last spring when I studied abroad in Barcelona and I was able to experience the different ways that the Spanish and Catalan media covered international affairs compared to the often censored US media. I became especially aware of this in the coverage on the Virginia Tech shootings. The local Spanish newspapers ran very graphic pictures of the victims. As a college student myself, I was obviously very sadden by the situation and I felt haunted by the images. When I called home my peers were unaware of the explicit pictures. I had to wonder how many news worthy events in my life had been sugarcoated. I think this course would be a great opportunity to develop my interests and an excellent way to top off my IR concentration.
In the essay “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers”, Roland Barthes analyzes the assumptions and constraints of communication. Barthes specifically focuses on the sea-saw dynamic between speech to writing and consequently teacher to student when he says, “Language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power” (p.311). After sitting through several inspiring lectures at Brown I would have to agree that captivating an audience, especially in the context of learning has an empowering affect. I am learning this first-hand as I prepare my sample lesson plans for the Teach for America application. While I am excited about the prospect of participating in this organization, it is a very daunting thought to take on the supremacy role of a teacher. In my opinion, this inherent “power” brings into questions the idea of “freedom of speech” which many democracies seem to pride themselves on. Is one ever truly “free” to speak if they are ruled by undisclosed errors and embedded in an expressive hierarchy? I believe that the freedom of expression can survive if we take into account that this “power” is vulnerable. Even Barthes points out, “Speech is irreversible…There is nothing to be done with speech but add on more” (p.309). The “errors” of a teacher in their oratory stage cannot be concealed from the students. However, I do not see this as a negative aspect of communication. Sometimes the best lessons are learned from shared experiences, including human mistakes.

Posted by Alejandra Piers-Torres at 04:29 PM | Permalink

My name is Jessica Kerry, and I’m a senior concentrating in Comparative Literature in English and French. I want to take this class because it encompasses my most urgent interests: politics and culture; and the study and production of media. My favorite part of the five or six MCM and literary theory courses I’ve taken at Brown has been the insight they’ve given me into the subtle ways politics and power are both expressed and constituted by media, particularly media we tend to think of as apolitical. All media—not just news and documentary—take some kind of stance, intentionally or not. I think this background in critical theory gives me a different, complementary perspective to the (majority of) International Relations concentrators in the course and will make discussion and collaboration much more fruitful. I also think that the course’s IR theory will supplement and enhance my understanding of the more direct ways that politics and media influence each other.
I have been a journalist since high school (most recently interning at the Providence Phoenix June-December) and am considering entering the field professionally after I graduate; so the questions of culture, economics and politics that we will explore in this course are, for me, practically as well as intellectually pressing. I cannot be a good journalist if I don’t understand the various forces at work, not only in the issues I cover, but in my role as a media maker. This is also why the production portion of the course is particularly important for me. Although my medium has always been the written word, I don’t want to be left behind by the seismic shifts in the field of journalism over the past few years. The internet has changed the form as well as distribution of journalistic production, creating opportunities that require the practical skills I hope to learn from this course.

Barthes’ assertion that “language is always on the side of power” describes the teacher’s use of speech to claim authority over knowledge; by speaking, the teacher constitutes the content of his speech as “correct” or “accurate," negating any other possible interpretations or perspectives. This is what Barthes’ means when he says “the Law is produced, not in what he says, but in the fact that he speaks at all”—the teacher’s authority depends not on the content of the lesson but on the articulation of the lesson itself. Exposing and questioning this relationship between teaching and power is particularly important for a course that examines the workings of political power, and one that relies so heavily on student production and participation. How does the Law operate when students themselves create some of the course material (the vlogs)?
Crucially, Barthes’ power dynamic applies not just to speech within the classroom, but to all speech acts. Founding semiotician Ferdinand de Saussure argued that the relationship between words and their meanings is arbitrary and therefore must be determined negatively; lacking any essential link to its meaning, each word is defined by what it does not mean. In this way, language itself corresponds to the authoritative structure of teacherly speech: it constitutes itself by denying alternatives,
Understanding the fundamental non-neutrality of language is, I think, central to understanding media’s interpretations of international events and problems, especially when so many of the media producers who shape the course of events claim to be “fair and accurate,” etc. What can be dangerous about this is that the world we live in is so media-saturated, from our internet use to the sheer amount of images we see on a day-to-day basis, that it’s hard to tell anymore where reality stops and spin begins in our own heads. I can’t help but think of political campaign coverage, which always seems to turn non-issues into big stories simply by talking about them. Who holds the power when politicians are forced to respond to the newsmedia?
While some media are undeniably agents of power, however, others can also be agents for change—e.g. many documentaries, political blogs, web activists, etc. So I would propose an alternative to Barthes “speech,” which “is on the side of the law”: speaking out, perhaps the equivalent of a student talking back to the teacher. The difference between speaking and speaking out is something I’m personally interested in as I look to my (potential) future as a politically- and globally-minded writer, and I think it will be incredibly relevant to the media we examine in this course.

Posted by Jessica Kerry at 03:58 PM | Permalink

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'
(L. Caroll – Through the Looking Glass)

When Foucault claimed, ”we need to cut off the King’s head” if we want to find the sites of power other “avenues” became important. Needless to say, power is still ”exercised” from above, but in the ages of the Global Media, this is perhaps the most interesting place to search for new forms of power.
That explains pretty much why I want to take this course. If the Global Media is where power functions, then I would – as interested in both power and politics, like to acquire “tools” to decipher those mechanisms as well as get skills to “re-/built” new power platforms. Hence the production of media/medium

I agree with Hannah Arendt (and Nietzsche for that matter) that language cannot tell who I am, but only what I am – and what I am is Kristian Walther. I’m (still even though I attend Brown this spring) a graduate student at the Department of Political Science at University of Copenhagen – Denmark. My primary interest within the last couple of years has been International Relations and Political Theory and History of Ideas.
That also means that I have no experience in the production of media, but this is what I hope at least for a beginning to get from this course.

Barthes on “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers”

Since the text is esoteric and contains a number of interesting issues, I only focus on pages 309-312.

The relationship between power and language is significant. As Barthes points out if one wants to be “properly” understood one needs to invoke “the Law” i.e. the grammar of language and thereby authority. The alternative is the human, all-to-human (in a paraphrase of Nietzsches book, with the same title) – the free spirit, the artist, who breaks the chains of the Law, but then is faced with the audience.
What is the alternative? – Well as Barthes points out, there is actually no alternative. Whenever one invokes language, one always produces and reproduces power. Whether the relationship between the teacher and the audience is to be taken literally or not it signifies the importance of language in shaping perceptions. This is also the case when we receive information. If the social reality only exist through perspectives it also means the each discourse invoke some kind of authority, which structures it. Teaching then should not just be in the form of learning a theory or a discourse, but in addition to critical investigate what kind of authority, power and (perhaps) interest a given discourse serves. This is hopefully the task of this course. To learn to participate in “the battle of discourses”

I apologize for not letting Heath Ledger play the (in-)significant role, that was intended

Posted by Kristian Rune Walther at 03:41 PM | Permalink

My name is Chantal and I am a sophomore most likely concentrating in IR – PCI track and Middle East Studies. I’m very much in the process of discovering new avenues and abilities of media, and my interest is honed on media frontiers in the Middle East specifically, and the developing world in general. I will be going on a Students of the World trip this summer, where other members of the Brown chapter and I will work to document the work of a yet-to-be-determined NGO and its effects the community through film, photography, and writing. I’m currently writing and editing for a radio documentary called “Between Iraq,” comprising stories of Iraqi refugee families that I recorded in Syria last summer. I also have a radio show at BSR, and I’ve worked a few summer jobs at the kind of newspaper that requires you to bring your own digital camera.

I’m particularly interested in specifically motivated media that is bought and paid for – propaganda, if you will – and its relationship to what we, as viewers or as media producers ourselves, consider “legitimate” media. When I was in high school my mother had a job directing and producing promotional films for the U.S. army, and our house was flooded with tapes called “Best of Iraq Freedom: Parts 1 and 2” and similar. I’ve also spent time living in Syria, where dozens of quasi-militaristic posters of Bashar Assad faced my bedroom window. It’s easy for us in classrooms to dismiss such media as “Army of One” or a head of state lounging in army fatigues, but its easier, I think, to underestimate the extent to which people respond to simple kitsch, “motivated” or no. And within the vast abyss of various media sources available to us right now,
the dialectic of motivation – paid or no – and objectivity seems obtuse. What exactly is our standard – can there possibly even be a standard – for “objective” media? If, as Barthes tells us, all speech aspires to power, can we not say that all speech, and all media, is motivated? And how are we to go about judging the “legitimacy” of these motives, if at all?

So on to Barthes: The quote on pg 311 hints at something I find fascinating, which is the idea of our speech as separate from ourselves, and perhaps more powerful than ourselves. More often than not, we are armed only with our speech to represent ourselves, giving our language power not just over our audience, but also over us, the speaker, he who seeks to represent and be represented. Language creates space for interpretation and possible misinterpretation, which can easily become judgment and criticism – or “reduction,” which Barthes discusses soon hereafter. For a here-and-now example, this can degenerate further into a tit-for-tat “he said – she said” situation à la Barack and Hillary, which arguably lends power to neither party. It’s worth noting that although we may aspire to power through speech, it may achieve for us quite the opposite.

So what can we do about it? Barthes is unsympathetic. Like with footprints in the snow, we can turn on our own speech, backtracking and trying to obfuscate our original position, but we run the risk of just making a mess. The canvas of our speech – a classroom, a dinner table conversation, etc – will never be “innocent” of its tracks. As Barthes would say, it “smells.” This permanence of speech differs from writing in that there is no delete key, no White Out. If I am typing by myself, and I don’t like this sentence, I can delete it, and like a good hit job, no one will ever know what went down. Written word is more vulnerable to our whims, to our sense of style and pacing, to our pretensions and apprehensions about how our words represent us. The fact that this entrance exam is written rather than oral is telling of the kind of representation we are meant to achieve in completing it.

Barthes also says: “It is difficult for a teacher to see the “notes” taken during his lectures: he has no desire to do so... out of fear of discovering himself in a reduced version.”
“Imagine that I am a teacher: I speak, endlessly, for and before someone who does not speak... I am the one who, under cover of an exposition, proposes a discourse, without ever knowing how it is received, so that I can never have the reassurance of a definitive (even if damaging) image which might constitute me.” (both page 312)

In this section, Barthes discusses the institution of class notes and how they privately “reduce” the teacher in form and/or content. With regards to my experiences at Brown, this passage evokes another institution, the end-of-semester teacher evaluation. The teacher evaluation introduces a way for the teacher having a “definitive (evening if damaging) image of what might constitute me” in his students’ eyes, something that Barthes does not consider a part of the teaching relationship. It has the same characteristics that Barthes assigns to notes – the representative and reductive qualities, the possibility for an interpretation of the “message” that would offend the “sender” – but adds an analytical dimension, one that has larger ramifications for the teacher. The evaluation associates the students with a power higher than that of the teacher (department head, etc). It is, in theory at least, a momentary reversal of the student-teacher power dynamic, that of sender and receiver, criticizer and criticized.

The method of the teacher’s (or of any speaker’s) “reduction” is key and potentially problematic. Is what we write truly a compound analysis of the teacher over the course, or a polaroid of our relationship with yesterday’s lesson, with our current mood, with our most recent grade? Barthes talks about the teacher’s “fear” of discovering himself in some mutilated form (shrunken head metaphor drives this home), and of realizing that he is not in control of the destiny of his speech once it is stripped of its style (“compressed”), and in this case, submitted for his own evaluation. This harks back to the volatility of speech in general.

And finally: “... for political language itself is constituted by stereotypes.”

I chose not to write on this phrase, because ranting about how political rhetoric is stereotypical is itself a tired stereotype, but it reminded me of my favorite Youtube video of the week, which I think everyone should watch.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gEaS-K3j3M8

Posted by Chantal Berman at 03:23 PM | Permalink

I am Albert Huber in the class of 2009. I am a political science concentrator with a focus in international relations. I have taken the introductory international relations theory course and I have also taken “The Illicit Global Economy.” I have not taken any media analyses courses in the MCM department, but I have studied a different sort of media and communication in the theater department, where I have taken classes such as “Performance Theory and Theater Histories” and “Acting,” where we not only study the theories of performative communication, but also how do communicate. Extracurricurally, most of my time is taken up by working in some way or another at the theater, acting, directing or helping with production elements. Bridging my interests in performance and communication with my interest in international relations is something I have been trying to work out and I think this class would be a perfect place for me to continue doing that. I have become very intrigued by the spread of user-generated media, such as youtube, and how that affects political relations between states. I want to learn how this phenemenom has come about, but more importantly, I want to become a part of it. I think that this class could help guide me in how to constructively contribute to the already oversaturated pool of information and how to produce my own quality media.

“Language is always on the side of power.” (Barthes, 311) What I love about this statement is the distinction that it draws from the idea that language is power. Barthes is pointing out that instead of using speech to weild one’s own power, power, or the law, is consistently constraining and guiding one’s speech. Barthes points out that a way to fight against this, to be the “free-thinking artist,” is to resist the rules of language, to stammer and correct and not speak smoothly and elegantly. The laws therefore, are not still constraining you, right? Wrong. When someone speaks in this manner, especially from a position of power or respect, they quickly lose that respect and become a bumbling fool in our minds, whether or not they are a fool. This reinforces stereotypes that language brings along with it. One who speaks smoothly is elegant, one who doesn’t speak much is deep in thought, one who makes smart sarcastic remarks is the snarky intellectual, and one who stammers and corrects is a fool.

One section about speech that resonated with me was the section on questions. Many times when a student asks a question, it is not actually a question, but a statement. Barthes writes, “To question is to interpellate…What I receive is the connotation; what I must give back is the denotation.” (319, Barthes) I think it is particularly interesting that while both participants in the dialogue know that the intent of the question is not in the answer that will be received, they are constrained by language to continue as if there was no other connotation other than the question itself. The relationship between the student and the instructor here is constrained by language in which they perform the parts of people who are asking and answering these questions without any unsaid connotations, and yet there are. This situation then begs the question, who are they performing for? And, How do we then break out of playing our parts in this performance of a classroom?

It seems that the only way to escape the power that speech brings with it is through writing. Written word allows the author to correct, revise and rethink his/her thoughts, without stammering and stumbling. S/he can truly be the freethinking artist without the social label of fool. Also, writing allows one to be their own objective observer of their thoughts. When speaking, one must always be defending oneself. When writing, one can even attack oneself. One can rethink one's own ideas by deleting them, instead of adding on to them. Footnotes aren't necessary a lot of the time when a good backspace button is on hand. Can this different kind of discourse, this more refined conversation that doesn't necessarily pigeon-hole people into the roles that spoken word attempts to, be utilized in the teacher-student relationship? Maybe. Can these thoughts about language be applied to the untimely death of Heath Ledger? Absolutely.

People in the general public are not mourning the death of Heath Ledger, most people in the general public have probably not seen Heath Ledger speak more than 10 of his own words. People are mourning the death of characters he played, characters which spoke words all written by someone else. Characters who spoke words other people wrote and touched people through Mr. Ledger. The power of someone else’s language was wielded through this actor, and that language then controlled him and defined him. So yes, to most Americans, the death of Heath Ledger is meaningless, but the death of the words he wielded is not. America can mourn the loss of a great communicator who was in our eyes defined by the language given to him.

Posted by albert huber at 03:20 PM | Permalink

My name is Julia Stern, and I am a Senior concentrating in International Relations and Italian Studies. I was so excited to first learn about this course – and the Global Media Project at Watson – two years ago, but due to scheduling conflicts and being abroad last Spring, I was not able to enroll until this semester. I want to take this course (very, very much) because I am increasingly aware of the important role that media has assumed – in all its various forms – in the realms of politics, warfare, diplomacy, and so many other aspects of international relations. This first became evident to me five and a half years ago on September 11th when, like every other American that day, I was glued to the TV set in my tenth grade math class (which until then, to my knowledge, had never been turned on), trying to comprehend what had happened in New York City that morning. I remember vividly thinking (naively, I suppose) that it was a terrible accident, a plane crashing into the World Trade Center—until we were blasted with another round of news when the second plane hit, this time reporters confirming that it was in fact the work of al-Qaeda terrorists. The fact is, no one really knew the whole story until much later that day, and even then, those of us around the country who were fortunate enough not to have been in New York at the time, were at the mercy of the news stations, reporters, journalists, bloggers, and any other “carriers” of media to deliver us an accurate account of what actually happened. In this way, I think media is just as valuable as the actual event taking place, as it is our only liaison to global (and local) events when we are not able to be there firsthand.

While I have not taken courses directly related to media theory or production, I feel that it is so important to learn about in the context of international relations given the major responsibility and impact it bears on our daily lives—especially in the face of such a proliferation of new technology and thus new platforms from which to express news. In the current presidential election, I am struck by the way media is used to leverage candidates’ messages, disseminate important information, and gain visibility—all seemingly compelled to take advantage of the media/communication/technology craze, so as not to fall behind their opponents. Candidates all have websites (without question), Facebook profiles, send out text messages to potential voters’ cell phones, and even utilize YouTube to answer voters’ questions in the first ever “YouTube debate.” And yet even when candidates themselves (or their parties) seek to control or spin the information that is broadcasted, the media is increasingly a public institution—with blogs and other tools of the internet, literally anybody can publicize his or her opinions.

One thing I would like to further explore by taking this course is the fact that all media must be somehow operated by a human being, and it seems very difficult not to express (even sub-consciously) one’s personal views, whether through a blog, video, article, interview, even a still photograph—we are all at the whim of the person behind the shot. In various forums at the Watson Institute (most recently last semester “Front Line, First Person: Iraq War Stories”), it was so interesting to hear the stories of soldiers, embedded journalists, and filmmakers who all offered a different perspective on their take of the war. Also, in a class on politics in Israel I took last semester, I heard from a guest speaker that she picked up a copy of Time Magazine in the Paris airport with a headline about Palestine on the cover; but when she got to the airport in Chicago, the very same issue of Time made no mention of this story (not only was the headline replaced by celebrity gossip, but the story had been eliminated completely from the issue). This is such a poignant example of how media coverage changes so drastically from place to place, and how it inevitably influences public opinion in different ways. I’ve seen this myself when I’ve tried to watch news in other countries – even on more international stations like CNN – which pretty consistently portray a different slant of news (especially regarding American politics and foreign policy) than what we see in the U.S.

To me, this is a quintessential Brown course, offering us a hands-on, multi-faceted approach to learn about several aspects of media and the ways in which it plays such an integral part in international affairs. In fact, I transferred to Brown three years ago from a smaller liberal arts college precisely for this kind of opportunity. I come to the class with a completely open mind and passion to learn about global media, as well as my college experience thus far which has taught me to question and consider all the angles.

Turning to Barthes, I was struck by his passage on Method, and how it relates to his greater discussion of speech, writing, and the “laws” of each. He speaks of “the invariable fact that a work which constantly proclaims its will-to-method is ultimately sterile: everything has been put into the method, nothing remains for the writing…no surer way to kill a piece f research and send it to join the great scrap heap of abandoned projects than Method” (318). While he acknowledges the importance of being “lucid” and “responsible” in research (ensuring that your facts are sound), I think Barthes is encouraging those who teach to consider taking Method with a grain of salt; that sometimes one’s true message that they seek to convey can become obscured in the “rules” of writing. Speaking is somewhat freer, allowing the speaker to express himself with perhaps less constraints on form. Which relates to the passage on language and power: “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (311). As soon as we speak (and to an extent, write), we are exposing ourselves to the opinions and interpretations of our audience. The speaker wields great power in perhaps influencing others with his assertions (enhanced by the language he chooses), yet at the same time has little control over the way his speech is perceived. As students of this course, we will learn this firsthand by publicizing our own opinions on the Global Media Blog, and using other types of media platforms to express ourselves. I have never experienced this type of “sharing” in a course at Brown, and believe that I would benefit greatly from the input of others on my work, and the opportunity to consider how my words will affect an audience.

Posted by Julia Stern at 03:17 PM | Permalink

My name is Julia Stern, and I am a Senior concentrating in International Relations and Italian Studies. I was so excited to first learn about this course – and the Global Media Project at Watson – two years ago, but due to scheduling conflicts and being abroad last Spring, I was not able to enroll until this semester. I want to take this course (very, very much) because I am increasingly aware of the important role that media has assumed – in all its various forms – in the realms of politics, warfare, diplomacy, and so many other aspects of international relations. This first became evident to me five and a half years ago on September 11th when, like every other American that day, I was glued to the TV set in my tenth grade math class (which until then, to my knowledge, had never been turned on), trying to comprehend what had happened in New York City that morning. I remember vividly thinking (naively, I suppose) that it was a terrible accident, a plane crashing into the World Trade Center—until we were blasted with another round of news when the second plane hit, this time reporters confirming that it was in fact the work of al-Qaeda terrorists. The fact is, no one really knew the whole story until much later that day, and even then, those of us around the country who were fortunate enough not to have been in New York at the time, were at the mercy of the news stations, reporters, journalists, bloggers, and any other “carriers” of media to deliver us an accurate account of what actually happened. In this way, I think media is just as valuable as the actual event taking place, as it is our only liaison to global (and local) events when we are not able to be there firsthand.

While I have not taken courses directly related to media theory or production, I feel that it is so important to learn about in the context of international relations given the major responsibility and impact it bears on our daily lives—especially in the face of such a proliferation of new technology and thus new platforms from which to express news. In the current presidential election, I am struck by the way media is used to leverage candidates’ messages, disseminate important information, and gain visibility—all seemingly compelled to take advantage of the media/communication/technology craze, so as not to fall behind their opponents. Candidates all have websites (without question), Facebook profiles, send out text messages to potential voters’ cell phones, and even utilize YouTube to answer voters’ questions in the first ever “YouTube debate.” And yet even when candidates themselves (or their parties) seek to control or spin the information that is broadcasted, the media is increasingly a public institution—with blogs and other tools of the internet, literally anybody can publicize his or her opinions.

One thing I would like to further explore by taking this course is the fact that all media must be somehow operated by a human being, and it seems very difficult not to express (even sub-consciously) one’s personal views, whether through a blog, video, article, interview, even a still photograph—we are all at the whim of the person behind the shot. In various forums at the Watson Institute (most recently last semester “Front Line, First Person: Iraq War Stories”), it was so interesting to hear the stories of soldiers, embedded journalists, and filmmakers who all offered a different perspective on their take of the war. Also, in a class on politics in Israel I took last semester, I heard from a guest speaker that she picked up a copy of Time Magazine in the Paris airport with a headline about Palestine on the cover; but when she got to the airport in Chicago, the very same issue of Time made no mention of this story (not only was the headline replaced by celebrity gossip, but the story had been eliminated completely from the issue). This is such a poignant example of how media coverage changes so drastically from place to place, and how it inevitably influences public opinion in different ways. I’ve seen this myself when I’ve tried to watch news in other countries – even on more international stations like CNN – which pretty consistently portray a different slant of news (especially regarding American politics and foreign policy) than what we see in the U.S.

To me, this is a quintessential Brown course, offering us a hands-on, multi-faceted approach to learn about several aspects of media and the ways in which it plays such an integral part in international affairs. In fact, I transferred to Brown three years ago from a smaller liberal arts college precisely for this kind of opportunity. I come to the class with a completely open mind and passion to learn about global media, as well as my college experience thus far which has taught me to question and consider all the angles.

Turning to Barthes, I was struck by his passage on Method, and how it relates to his greater discussion of speech, writing, and the “laws” of each. He speaks of “the invariable fact that a work which constantly proclaims its will-to-method is ultimately sterile: everything has been put into the method, nothing remains for the writing…no surer way to kill a piece f research and send it to join the great scrap heap of abandoned projects than Method” (318). While he acknowledges the importance of being “lucid” and “responsible” in research (ensuring that your facts are sound), I think Barthes is encouraging those who teach to consider taking Method with a grain of salt; that sometimes one’s true message that they seek to convey can become obscured in the “rules” of writing. Speaking is somewhat freer, allowing the speaker to express himself with perhaps less constraints on form. Which relates to the passage on language and power: “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (311). As soon as we speak (and to an extent, write), we are exposing ourselves to the opinions and interpretations of our audience. The speaker wields great power in perhaps influencing others with his assertions (enhanced by the language he chooses), yet at the same time has little control over the way his speech is perceived. As students of this course, we will learn this firsthand by publicizing our own opinions on the Global Media Blog, and using other types of media platforms to express ourselves. I have never experienced this type of “sharing” in a course at Brown, and believe that I would benefit greatly from the input of others on my work, and the opportunity to consider how my words will affect an audience.

Posted by Julia Stern at 03:08 PM | Permalink

My name is Julia Stern, and I am a Senior concentrating in International Relations and Italian Studies. I was so excited to first learn about this course – and the Global Media Project at Watson – two years ago, but due to scheduling conflicts and being abroad last Spring, I was not able to enroll until this semester. I want to take this course (very, very much) because I am increasingly aware of the important role that media has assumed – in all its various forms – in the realms of politics, warfare, diplomacy, and so many other aspects of international relations. This first became evident to me five and a half years ago on September 11th when, like every other American that day, I was glued to the TV set in my tenth grade math class (which until then, to my knowledge, had never been turned on), trying to comprehend what had happened in New York City that morning. I remember vividly thinking (naively, I suppose) that it was a terrible accident, a plane crashing into the World Trade Center—until we were blasted with another round of news when the second plane hit, this time reporters confirming that it was in fact the work of al-Qaeda terrorists. The fact is, no one really knew the whole story until much later that day, and even then, those of us around the country who were fortunate enough not to have been in New York at the time, were at the mercy of the news stations, reporters, journalists, bloggers, and any other “carriers” of media to deliver us an accurate account of what actually happened. In this way, I think media is just as valuable as the actual event taking place, as it is our only liaison to global (and local) events when we are not able to be there firsthand.

While I have not taken courses directly related to media theory or production, I feel that it is so important to learn about in the context of international relations given the major responsibility and impact it bears on our daily lives—especially in the face of such a proliferation of new technology and thus new platforms from which to express news. In the current presidential election, I am struck by the way media is used to leverage candidates’ messages, disseminate important information, and gain visibility—all seemingly compelled to take advantage of the media/communication/technology craze, so as not to fall behind their opponents. Candidates all have websites (without question), Facebook profiles, send out text messages to potential voters’ cell phones, and even utilize YouTube to answer voters’ questions in the first ever “YouTube debate.” And yet even when candidates themselves (or their parties) seek to control or spin the information that is broadcasted, the media is increasingly a public institution—with blogs and other tools of the internet, literally anybody can publicize his or her opinions.

One thing I would like to further explore by taking this course is the fact that all media must be somehow operated by a human being, and it seems very difficult not to express (even sub-consciously) one’s personal views, whether through a blog, video, article, interview, even a still photograph—we are all at the whim of the person behind the shot. In various forums at the Watson Institute (most recently last semester “Front Line, First Person: Iraq War Stories”), it was so interesting to hear the stories of soldiers, embedded journalists, and filmmakers who all offered a different perspective on their take of the war. Also, in a class on politics in Israel I took last semester, I heard from a guest speaker that she picked up a copy of Time Magazine in the Paris airport with a headline about Palestine on the cover; but when she got to the airport in Chicago, the very same issue of Time made no mention of this story (not only was the headline replaced by celebrity gossip, but the story had been eliminated completely from the issue). This is such a poignant example of how media coverage changes so drastically from place to place, and how it inevitably influences public opinion in different ways. I’ve seen this myself when I’ve tried to watch news in other countries – even on more international stations like CNN – which pretty consistently portray a different slant of news (especially regarding American politics and foreign policy) than what we see in the U.S.

To me, this is a quintessential Brown course, offering us a hands-on, multi-faceted approach to learn about several aspects of media and the ways in which it plays such an integral part in international affairs. In fact, I transferred to Brown three years ago from a smaller liberal arts college precisely for this kind of opportunity. I come to the class with a completely open mind and passion to learn about global media, as well as my college experience thus far which has taught me to question and consider all the angles.

Turning to Barthes, I was struck by his passage on Method, and how it relates to his greater discussion of speech, writing, and the “laws” of each. He speaks of “the invariable fact that a work which constantly proclaims its will-to-method is ultimately sterile: everything has been put into the method, nothing remains for the writing…no surer way to kill a piece f research and send it to join the great scrap heap of abandoned projects than Method” (318). While he acknowledges the importance of being “lucid” and “responsible” in research (ensuring that your facts are sound), I think Barthes is encouraging those who teach to consider taking Method with a grain of salt; that sometimes one’s true message that they seek to convey can become obscured in the “rules” of writing. Speaking is somewhat freer, allowing the speaker to express himself with perhaps less constraints on form. Which relates to the passage on language and power: “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (311). As soon as we speak (and to an extent, write), we are exposing ourselves to the opinions and interpretations of our audience. The speaker wields great power in perhaps influencing others with his assertions (enhanced by the language he chooses), yet at the same time has little control over the way his speech is perceived. As students of this course, we will learn this firsthand by publicizing our own opinions on the Global Media Blog, and using other types of media platforms to express ourselves. I have never experienced this type of “sharing” in a course at Brown, and believe that I would benefit greatly from the input of others on my work, and the opportunity to consider how my words will affect an audience.

Posted by Julia Stern at 03:08 PM | Permalink

In the classroom, speech commands, guides, exposes, and takes risks. The teacher holds power over speech, free to exercise it at will while also capable of demanding it or silencing it from students. In this way, the teacher controls, even manipulates, the classroom atmosphere. Through speech, the teacher guides the students not only in their work but also in the way in which they engage their work. At one extreme, the teacher monopolizes speech, “laying down the Law,” (310) by speaking clearly, efficiently, and authoritatively. The teacher positions himself above the students, linguistically constructing a hierarchy. While this style of speech does not deny the power of speech to students, it is more likely to intimidate them and inhibit their speech. At the other extreme, the teacher loosens the perfective rigidity off his speech. With this style of speech, the teacher appears more human, as Barthes says, yet it invites the students to actively exercise their power and right to speech.

In the classroom, teachers do face limited choices with regard to speech, in the sense that Barthes argues, yet they are not bound by them. A teacher’s goal should be to inspire students. Therefore, many of them do not “choose” but rather naturally incline toward a certain style of speech to best accomplish this aim. The reality is far less dire than the dilemma presented by Barthes.

Students also face limited choices as well when it comes to speech in the classroom. When they speak, they “exercise a will to power,” (311) to attract attention, to reassure themselves, or to show off. At the same time, any attempt at speech makes them vulnerable to criticism or correction. Speech is direct. Speech is personal. Speakers are exposed to their audience unlike writers who enjoy the degree of anonymity afforded by bound pages and computer screens. Speech engenders feelings of proximity, thereby raising the stakes of communication. At the same time, speech becomes all the more sincere and forgiving because it exposes the vulnerability shared by everyone in speech. In the classroom, no one would learn without risking a little speech.

Classrooms are not simply places that facilitate transferences of knowledge but are places of experimentation and innovation. In the same way, speech constantly grows and builds upon itself. Barthes, however, oversimplifies the complexity of speech by presenting a linear image: an infinite line of text streaming from our mouths like reams of paper from old adding machines. Speech is more like a forest, each time beginning as an idea that sprouts into words and grows, in some places thickening, in others twisting and intertwining, and sometimes culminating in blossoming conclusions. Speech is alive and diverse.

Globally, the power of speech has spread as more and more people can voice their opinions to an international audience. The development of a global media community has enabled many to attain power through speech just as it has humiliated and exposed many others. As more people “exercise a will to power” (311) by speaking to the world, the world shrinks and people come closer together, creating opportunities for those on opposite sides of the world to better understand each other.

My name is Alan Johnson. I’m a Junior (’09) IR - Global Security concentrator. In many of the classes that I have taken at Brown, the media, whether domestic or international, have been important tools for studying issues in history, political science, international relations, statistics, comparative literature, history of art, and cultural studies. In these areas I have studied topics through the media but have never had the opportunity to take a deeper look at the media itself. I have always wanted to learn what is, and was, behind it all, to see the foundations that lie beneath so much of what I have studied. This seminar would make a perfect complement to my course of study, aside from being a requirement. With my diverse background and interests, I have much to contribute and so much more to learn from this course.

Posted by Alan Johnson at 02:53 PM | Permalink

My name is Elizabeth Berger; I am a member of the class of 2010 pursuing an independent concentration in Persuasive Communication. I am fascinated by the power of language to affect change in the thoughts and actions of others. I want to find the synthesis of language – between what is written and what is spoken, what is said and what is heard, what is gathered and what is disseminated. While I am not a senior, I believe I bring a unique perspective to a project of this nature. I have experience using the web not only in all the usual ways, but this past semester I worked with a nonprofit and the Weinstein Co, using online advertising and viral marketing to build buzz about a film, The Great Debaters (a media company propagating itself through other forms of media – how elliptical!) In addition to a lot of writing and academic research experience, I am a hopeless media junkie – and by media I don’t mean solely the frantic cult of celebrity. You mentioned the death of Heath Ledger – what about the death of Benazir Bhutto, the news of which was completely sublimated on US news stations by the escape of a tiger in the San Francisco zoo? Popular culture is more than Andy Warhol or the Superbowl; it is information, the vocabulary to cultural literacy. We are what we consume, in fat and facts. I want to understand this craving, and use it to change the world that barrages us with language every day.

Reading this article, I had one great regret upon its conclusion – that Quel published this in 1971, before the internet became the great equalizer of language. Quel details a comparison between the writer, the intellectual, and the teacher, separating the written word from the spoken word. The power of language, thus, is divided, and wielded only by those with power in each of those separate spheres. But what would happen if those spheres of influence were united? A blog, a discussion forum, a Twitter entry – these are all spaces in which anyone and everyone has the power to contribute to a dialogue. To claim that “language is always on the side of power” (311) is no longer true, or at least does not have the same elitism it once had. There are two ways to consider this argument: either those without power at last have a forum to express their own thoughts, or, by providing a free forum, the internet has redistributed power among the masses.

The factors of dissemination of information have changed. Even the language of the internet has changed communication. All the “abbreves” associated with IM and text messaging have spread to all forums of communication (one would be hard-pressed to find someone who did not recognize “lol” in even a spoken conversation). Grammar, political correctness, even capitalization has lost its power to legitimize information. The informalization of written language brings it somehow closer to speech, with all its flaws and imprecision. While the written word can be endlessly edited and perfected, Quel makes the fascinating point that “Speech is irreversible: a word cannot be retraced except precisely by saying that one retracts it. Here, to cancel is to add…” (309) The internet has established a language somewhere between the two. While more information can be added to, say, an article on Wikipedia, once something is posted on the internet it can never be completely deleted from existence – it remains on a server somewhere, regardless of its merit. Things are copies and pasted, quoted and shared, posted and reposted. The sheer quantity of the compiled language and information is staggering.

How similar is this to Quel’s description of the relationship between teacher and student? When a professor lectures in front of a class, no matter the quality of the information or presentation, it is copied down in note form, discussed in sections and at lunch tables, repeated in essays – in short, disseminated through a variety of means, mutating from its original form into a sprawl of tangents and new ideas. Authenticity can be lost because there are no checks in place to counteract the natural tendency towards confusion and chaos. The endless dialogue of the internet preserves the authenticity of text while allowing it to go through the endless process of discussion and verification. What the internet provides that teaching lacks is an addition to the teacher-student contract – it invites dialogue, and, through the efflorescent cacophony of voices, perhaps also invites truth.

Posted by Elizabeth Berger at 02:39 PM | Permalink

My name is Josh Sargent. I am a sophomore in the Global Security track of International Relations and am studying Arabic to meet my language requirement. I want to take this class because I believe Afghanistan and especially Iraq are the first blogged wars as Vietnam was the first televised war and this has changed the nature of the Global Media. I feel the media has segmented and now, instead of there being a universal figure like Walter Cronkite was during the Vietnam War, there is Fox News for conservatives, NBC/CNN for moderates, Jon Stewart for liberals (and yes I understand the irony of mentioning a comedian as a news source) and a blog for whatever an individual's ideological viewpoint is. Instead of a universal media for all cultures, I see a media that is becoming more and more divided and I want to understand how that effects issues of global security, especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the “Global War on Terror.”
“The militant who in the name of praxis (the idea that philosophy should actively change the world) dismisses all discourse as trivial”
I would disagree with this statement and say in this age of terrorism violence becomes a form of discourse. 9/11 and the train bombings in London and Madrid were statements, not strategic targets. Al Quaeda has a very sophisticated propaganda department and presents very different faces to different audiences. For example, Bin Laden’s offering of peace to the United States was not intended for American audiences (who vehemently rejected it) but for Muslim audiences to establish his own credibility as a leader in the Muslim world. Also when Bin Laden darkened his beard he was attempting to remind Muslims of how he led the mujahideen against Russia in Afghanistan (the mujahideen darkened their beards with henna before going to war) and again establish his credibility as a Muslim leader. The terrorist organization Hamas is now the ruling party in the Palestinian Territories and just blew a hole through the Eqyptian border so that they can establish legitimacy by reestablishing control over the border (and how convoluted is that). Discourse is necessary for legitimacy and legitimacy is what every militant group requires in order to maintain its existence.
Legitimacy is at the heart of every discourse. When Barthes mentions a “will to power,” that power is being recognized as a legitimate authority on a subject. In speaking some of this legitimacy comes from a speaker's physical characteristics, which are out of his control, while writing comes almost from a void and a writer can be legitimate regardless of his speaking ability or physical characteristics. Terror subverts this paradigm because it can attach a power to a group that it cannot attain through the more ordinary methods of speaking and writing.
I should be in this class because I want to do this work and I think I bring a unique perspective because I want to focus on security issues and the media's usually facile interaction with them (the "surge", the causes of terrorism,). These issues cannot be explained in terms of sound bites or absolutes such as defeat or victory yet the media tries to pinhole them into these terms in order to meet their qualifications of what they think their audience wants.

Posted by Joshua Sargent at 02:38 PM | Permalink

My name is Julia, I am a senior (’08) and an International Relations, Global Security concentrator. I primarily want to take this class because I’ve spent a lot of time looking reading international relations texts, and I want to look at IR in a different way. I think that looking at the intersection between media, art and international relations would be an interesting, new lens. Secondly, I’m doing an independent study this semester on War Literature, and I think this class would really complement that study nicely. I’d also like to take a smaller, more hands on and discussion-based course to end my IR career here.

I should take this class both because I would get a lot out of it and because I’d contribute a lot. I’m well-versed in international relations theory from the classes I’ve taken, and I also have a great interest in art and films. I’m taking a photography course at RISD this semester, and when I took IR 135 in 2005 I really liked the assignment where we watched and wrote about “Why We Fight?” I think I would similarly excel with similar assignments in this course.

In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” one of the main points that the author emphasizes is the relationship between speech and power. In particular, he points out that “to speak is to exercise a will to power.” In other words, he points out that by speaking one tries to claim power for oneself, whereas by remaining silent one relinquishes that power. He also emphasizes how speaking is inevitably a quest for power when he mentions that there is “no innocence, no safety” in speech. In his mind, there is no such thing as an innocent speech because every speech is inherently a grasp at power.

This idea fits into studying and teaching because to speak in an academic sense is also to grasp for power. A teacher claims power by speaking his or her opinions and trying to convey those opinions to the students. When we discuss the media in this class, we similarly claim power because we speak openly about our opinions.

However, the author clearly feels that this power is particular to speech because he highlights differences between written and spoken language. Specifically, he claims that “writing begins at the point where speech becomes impossible (as the word is used about a child).” Like one disciplines an impossible child with punishment, writing disciplines unruly speech; its concrete rules make it much more regulated than speech is. The author most clearly expands on the relationship between speech and writing on page 320, when he mentions that “writing is represented by its contrary, speech.” Both of these examples treat writing and speaking as separate types of language with different rules, aims, and effects. These distinctions certainly fit into this course because we are encouraged to use different communication media (such as writing papers and speaking in class) as various ways of both owning and conveying our opinions.

Posted by Julia Hellman at 02:36 PM | Permalink

My name is Elizabeth Berger; I am a member of the class of 2010 pursuing an independent concentration in Persuasive Communication. I am fascinated by the power of language to affect change in the thoughts and actions of others. I want to find the synthesis of language – between what is written and what is spoken, what is said and what is heard, what is gathered and what is disseminated. While I am not a senior, I believe I bring a unique perspective to a project of this nature. I have experience using the web not only in all the usual ways, but this past semester I worked with a nonprofit and the Weinstein Co, using online advertising and viral marketing to build buzz about a film, The Great Debaters (a media company propagating itself through other forms of media – how elliptical!) In addition to a lot of writing and academic research experience, I am a hopeless media junkie – and by media I don’t mean solely the frantic cult of celebrity. You mentioned the death of Heath Ledger – what about the death of Benazir Bhutto, the news of which was completely sublimated on US news stations by the escape of a tiger in the San Francisco zoo? Popular culture is more than Andy Warhol or the Superbowl; it is information, the vocabulary to cultural literacy. We are what we consume, in fat and facts. I want to understand this craving, and use it to change the world that barrages us with language every day.

Reading this article, I had one great regret upon its conclusion – that Quel published this in 1971, before the internet became the great equalizer of language. Quel details a comparison between the writer, the intellectual, and the teacher, separating the written word from the spoken word. The power of language, thus, is divided, and wielded only by those with power in each of those separate spheres. But what would happen if those spheres of influence were united? A blog, a discussion forum, a Twitter entry – these are all spaces in which anyone and everyone has the power to contribute to a dialogue. To claim that “language is always on the side of power” (311) is no longer true, or at least does not have the same elitism it once had. There are two ways to consider this argument: either those without power at last have a forum to express their own thoughts, or, by providing a free forum, the internet has redistributed power among the masses.

The factors of dissemination of information have changed. Even the language of the internet has changed communication. All the “abbreves” associated with IM and text messaging have spread to all forums of communication (one would be hard-pressed to find someone who did not recognize “lol” in even a spoken conversation). Grammar, political correctness, even capitalization has lost its power to legitimize information. The informalization of written language brings it somehow closer to speech, with all its flaws and imprecision. While the written word can be endlessly edited and perfected, Quel makes the fascinating point that “Speech is irreversible: a word cannot be retraced except precisely by saying that one retracts it. Here, to cancel is to add…” (309) The internet has established a language somewhere between the two. While more information can be added to, say, an article on Wikipedia, once something is posted on the internet it can never be completely deleted from existence – it remains on a server somewhere, regardless of its merit. Things are copies and pasted, quoted and shared, posted and reposted. The sheer quantity of the compiled language and information is staggering.

How similar is this to Quel’s description of the relationship between teacher and student? When a professor lectures in front of a class, no matter the quality of the information or presentation, it is copied down in note form, discussed in sections and at lunch tables, repeated in essays – in short, disseminated through a variety of means, mutating from its original form into a sprawl of tangents and new ideas. Authenticity can be lost because there are no checks in place to counteract the natural tendency towards confusion and chaos. The endless dialogue of the internet preserves the authenticity of text while allowing it to go through the endless process of discussion and verification. What the internet provides that teaching lacks is an addition to the teacher-student contract – it invites dialogue, and, through the efflorescent cacophony of voices, perhaps also invites truth.

Posted by Elizabeth Berger at 02:27 PM | Permalink

I spent the first year of my undergraduate experience as a film and television major at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts before transferring to Brown to pursue a liberal arts education. I am currently a senior in my last semester at Brown. I concentrate in architectural studies, but my true passion is documentary filmmaking and I have engaged this passion over the past three years through documentary, anthropology and history courses at Brown, working as an artist mentor in filmmaking at a Providence youth arts non-profit called New Urban Arts, interning with a youth media non-profit in Charlottesville, Virginia, and working on a Watson fellowship as Public Information and Media intern with the International Rescue Committee in Thailand this past summer. My decision to leave an intensive film training program at NYU in favor of a liberal arts education at Brown was rooted in my belief that filmmaking (especially documentary filmmaking) itself is not the driving force for ideas, but rather ideas are the driving force and film (media) is a uniquely powerful instrument for turning those ideas into real change. When I graduate in a few months, I plan to pursue documentary work and in my last time at Brown my goal is to expand my understanding of what “documentary work” means, and what, in fact, a media-maker is capable of on an international scale. Last semester I had the privilege of taking a course called “The Good Fight: Documentary Work and Social Change”. In thinking about the title of the course and what it meant for me personally (and this is also the reason “Global Media” is a logical next step), I arrived at this: ‘The good fight is the fight to create opportunities for empowerment and connection through one of the most powerful forces at our disposal: the media. In video and film technology we have an awesome tool for reaching out across traditional boundaries, giving voices to those who would otherwise be silent, and binding people through honesty and common experience. The good fight can be fought on a small or large scale, as long as the fundamental goals of the fight do not become lost in the search for something artificially real. The good fight is a process, not necessarily a product.'

Looking back on this idea of striving for an effective process to connect people and experiences (what else is media, really?) while reading Barthes’ Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers, lent a particular resonance to the text not only as a piece on teaching, but also as a piece on communicating, and as such, also a piece on media-making and messaging. Barthes assumes a top-down “teacher”-“student” relationship of exchange in which the “teacher” holds power of speech and position over the “student”. When, on page 311, he writes, “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety,” he points also to a fundamental challenge of the “teacher”, and I would venture to say that his discussion could be broadened to equally include the “media-maker”. His essay resonates loudly today in an environment of unprecedented access to information seemingly limitless forms with which to mediate/communicate that access.

With regard to the relationship of speech to writing, the Democratic primaries seem a perfect example of the ‘powerful’/’puncturable’ position of the teacher/speaker (I will conflate the two here). Clinton and Obama each have their points, well-researched, well-spoken, but they are open immediately to criticism (crisis) when the other candidate takes jabs (it is not even an issue of positioning here, as they are side by side and above the audience). Barthes describes the very situation: “…when the teacher speaks to his audience, the Other is always there, puncturing his discourse; and his discourse, though sustained by an impeccable intelligence, armed with scientific “rigor” or political “radicality,” would still be punctured: it suffices that I speak, that my speech flows, for it to flow away” (313)). Presumably, writing does not expose one to the same level of immediate and interruptive nakedness. I would argue, however, that blogging might actually disrupt the speaking/writing binary Barthes proposes, by increasing the speed and availability of the latter and thus exposing it to some of the same “out in the open” dangers that Barthes ascribes to the former. What that means for this class is that we are dealing in a realm of entirely new possibilities for communication and that through the technology (and equally, new ideas about positioning) at our disposal, the speech/writing binary is only one of myriad binaries we have the power to destroy. This means we can create an international playing field with traditional and non-traditional players if we can get our imaginations juiced up to envision it.

-Bremen Donovan

Posted by Bremen Donovan at 02:12 PM | Permalink

First and foremost, just to get it out of the way, I am a senior International Relations concentrator who needs to take a seminar in order to fulfill my concentration requirements. Not to say that that is the only reason why I want to take this course, but it is certainly an important one. There are of course other seminars that I could potentially take, but I am particularly interested in this Global Media seminar as it seems to take a fresh approach to teaching and learning in our technologically advanced world. I for one am not as technologically advanced as I should be, considering I’ve grown up my whole life with a computer; I am just now becoming comfortable with using interactive features of the internet such as posting videos and blogs. However, despite my slow growing knowledge of the internet, I am still a large consumer of media information, be it from radio, television, newspaper, and even the internet (I at least know how to visit websites). Whether we realize it or not, the consumption of both old and new forms of media plays an integral role in shaping our responses to the people and events that constitute both our local society and the greater global society. We learn about important cultural and political issues through our exposure to different forms of media. Every time we turn on the television, or listen to the radio, or surf the internet, we have the opportunity to learn about events that directly affect our lives. Furthermore, using these various forms of media allows us the opportunity to gain insight into events from which we may feel disassociated. Ultimately, there is essentially almost nothing that is not accessible through the use of the various forms of media available to us today. It is up to us as spectators to decide how to internalize (or dismiss) these forms of media and the information that they provide us.

This brings me to Roland Barthes’ essay “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers.” One of the most important aspects of this essay is Barthes’ analysis of the student-teacher relationship. This analysis can be used as an analogy for the media and its spectators. As the teacher, the media sets out to portray a message or an argument that it believes to be right or fact. All forms of media take their audiences into account, but ultimately it is only the form of media itself that is accountable for the message it relays. Those who construct the media are thus, as Barthes writes, exercising a “will to power.” The media exercises this “will to power” as being the creator of the stories that spectators view as fact, the creators of the lessons from we which we are to learn. As spectators, we take in what the media presents us, often giving the media the same level of authority that one would any teacher. In this role of spectator and student, we dissect, interpret, and internalize what the media gives us. From this process of analysis and internalization we then form our own opinions and life views. As spectators and students, the information we receive from the media is always a subject of our study.

But rather than simply being spectators, taking in what the media gives us, we must also learn to exercise our “will to power.” That is, we must learn not only to view but also to understand and use the various forms of media that are presented to us. This mission of being able to understand and use different forms of media illustrates the potential usefulness of this course. Studying the history and theory of global media allows us to better understand the different forms and their different functions. Studying the production of media allows us the opportunity to create media of our own and to convey our own important messages that can then by interpreted by others. Ultimately, this course has the potential to set us on the path of becoming teachers rather than students.

Posted by Roger Ramirez at 02:10 PM | Permalink

My name is Sarah Kay, and I will graduate from Brown in Spring of 2010. I am concentrating in Modern Culture and Media, Track 2. The Track 2 concentration is designed so that students can study and analyze theories of production in a number of different contexts (philosophical, artistic, technological, political, etc.) and also produce works of their own that reflect and critique these fields. I was attracted to this concentration because it allows me to study media from whatever angle interests me. Both of my parents are photographers, and visual media—photography, visual art, video, and film—have always been a big part of my life. However, because I come from a multi-cultural household, was born and raised in New York City, and attended an International school, visual media has always been intertwined with social or political implications and never existed purely as isolated art. I am fascinated by the power of media to alter politics and social structures: how one photograph or news story can alter an entire country’s view of itself or of others.

Last January I attended a class in Cape Town, South Africa as a participant in the “Democracy and Diversity” conference sponsored by the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies at the New School in New York City. While I was there, I studied the Democratization of Media, which focused on how the media (local print journalism as well as public access television and local websites etc.) can affect the politics of a developing democracy like the one in South Africa. Afterwards, I was completely hooked. As the world continues to grow into a giant global network with linked economies and intersecting political spheres, “power” is going to be determined by the ability to communicate between people and countries. This communication comes in the form of news channels on the radio and television, on the internet, in movies, newspapers and magazines. While I am at Brown, I want to study the power that media has to affect change. Besides taking MCM theory classes, I took Radical Media last semester, which focused on the way that media can be used as an instrument for radical action. I really hope to take Global Media as a way to continue my education on how powerful and multi-faceted media can be. I think that only by really understanding its potential can we ever hope to harness it and find a way to facilitate important social progress.

This idea of power being tied to communication is touched upon in Roland Barthes’ essay on “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers” in Environs of the Image. Barthes notes: “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety.” Barthes is describing the relationship between the teacher and his students, but the metaphor is extremely relevant to a study of global media. Within a paradigm of communication, the person speaking is the one in power. Even disregarding the content of what is being said, the very action of speaking is what grants the speaker authority, or as Barthes phrases it, “the law is produced, not in what he says, but in the fact that he speaks at all.” The same might be said for the media. The person or corporation who controls the output of a stream of media communication (for example, a television news channel) has access to an audience that will be receptive of whatever message is being sent. The message on the news could be anything, but it is the creation of the media, (the production of the news channel) that makes the television the speaker and grants the television authority over the viewer. The same way a teacher has “no innocence, no safety”— they act of speaking makes them responsible for their authority, so do the creators of a news channel have no innocence or safety in the incredible effect they can have on a nation of viewers. How much do unofficial polls during an election year end up being self-fulfilling? By airing a news program that seeks to guess who the winner will be, how much does that influence potential voters to follow the prediction? Just like Barthes’ “teacher” television news “proposes a discourse, without ever knowing how it is received.” How does this affect a nation’s internal politics? Its prejudices about itself and other countries? Its foreign policies? Power lies in the ability to communicate, and right now that communication relies on the media.

Posted by sarah kay at 02:02 PM | Permalink

My name is Victoria Chao, and I am a senior International Relations concentrator. I was born and raised in Dublin, Ohio—a conservative, affluent suburb flowing with manicured golf courses and George W. Bush bumper stickers. As a high school student, I was told that East Asian history classes were unnecessary because “the Chinese didn’t really do anything in history.” Today, I am an aspiring public radio reporter who is interested in understanding how we develop our ideas about the world. The internet and the media, of course, play a critical role in dictating our understanding of the world and our place within it, that is to say, the media can shape the way we behave in a democracy.

On language| Roland Barthes writes, "No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety." The "will to power" is an idea first coined by Nietzche that essentially means that man's primary impulse is to gain power. Speaking is a means of gaining power because of the relationship between speaker (the disseminator of truth, the Law, or what have you) and the audience (those that absorb the information). With the rise of the internet, the opportunity to speak has become increasingly accessible, not only to the the cultural and intellectual elites that have been absorbed by the mainstream but to everyone with access to the internet. Thus, the opportunity to will oneself to power has theoretically become accessible to all.

Barthes's section on Questions illuminates an interesting aspect of social etiquette. Barthes astutely points out that although we question when we "want to know something," after a lecture the questions are often an expression of "aggression against the speaker." Though the speaker may realize that the question is a means of questioning his authority, he still must "pretend to answer the letter of the question, not its address." Each side knows the other's intentions, but they continue to play this polite game of power relations. This passage displays the way that we maintain the relationship between speaker and audience, or teacher and student. The form of the question session maintains the idea that the role of teacher or speaker is one of authority while that of the student is one of absorption. In reality, the student may use this forum in order to assert his own will to power. Both teacher and student know that there is some struggle for power under the guise of desiring to "know something." In the end, the power dynamic remains largely unchanged.

On the "untimely, meaningless (what does that mean?), and hopelessly over-mediated death of Heath Ledger"| I am not entirely sure what Professor Der Derian is getting at with this question, and it seems that most of my fellow applicants have skirted the question, so here goes. Perhaps the question of Heath Ledger's untimely death perhaps is meant to pull us back into reality. We can talk about theory and the power of the media to bring greater social change, but in the end many people would rather read about celebrities than the "weighty" issues that affect a larger number of people on a direct basis (Kenya, sub-prime mortgage crisis, global warming, etc. etc.) Within two days of Ledger's death, his memorial page on facebook shot up to 300,000 members and TMZ (a celebrity gossip site) generated over 74 pages of user comments, according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, gangs in Kenya's rift valley have killed dozens in a 5-day rash of ethnic violence.

Finally, we Heath Ledger's death gives some perspective on the nature of the beast that is the Media. In order to create any kind of sustainable change in X or Y cause, there needs to be sustainable interest and support. For example, in early December Paolo Pinheiro, the UN Special Rapporteur to Burma and Watson Fellow, emphasized the importance of timing after his factfinding mission to Myanmar/Burma, saying “My fear is that the scenes of these marchers will be forgotten and we will lose this opportunity.” Then there was Benazir Bhutto. Then there was Kenya. Then there was Heath Ledger. I think I've made my point.

Posted by Victoria Chao at 02:02 PM | Permalink

For a Political Science concentrator with a focus on American politics, the repercussions of the media's failings resonate from the theoretical realm (why do we have freedom of the press?) to the politics of policy formation (how can uninformed constituents hold their representatives accountable?). I am interested in considering how the media conducts its work today, whether it always has acted this way, and how Americans can improve the field in the modern communication landscape while remaining faithful to the ideals of freedom of expression.

In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” Roland Barthes asserts, “[…] all speech is on the side of the Law.” The context within which one speaks grants the speaker (or teacher) authority, as he or she delivers ephemeral, yet irreversible, words before a silent audience. The importance of identifying and understanding the dynamics of power in communication, as it pertains to Global Media, may be found in the role the modern media plays in the governance of people. Just as the teacher serves numerous functions (he or she is not here simply to relay information, but, as Barthes notes, to enter into a contract with the students based on a number of trivial goals, including: promoting Method, representing the “movement of ideas,” including the students in a “private language”) the media serves numerous functions, today, the least of which is a summary of the day’s news events. Reporting on the war in Iraq, American news outlets do not found their coverage on the war itself, but on the context of the war within the viewing audience’s society. In this way, above the scrolling stock numbesr at the bottom of the screen and below the American flag graphic in the top, left-hand corner, CNN does not provide a lens into lawless war (a perspective at life and death), it contextualizes it within a grander, American narrative. American forces are winning or losing, etc. The viewing audience is directed and governed by embedded reporters, politicians, and other television personalities holding some greater knowledge, which is always out of reach to the viewer, but may come closer “…when we return.”

Barthes asks that the regions of speech be made reversible. And some argue that the decentralized nature of the Internet makes it the ideal platform to break down the traditional lines of one-way communication and create an environment in which everyone (or at least, Barthes’s “proletariat representatives”) can receive and transmit. They may become the writers, detailing first-hand the events most intimate to them; the audience will no longer need to rely upon the summaries of commercial media. It remains to be seen whether or not the speakers at this time—mass media outlets like News Corporation, government agencies like the FCC, and Internet service providers like Verizon—will allow for such an exchange, unfiltered. Moreover, in accepting Barthes’s conception of the contract between the teacher and the pupils, we may also be undercutting the genuine contributions of the speaker—we may need CNN to verify information as a multitude of voices begin contributing to the global sphere of information.

Posted by Michael Dupuis Jr. at 12:49 PM | Permalink

I am a graduate student at Brown enrolled on the public policy Master’s program, where my interest lies primarily in media and internet policy. I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University in the UK, where I read law. Aside from my studies, I have abused a position of power as a journalist and editor, first for my the Cambridge student rag “Varsity”, where I was online editor, then for the UK news network ‘Sky News’. While there last summer, I innovated a new way of online reporting, using social-networking tools Twitter and FlickR to create real-time microblogs. I since used these methods to cover the New Hampshire primary for Sky. I would love to be enrolled on this course as I have a very strong fascination for the way in which the internet may help redress the balance of power between media outlet and consumer, and would love to underpin my experience with an historical and theoretical framework.

In his article ‘Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers’, Barthes identifies the inevitable power relationship engendered by the teacher when addressing his class: in speaking, the teacher becomes the advocate for his own subjective thinking – he is unable to escape the bias of his though process, and must either freely embrace the indelible nature of ‘ephemeral speech’ or be bound to the role of conscientious functionary, rigidly reciting his premeditated thoughts. Barthes views this constraint as inherent in the natural law of speech, where one must either dismantle all vocal delivery, or simply remain mute in order to shun the authority of the speaker.

Barthes continues: by committing to language, the writer, the teacher or the thinker endures an inescapable challenge in his quest for truth. Barthes muses that “in writing about speech I am doomed to the following aporrhoea: denouncing speech’s image-repertoire through writing’s unreality… For writing can tell the truth about language, but not the truth about reality.” In the context of the classroom, or the newsroom, it seems that we are unable to escape bias, and our discourse is plagued by a constant struggle to redress the balance of power.

Barthes’ observations are thought-provoking, but what concerns me more than the inherent power that spoken or written form may embody, is the recognition of that power in open forum. I contend that the imbalance seen between teacher and pupil is explicitly acknowledged through the construction of their relationship, and is relatively unproblematic. Rather, it is in the media that the relationship of power strikes a darker, more concerning construction. There is no tacit identification, nor acceptance of the power relationship; rather, the news anchor, the reporter, the commentator – these speakers and writers engage us under the guise of truth, yet they are as confined to bias and subjectivity as any other speaker. For example, they may exploit this position of power, as they did last week, to declare a state of mourning for the death of a man whose name and form I had, until then, never encountered.

Posted by Joe Braidwood at 12:00 PM | Permalink

Courtney Hutchison: I am a senior concentrator in International Relations with a focus in Global Environment. When I graduate I plan to take an editorial assistant position at a magazine or publishing company. At heart, I am a writer who is in love with the stories of humanity. I love literature because it creates a stage for the playing out of these stories and psychology because it analyzes these stories. I have not had much experience with the non-fiction of the news and media type however. I am intrigued by the issues of subjectivity in the of telling a story that requires factual integrity in the way that news does, and also by the inevitable fictions that make it into, and perhaps are integral to, the production of media. In addition, I am eager to gain skills in the presentation of media in non-written venues, especially film. I think I should be able to take the class because of both practical and personal reasons. I need to take a senior seminar in order to graduate and this one is by far the most interesting to me. From a non-requirement standpoint, I think the experience with media in its many forms and the theory behind it will be indispensable to my (hopeful) future in publishing.
The article discusses the implications of speech and writing as forms of communication that both the formal teachers of the classroom and the informal teachers of the newsroom or interview often take for granted. There is both an implicit understanding and an implicit power in the act of speaking which the article references when it writes “to speak is to exercise a will to power”. By speaking, they mean, we assert and accept a position of authority on what we say, and the expectation is that when we communicate information we are in fact communicating knowledge, or even truth. Thus in speech we must accept this inescapable power and with it the culpability of our words. Though we often may not realize the teacher-like position we place ourselves in when we convey “news” in media, this expectation of truth and responsibility places us in a precarious situation in which we must attempt truth in a necessarily part-fiction retelling.
I found the concept of the “dangerous summary” particularly interesting. In speaking the words are somehow loaded bullets waiting to go rogue by the incapable interpreters the bad note-taker, or even the malicious intended editor. This is particularly pertinent to the role of the reporter on two counts. First, that his words can be taken out of the context and summarize in a way that invalidates the factuality of the message he wished to convey. Second, he is a middle man between the reality and the story in the mind of the public/audience, he is responsible for being that talented editor and summarizers, it is to him we trust the distillation of the truth for our impatient ears.

Posted by Courtney Hutchison at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (35)

My name is Mark Ramadan and I’m a senior double concentrating in International Relations and Economics. I’ll admit upfront that I’ve been an internet addict since before AOL existed, and in this time I’ve fervently followed the various stages of online media production and distribution. I think we’re at an incredibly exciting time for media in the internet age, one in which the production costs have dropped to nearly nothing and distribution costs are literally nothing—one in which consumer power far outweighs traditional “producer” power. More importantly, it is a time in which niche ideas and opinions are given equal access to interested minds alongside those greater adopted by the mainstream. The result of this shift in roles will have important ramifications globally, not just those with access to the internet, and it is on this eve of a pseudo-revolution in media that I think it would be incredibly valuable to revisit its history and theory as a communication tool. I will bring to the class my knowledge of modern, online media, as well as my passion for production. From a more personal standpoint, my International Relations concentration has largely focused on economic development thus far, and I think it is critically important, especially at an institution like Brown, to be given the opportunity to delve into a more interdisciplinary, diverse, and distinctly different seminar, and I think this course is the perfect prospect for me to accomplish this.

A speaker and an audience mutually enter into an implicit contract at the outset of a speech, lecture, or presentation: the speaker is there to impart knowledge, and an audience is there to absorb it. There is no pretense that the speaker would present falsified or inaccurate information, but rather the opposite: the speaker has come to share genuine knowledge, and the audience is there to learn. Thus, by this mutually beneficial understanding, the speaker’s reputation is bound to his or her words, and the audience is thus guaranteed an interesting experience. However, the problem lies not in the speaker or the audience individually, but instead in the act of communication itself, which is what this article articulates. Communication is imperfect: because all spoken messages are subject to summaries by the audience, and a summary necessarily produces, at best an incomplete version, and at worst a bastardization of the intended message, the audience is likely to leave with a distorted, or perhaps fictional understanding of the material. In turn, the speaker is held accountable for not just words spoken, but words heard and transcribed, and the two are not the same.

What the author means, then, by “language is always on the side of power” is that, by the implicit contract described above, the audience is placing the power of truth and credibility into the hands of the speaker, whether this is advisable or not. And, because of the trappings of communication itself, there can be no innocence in speech, and thus no safety. It should be noted that a “speaker” is anyone dictating any material through any medium, whether it is a professor at the head of a lecture hall or it is a newscaster on CNN, and therein lies the crux of the issue: the global audience relies on a communication medium, whether television or otherwise, to gain factual, objective news. However, any communication is both subject to distortion and believability, a dangerous combination in the broadcasting arena.

Posted by Mark Ramadan at 11:50 AM | Permalink

As a senior International Relations concentrator on the verge of my final semester at Brown, I knew that my time to take an IR senior seminar had come as I began shopping last week. What I did not expect, however, was that I would find a senior seminar that I would want to take even if it did not fulfill a concentration requirement. After attending the first class meeting of “Global Media: History, Theory, Production,” going through the syllabus, and reviewing the course readings, I am confident that I have indeed found that seminar. I have been intrigued by the interplay between the media and international affairs since 9/11, but have yet to formally explore this relationship in an academic setting. Even as I write this entry, I think back to that fateful Tuesday at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school when it was announced over the loudspeaker that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Soon after, a live feed of CNN was broadcast in my school’s auditorium and hundreds of students sat transfixed as the news media reported on and replayed the day’s events.

More recently, the coverage of the 2008 presidential election has crystallized my interest in the role of the media. While this specific coverage may not necessarily fall under the focus of the class, it has nonetheless made me increasingly aware of and curious about the impact of the media. As an avid political junkie and active volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign, I have developed an almost obsessive relationship with the media. I read online news sources, check blogs, watch debates and speeches broadcast on television, and follow Sunday morning news programs. I have witnessed the media create particular narratives, seek out soundbites, and craft primary results into sensationalized rollercoaster rides. All in all, I am confident that “Global Media” will provide me with the opportunity to delve further into the media’s position as both a passive observer reporting from the sidelines and an active participant often shaping the course of international affairs. I look forward to exploring the history and theory behind the role of the media as well as producing my own work. As a member of this class, I will offer an unwavering willingness to learn and a commitment to always work my hardest. I will bring the knowledge garnered from over three years of academic study in the field of International Relations and a summer of research at the Watson Institute. I will respect the views of others and work effectively in groups whenever necessary. Overall, I have the right perspective, work ethic, and interest in the course material to help build a diverse and engaged class.

Barthes on Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers
For me, one of the most striking passages within Barthes’ work is his explanation of the, “implicit contract between teacher and taught” (314). Fresh off a semester in which I took “Persuasive Communication” with Barbara Tannenbaum, this passage reminded me of lessons about speaker, audience, and their respective goals. As Barthes accurately suggests, each and every speech act is not only about the speaker, but the listener as well [he again calls to mind this idea with a series of questions a few pages later: “Where is speech? In locution? In listening? In the returns of each?” (323)]. Both sides have certain objectives that must be met in order to achieve effective communication and a working relationship. Barthes’ deconstruction of the contract between teacher and student is impressive for its detail as well as its accuracy. He aptly articulates the underlying expectations within this relationship and, in the end, finds the teacher’s responsibilities to be more extensive. On the one hand, Barthes determines the teacher’s expectations to be largely centered around (the perception of) authority. On the other, he outlines the student expectations as more concrete and varied. Ultimately, what appears to be most significant in this passage is the acknowledgment that there exist definite constructs within the teacher-student relationship. We determine “good” teachers and “good” students by how closely they follow these dominant conventions.
Barthes on Language and Power

The notion of strict constructs is also central to Barthes’ argument about language and power. At the end of the first section, he makes clear that language and power are closely intertwined: “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (311). According to Barthes, just as we are able to recognize “good” teachers and “good” students, we share ideas about what makes for proper speech and proper delivery. In the realm of language, we are expected to abide by a particular speed of delivery, accept the shared meanings given to words, strive for clarity, and stage public speech (namely, in the classroom environment) in a certain manner. If we fail to follow these norms, we risk being seen as unintelligible, weak, and socially inept. While we may think that these conventions are universal truths, we forget that there is nothing natural about the way in which we perform language. In fact, normative judgments define language: “if you add up neithers and nors, you will see that this impartial, objective, human speaker if for this, against that” (326). Thus, Barthes reasons, to speak in accordance with prevailing conventions is to play into the hands of power.

More broadly (and more applicable to the focus of this class), Barthes’ analysis of language and power calls to mind the use of the phrase, “war on terror” and the growing resistance to this terminology. Soon after 9/11, George W. Bush, the United States, and the media began to employ the phrase, “war on terror” to describe the general fight against Islamist extremism. Global leaders, international news outlets, and ordinary citizens around the world bought into this terminology (and, in turn, the United States’ ideology and framing of the issue), despite its grammatical ambiguity (i.e. how can one use physical force to combat an amorphous idea?). In recent years, however, more and more people have stopped using the phrase. Why? Maybe these people simply cannot accept poor grammar any longer, but, more likely, it appears that this move represents a coordinated effort to stand up to the United States and its capacity to shape the international agenda. Here, if we equate “war on terror” with Barthes’ conception of stereotypes, this argument becomes apparent: “But can one not ‘transcend’ stereotypes instead of ‘destroying’ them? Such a solution is unrealistic; the operators of language have no power except to empty what is full” (317). If the United States’ global authority rests partly with language, then the decision to not use its phraseology stands as a clear affront to power.

Posted by chk at 10:46 AM | Permalink

I guess I’ll begin with my interpretation of the quote from the article.
When we speak aloud, whether conscious of it or not, we are seeking to gain a bit of power …perhaps often over our own immediate or distant future. But in playing the power game, one is forced to use some of the language tools of those in power/the status quo. To make language clear and “good”, one must follow certain rules, inevitably established over time by those in power. So in speech, we either use these rules of power, aligning ourselves with power, or we seek to subvert these rules, attempting to gain power. But it’s hard to...well..."stick it to the Man" when you have to inevitably use the same tools as him. Hence the need for “altogether different intelligibility”.
I think the last part about the danger of speech just emphasizes the risks involved in speech due to its “irreversible” and “will to power” nature. No revision, and no protection from inevitable challenges, critiques and attacks. Its interesting thought – because sometimes I think that writing though, in suppressing the rawness of emotion and spontaneity through revision, is often less truthful and even less powerful than speech. I think this idea of language as power is increasingly important. Modern technology, such as websites and film editing, is allowing language to be separated and dissociated from the speaker.

Okay so I’m a senior, former biology concentrator turned IR concentrator. I spent last semester studying abroad in France, dealing with their uniquely confining teacher-student class structure as well as their often archaic approach to the internet. I’ve been a fan of the global media project long before I knew it existed as a class. I attended the majority of the public movie viewings and have a very clear memory of being blown away by “Control Room” and then by the “Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst”.
I’m a documentary and general film junkie. And though I know that not every groupie would make a good rock star, I feel like I have something positive to contribute to this field. And as media has been an increasingly significant part of my internships and work outside the classroom, I would love to somehow continue this trend in a post-graduation job.

I am very interested in why certain voices in the public forum have power of influence and others don’t. And yes, these philosophical inquiries justify my late-night YouTube addiction. It may be obvious to some why YouTube users the world over love to watch laughing babies, daft punk hands and Beyonce falling down stairs. But what happens when those people click on the nearby video showing Mike Huckabee responding to a question about evolution (2,272,000 did just that) or add their voice to the long list of people responding to The Davos Question? YouTube and personal internet blogs are providing new avenues for public expression, as well as new and often confusing patterns of power acquisition.

I’m fascinated by the ever increasing rate of change in the development and use of media technology. But for many parts of the world, still relying on radio or print, they are left out of these changes and the evolving power dynamics that come with these changes. When I was working in Senegal a couple summers ago, I was assigned to a project in a rural village in the south. The NGO I was working for was using radio waves to disseminate information on health and human rights to rural and urban villages. Late one night I was invited to a field behind a tiny house where the entire village was gathering. Lying sleepily on the grass, we spent that night watching a small TV blaring early 80s episodes of “The Young and the Restless”. In talking with my neighbors over the next few months I tried to grasp what kind of image of the U.S.A. was represented by this show and all the odd tidbits of America that survived the Atlantic trek. It never corresponded with my reality. The soaps had won.

As part of the 9/11 generation, I watched from my desk in sophomore homeroom and chewed bubbalicious as two towers burned. Equally vivid is my memory of the start of the “shock and awe” campaign shown 24/7 on CNN and the sick feeling in my stomach after I realized the horror and death that lay covered beneath those brilliant and beautiful fireworks and streaks of light. War was reduced to a light show. Global Media has become such a powerful and pervasive force. I think that all of us who plan on a career with global connections desperately need to better understand the role of global media. And maybe a part of me is resentful of this media onslaught and wants to fight back. I want to understand this force that often feels more like a one-way street rather than a dynamic conversation. I have so many questions and could probably be absorbed for a lifetime by them. So with a couple lines left in my allotted blogging space – I suppose I should just grovel and beg...and say again how much I would love to take this class. (And did I mention this class would also fulfill my senior seminar requirement that I need in order to graduate?)

Posted by Megan Loucks at 10:14 AM | Permalink

My name is Maria Mahler-Haug and I am a Junior concentrating in International Relations- Global Environment.

I wrote what I realize was a pretty inexperienced article on “The Future of Journalism” last year for a journalism class at Brown. While the article itself may have been admittedly green, the research that I did for it was fascinating and left me with some big-picture questions about global media and its future place in our societies. I interviewed Steven Brill, Mark Oppenheimer, and Peter Phipps on their predictions for the future of journalism. They spoke of a more global, more encompassing media that would be a hybrid of written, oral, and visual journalism. The accredited, print journalism would be combined with the “couch-journalism” style of blogging, along with radio, and television style news. The advancement of technology would clearly enable this hybrid system to come to be, but I would like to explore some other implications of this type of new media. The same advancement of technology that would enable this hybrid system to exist may simultaneously allow the news to become more globalized. Will this technology bring the news to more people and to different social spheres? What are some international implications of a changing media? While I would like to learn about global media as it relates to international relations, I would also like to learn about the process of creating media.

I should be in this class because I have seen the effects and power of the media on a political level within the United States. I just came back from working on HRC’s campaign in New Hampshire. I jumped on a bus to Manchester after my last exam of the fall semester with the expectation that I would be permanently glued to one end of a phone line for the entirety of my internship. However, I was happily thrown into the frenzy of the New Hampshire primary countdown: demobilizing snowstorms, eager surrogate speakers, hundreds of volunteers, and of course, the press. My whole experience in New Hampshire actually had very little to do directly with the press. The most direct contact I had with the press consisted of journalists calling my campaign phone line, slyly trying to see if I knew the Senator’s schedule, or hounding me once I stepped outside the Headquarters, trying to get a feel for the atmosphere behind the guarded doors. But my experience on the campaign seemed to be very centered around the impressions that the media had created. I could see changes in the campaign’s message and focus as polls emerged, and I saw how the campaign reacted to the media’s reporting on the situation in Iowa. I saw from within the boiler room the power that the press held as AP called the primary in Hillary’s favor. I was lucky to get to see the campaign’s interaction with the media, and I think it’s a great background experience to have when examining the media’s power on a much more global level.

In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” Roland Barthes writes that writing and speech are linked. He writes on page 320 that “it is because I have written that I speak; writing is represented by its contrary, speech.” This passage I think is particularly pertinent to global media because global media allows both the written and the spoken word to be distributed to a broad audience. Modern teaching theory talks about the three different pathways of learning: audio, visual, and kinesthetic. Global media, especially with globalization of media through new technologies, is an excellent example of providing the three pathways of learning. The media now provides visual media (both written and video), audio media, as well as opportunities for the lay person to participate in the media through blogging. In this way, the media can be viewed as “teaching”.
But Barthes gives special weight to the power of speech. He writes on page 311: “No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety.” When putting this sentence in the context of global media, Barthes gives power to spoken media over written media. The fact that there is no safety behind speech almost gives speech more credibility and integrity.
However, speech in a global media setting lacks the teacher’s interaction with the audience, or the “Other”. Barthes writes on page 313 that “when the teacher speaks to his audience, the Other is always there, puncturing his discourse.” He writes that the student audience is the “exemplary Other because it seems not to be speaking—so that then, from deep in its apparent silence, it speaks all the louder in you.” This statement raises some interesting questions about global media’s audience. With no opportunity to instantaneously respond at all to the speaker or teacher in any way, is the media’s “Other” an exemplary one?

Posted by Maria Mahler-Haug at 09:41 AM | Permalink

My name is Meaghan Casey, and I am a senior graduating in Spring 2008. I concentrate in International Relations with a track in Global Security. I am interested in the power of language and media to shape individual perceptions and actions. I first became interested in the topic through research on the strong role both the local and international media played in constructing the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The local media was an influential player in shaping the manner in which the genocide in Rwanda was carried out internally, and international media reports powerfully shaped understandings and conceptions of the genocide for both Rwandans and the international community at large. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire admits that the genocide might have been prevented or reduced if he had shut down or stalled the hate speech on RTLM (the local radio) and better attracted international media attention to the Rwanda genocide at an earlier stage in the conflict. The link that local and international media fueled and fostered the genocide in Rwanda is undeniable, but it is important to explore the threat media power poses to countries in or on the brink of ethnic conflict in order to better understand the causes of genocide and seek ways and means to prevent future outbreaks of genocide, but the lesson is important regarding issues across the board. Those with access to media have the power to change the way in which events are perpetuated, interpreted, and what consequential action occurs.
In “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers” Tel Quel comments on the constraints on speech including: its irreversibility, the necessary speed of delivery, and the use of staging. These concepts highlight the competence aspect of language, in which speech is a performance. Performance can be defined as any use of competence, any communicative linguistic attempt. Performance, inherently in its definition however, includes such emergence qualities unavoidable in this particular display of competence, such as grammatical errors, hesitations, the response to a unique setting, and the particular performer-audience relation.
Yet speech can be delivered with a strategic purpose and successful results, just as written work can be strategic and successful. A scientist or a student may use the passive tense to describe lab results in order to connote truth and impartiality. I believe that this is an example of strategic use of competence. Although written work, which can be polished and reworked before audience evaluation, has less emergent qualities than speech, I disagree with Tel Quel that this necessarily makes speech impossible as compared to written work. The reason I posit this is because both written work and performed speech have the power to move people and affect actions in different ways. One does not always supersede the other.
In both cases, however, I agree that language is power because power relations are established through language and are indicated by language. The most obvious example Tel Quel brings up in the Familiarity section in which the formal vous or informal tu may be chosen in conversation to establish the power relationship between two people talking. But often language can indicate power relations and structures much more subtly, and these subtle indications are not less important or indicative than those explicitly expressed, and sometimes it may be more indicative of entrenched social structures within societies.
In conclusion, both written language and speech hold tremendous power, but are best understood when the level of competence in the language is high. Performing is an art, and I argue that current media, both written and performed, can be and should be evaluated by a critical audience. I hope to participate in this critical endeavor through the course work in Global Media this semester.

Posted by Meaghan Casey at 07:47 AM | Permalink

My name is Michael Schub; I’m a 2008.5 concentrating in International Relations with a focus in Global Security. The only class I’ve taken that dealt directly with film theory was MCM26: Cinematic Coding and Narrativity, and it was one of my favorites. The idea of media as a form of political power has always fascinated me. Of particular interest is when film or television crosses borders, either strategically, as with military propaganda, or in less directed cases of globalization, like the phenomenon that is/was Baywatch. In past courses, the focus has always been on media’s impact within a nation. With so much talk of global issues – the environment, terrorism, disease, etc. – it’s easy to forget that the news sources discussing this information are themselves acting on a global scale. Beyond fulfilling my senior seminar requirement, this course would deepen my understanding of film, radio, and television by putting them in a real-world context. It would hopefully unveil the forces at work behind these everyday media. The production aspect of this course is also an attraction. I never had the chance to take Video Production, and I look forward to coming out of the course with at least some technical skill.

“No help for it: language is always on the side of power; to speak is to exercise a will to power: in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety” (Barthes 311). I find it interesting that Barthes discusses teaching in terms of following a Law. In his view, it is the how of speaking that defines the type of teacher rather than the what. Speaking is more than just power, it is a “will to power” in that the teacher, unlike the writer, consciously takes on a separated, if vulnerable status to his listeners. It’s interesting that the second type of speaker, the “free artist” is choosing what seems like imperfect speech in an effort to come across as liberal and human. I would normally assume that everyone strives for the role of authoritarian when presenting a topic of expertise. That Barthes refers to the silent thinker and the militant as lacking speech implies that they cannot be teachers, yet I believe that silence carries its own pedagogical significance. In fact, many world leaders, from Churchill to Mandela, appear to have “taught” through multiple such roles. And what about formal speech making, such as the State of the Union address. When the words are written by someone else, must the speaker then become an authoritarian by necessity?

Barthes discussion of “An odor of speech” on pages 321-22 appealed to me because it seemed almost poetic. Descriptive phrases like “vertigo of the image” and “collapsing soufflé” add a sensory feel to an article full of technical descriptions and esoteric allusions. Barthes contrasts the lingering effect of speech (smelling) to the permanent distancing of writing (falling). He then goes on to discuss accountability as it relates to speaking and writing, noting that risks are higher when writing. Barthes concludes the section with a long aside to the reader, whereby he questions the very process of writing about speaking. Because he refers to memories and instances of speaking in the text, the “smell,” that immediate vulnerability unique to speaking still has an effect on the author. This dichotomy makes me question other instances where writing meets speaking, such as screenplays. When the dialogue is prewritten, does the actor feel the temporary self-consciousness of speech, or does he take comfort in the permanence of written words? What about the writer himself? With Heath Ledger’s death, some say method acting was to blame. They claim that, in reciting the pre-written words of a sociopath character like the Joker and making them his own, Ledger altered his self-identity. Personally, I believe this talk is sensationalist, but the path from speaking to believing is certainly worth thinking about in some broader context.

Posted by Michael Schub at 01:31 AM | Permalink

My name is Veronica Cortez and I am a fourth year student majoring in International Relations. I would like to take this class because I need a seminar to graduate and this is the one that most caught my interest. This is the first time I post a blog and according to what I heard in class on Wednesday many of our other assignments will also be new to me. I should be in this class only because I can learn an enormous amount from it.

Now on to the quote on page 311, my interpretation of language being on the side of power is that those that are in power are the ones that are able to speak out. Those that have the power with one word can dictate how things turn out for the masses. Those that are in power can purchase television and radio time. They are able to spread their words throughout the country, the world. People that are in power choose their words carefully, with a purpose that is why there is “no innocence no safety” everything is deliberate.

The other section of this excerpt that catches my eye is the one referencing a teacher and what is really understood by the student after a lecture on page 312. Barthes says, “…[a teacher] proposes a discourse, without ever knowing how it is received.” The teacher stands at the front of every class discussing history, psychology, philosophy and yet is never really sure if the students are truly absorbing what he or she is saying. The words being used are very important because they are supposed to convey ideas and those that are dense with words do so poorly. A teacher must always decide how they will word what they want to say. It is through language whether it be written in books or spoken out loud that teaching is done.

Another section that is interesting in the teacher/student dynamic is familiarity on page 321. How is one supposed to address their teachers, especially when they are in the position of power. Those students that feel that they are above respecting their teachers will speak to them as equals instead of using deference in their speech. In English it is much more difficult to show deference to someone in a position of power than it is in the Latin languages of which Spanish I am particularly familiar. The tu form is extremely casual when talking to a person in power. It is preferable to err on the side of caution and use the usted form until explicitly told to do otherwise.

Posted by Veronica Cortez at 09:58 PM | Permalink

if you have problems getting your registration for the blog set up (or already have been registered for another/different watsonblog), email me (christinakim@alumni.brown.edu) and we'll get you sorted out asap.

and something worth checking out in the meantime... That Mushroom Cloud? They’re Just Svejking Around

Posted by chk at 11:49 AM | Permalink

To add exemplary insult to definitional injury, check out the first hit on google for 'definition of abstruse'....Barthes would have a field day with that one (as well some of you might).

VTY
JDD

Posted by James Der Derian at 11:12 AM | Permalink

For those who did (or did not) make it to the first class, a 'Prof Note' (with special commendation for the first person who derives the etymology of the double entendre): the 'entry exam' (aka, first hurdle) is due on Monday (now extended from noon to 5 pm). For those who did not receive a copy of the abstruse French article (Roland Barthes on 'Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers'), copies can be found in the Global Security office, Watson, 205. We're asking everyone to read the article,with particular focus on the limited choices facing the teacher ('conscientous functionary or free artist') in the theater of classroom speech ('language is always on the side of power....in the space of speech, no innocence, no safety'); and after providing a para about who you are (or might wish to be) and why you wish to be (or should be) in the class, register (watsonblogs.org/signup/class), and post on the blog (under the category of 'entry exam' to be found on right side of blog). We want to know your take on the tricky relationships of speech to writing, teacher to student, pedagogy to research, and the untimely, meaningless (what does that mean?), and hopelessly over-mediated death of Heath Ledger. To honor the ethos of shopping classes, we will keep a minimum of five slots open for those who were not able to come to the first class, but make it to the second. So...if you can navigate all that, you're probably in like Flint.

VTY
JDD (and JPS)

Posted by James Der Derian at 09:59 AM | Permalink