Re: [-empyre-] blogs cum. academia

[Brandon Barr <barr@mail.rochester.edu>]

At 7:54 AM -0400 6/8/02, saul ostrow wrote:
> Brando first the discourse shaped by its history tries to adapt the technology
> to itself -- then the technology goes to work reshaping the discourse -- the
> nets information glut which was first understood to be a resource -- the world
> at your fingertips -- has now begun to infect not only academic 
> discourse but to
> actually blur the nature of academic disciplines -- in part because the means
> accomplish more than the limited goals originally set for them --  yet
> ultimately if the technology does not serve the discourse it soon comes to be
> abandoned -- we can also talk of transitional forms - which blogging would
> appear to me to be -- i.e.. it is something that is formally possible and may
> produce interesting possibilities which will eventually lead to it a 
> abandonment

Discourse, i.e. the back and forth of ideas (from the French; 
"discurrere": to run back and forth), expands its range in either 
time or space only by using technology.  So the history of discourse 
you speak of cannot exist without technology--be that technology pen 
and paper, chisel and stone, or tin cans and string.  And it seems to 
me clear that technology shapes not only the physical characterisics 
of what is encoded--e.g. hard block letters being preferred by 
engravers-- but the shape of the ideas encoded.   The commerce system 
created by certain technologies also shapes the discourse--the cost 
of telegrams results in short transmissions and a different writing 
style just as much as the economics of peer-reviewed publication 
shapes its transmissions.

"Ultimately if the technology does not serve the discourse it soon 
comes to be adandoned."  Is this true?  It seems to me that 
communication technologies are only adandoned if a better 
technological option exists.  Whether blogging--or any electronic 
form--better serves "academic discourse" is the question that must be 
answered, then.  And that begs the reversal: does academic discourse 
fit into the channels that electronic technology provides.  Is 
academic discourse dishwasher-safe?


--
Brandon Barr
University of Rochester
http://brandonbarr.com