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UNIT
2b: Your Webcourse is Your Reality:
Course Design and the Manufacture of "Essence"
Part
2b
Reality is
what you (and your audience) make of it.
What we see
is what we believe. This is doubly so on the Internet.
Here are a few additional thoughts & considerations...
Theoretical Underpinnings
1. Language creates reality. (Roland Barthes) Barthes bridges
'high' structuralism and poststructuralism, and concentrates
on the main theme of language and how we use it and relate to
it. Barthes believes that the author is not the sole determinant
of meaning in the text; but he goes further. In his book S/Z,
Barthes suggests that text is a "multi-dimensional space
in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and
clash... a text's unity lies not in its origin, but in its
destination." Thus the reader "produces" a text
on his or her own terms, forging meanings from "what has
already been read, seen, done, lived, assuming many different,
and possibly contradictory roles as a text is read. This way,
the reader is 'no longer the consumer but the producer of
the text' (S/Z).
Implications
for e-learning: The
Internet is an extremely fluid multi-dimensional space "blend
and clash," particularly if students are conducting online research
and interacting with other students in chatrooms and bulletin
boards. It is impossible to completely control what conclusions
they will reach and what they will learn. This is not a
negative aspect; it can be the key to the true power of online
learning. The knowledge and exploration gained are, in theory,
almost infinite.
2. The way you perceive
is the way you believe. The perception of the real is preferred
over the real, to the point that people choose the false over
the real. Case in point - Disneyland. Jean Baudrillard
writes of this in America:
According to Baudrillard,
Disneyland
and America
are one and the same. There is no "real" America outside
Disneyland; the walls surrounding Disneyland are there to make
people think that Disneyland is only a fantasy land, and there
really is a real America out there.
Implications
for e-learning:
Because the "Disney" reality is more aligned with the mainstream
values and archetypal narratives that individuals have learned
by growing up in society, it is likely that learners will tend
to reject the "real" for the "disney" version. Certainly,
the "disney" version of reality is more familiar and less threatening.
It is a classic example of false chasing out the real, the bad
driving out the good. Instructors must be wary!
3. Reality is constructed
from text, signs, perceptions, which can be manipulated. (Roland
Barthes).
Implications for e-learning: Constantly
remind e-learners and instructors that everything that they see
in the Internet has been manipulated in some fashion. Reality
is absolutely a construct there. After all, aren't you simply
peering into a flat screen at this very moment? You think
you are communicating with me, but isn't it just the vestige of
my thought that lies here? It is communicated to you in
a mutually-knowable code of glyphs and squiggles (our alphabet)
- but somehow you are hearing a voice speaking the words.
That voice is not mine. It is your own.
4. The way you define yourself is the way you behave. Jacques
Lacan says the self is constructed in language. Lacan decenters
the source of knowledge and assumptions of Western thought by
destabilizing the self. His theory of decentering:
1) Tries to argue that the self is based in language but keeps
Freud alive at the same time.
2) Children who cannot understand language can't tell the
difference between themselves and others; your sense of self comes
about through language.
3) Consciousness comes from outside, not inside, your head.
4) Lacan also contributes to the nature/nurture argument; are
our individual eccentricities learned or inherited?
Implications
for e-learning:
The way you know yourself is not only defined by language (which
is a symbol system), but in the symbols / sign-systems of images.
Meaning arises from a discourse system. And yet, what accounts
for interpretive twists and variations? Does it depend on
the individual's mood? In that case, is meaning not only
a derivative of signs and symbols, but also body / brain chemistry?
This has enormous implications, particularly since the Internet
is a medium that holds out the possibility of managing mood via
music, motion, image, color, etc.
Walter Benjamin's main
arguments in "The Work of Art" are:
· Culture itself has been transformed into an industry; art has
therefore become commodified.
· Contemporary culture is how oppressive ideologies are reproduced
and disseminated.
· New media technologies such as phonographs, epic theatre, and
especially film and photography, not only destroy art's "aura"
but demystifies the process of creating art, making available
radical new access and roles for art in mass culture.
· The spectator has become a participant, or collaborator, who
joins the author in deciding meaning in the production of the
work of art. In this process, art is "successful" only
when it allows critical contemplation by the viewer. This is the
profoundly democratic aspect of these new developments.
Implications
for e-learning:
The commodification of an experience or sensation is amazingly
dangerous, at least psychologically and spiritually, if one is
embarking on a quest for truth, core values, and enlightenment.
It is very important to focus, in education, on the quest for
understanding, knowledge, and wisdom. Courses can be entertaining,
but info-tainment should never be the point of it - we should
avoid sensationalization in our presentations, even though we
would like to keep people's attention.
5. Michel Foucault used the panopticon
as a metaphor to describe the way people police themselves because
they feel they are always being watched and therefore have to
act properly to prevent punishment. The online environment,
with the ability to conduct surveillance, can act as a large panopticon.
6. The way you envision yourself and imagine your future potential
is based, in large part, on the narratives, myths, and archetypes
you have internalized. In a media culture, the most persuasive
texts have the ability to create a representation of this and
present it to you. (Marshall McLuhan)
Implications for e-learning:
Learning is most effective when is resonates with dominant myths
and narratives.
7. The culture industry thus commodifies
and standardizes art (music, fashion, etc.) then fools people
into thinking it's "original" in order to sell it.
The only people left who can still meaningfully critique Enlightenment
ideas, capitalism and the culture industry are the avant-gardes
(i.e., the artistic elites -- could be anything from James Joyce
to rap music). But even "authentic" culture (as defined
by bourgeoisie) has difficulty surviving against capitalism; avant
garde expression tends to quickly get swallowed up by society
and become commodified itself.
Implications
for e-learning:
Is truth discourse commodified?
When? Does this occur when a site strives too hard to capture
the attention via sensationalized images or text? Are we
tempted to select case studies that are lurid, tragic, over-sensationalized,
just to keep our audience engaged? Is that bad? When?
8. Within a consumer culture that believes itself to be on the
pinnacle, cultures that are not part of the dominant culture are
"exoticized" and converted into a consumer product for consumption.
This is possible via the use of language, signs and narratives
that reinforce the "Otherness" of the non-mainstream society and
its members, and by creating mechanisms for converting the culture
into entertainment rather than engaging with the "other" culture
as an equal. (Jean Baudrillard)
9. For Imre Moholy-Nagy, a member of the Russian Constructivist
movement of the 1920s, the photograph fundamentally changed the
way we see the world. In other words, "the activity of taking
photographs and looking at them encourages the human eye to evolve
into a new state, with radically new goals." To him, terms
such as abstract seeing, intensified seeing, rapid seeing, etc.
"exemplify new configurations of human sight generated out
of the relationship of technology and human activity. The camera,
so to speak, is woven into the eye" and, according to Moholy-Nagy,
the eye changes as a result.
Implications
for e-learning:
Is a similar perception shift
occurring in online learning? The eye, connected to the
interactive site - a) links (the truth lies in concatenation);
b) the myth of interactivity; in other words, you act, something
responds. Does this really occur? The seduction of
response--this
is what affirms one's primary existence.
10. In isolation, it is impossible for the individual to gain
an idea of who he or she is, and he/she must have another person
who will act as a mirror, thus affirming the individual of his/her
existence. (Jacques Lacan)
Implications
for e-Learning:
The site must mirror and reflect the learner.
Additional Reading
http://www.geocities.com/beyondutopia/meaning-2/meaning-2.htm
http://www.beyondutopia.net/frameworks
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