media theory: My response to PART A #1 http://media210theory.blogspot.com/2007/03/my-response-to-part-1.

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Final Exam :)

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Studying post-colonial criticism, or examining texts from a post-colonial

standpoint, has always been challenging for me. It has led me to question
the most basic assumptions I have about my race, identity and culture, and
recognize manifestation of power relations between cultures. As a student
of literature I have gone through many classes that have embarked upon
post-colonial examination of everything I could get my hands on. Every
single discussion had been enlightening and liberating for me.
Consequently, as a teacher I have felt hugely responsible for leading my
students to learning experiences that might bring about that same kind of
enlightenment. Frankly, it is not easy when you teach in the English
language and via texts in English.

However, time had come when I just had to ask myself—and sometimes
am ashamed to ask—“when will we ever get ‘over it?’” Though I
understand that knowing one’s history is to wield power over those who
try to fool you with it, I can’t help asking if would be possible to just move
on and really start anew without being bitter about the past? Could it be
that our fixation with the past and to the injustices of the past (because we
were told that to forget what happened in the past might cause it to
happen again) are the reasons behind our not being able to rebuild as a
nation? Please excuse the analogy, but I have pictured it in my mind this
way: most post-colonial discourses, such as those of Fannon’s and Said’s
(both of whom I greatly respect), can be likened to the first few stages
lovers go through after a bad break-up. They wake up one day to find that
they had been duped, they lash out, they retaliate, they eventually pick up
the pieces, try to recover their sense of self and self-esteem (if they can
manage it), but constantly warn ourselves against the possibility of a
relapse.

I will risk sounding naïve just to express something that I have kept to
myself for some time now, something that I still have internal conflicts

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about (because I am aware that a lot of injustices are still being done and
some sectors of our society are far from being ready to “move on”). I
welcome any kind of reaction.

The discussion that we had during the last meeting of our Media
210 class has reminded me again of these questions I have regarding
post-colonialism. We discussed how certain colonial systems still persist in
our present-day academic institutions. Classifications of fields of
knowledge that have become obsolete or at least problematic since people
are slowly realizing the importance of interdisciplinary studies. Now I
would like to talk about a similar concern almost on the same topic:
scholarship.

My concern sprouted out of an incident with a faculty and a several

fellow students at the College of Arts and Letters. I have expressed my
interest in studying zines (search words: alternative media/ self-published
texts) as revolutionary literature. They have observed however that most
of the zines in my collection include extrinsic material whose sources are
mostly unacknowledged (graphic cut-outs, whole blocks of ‘borrowed’
texts, designs, etc.). Apparently, they were somewhat appalled that this
kind of “literature” could get away with such plagiarism. Of course, most of
them changed their minds when I explained that the breaking of such
literary conventions are part of the subversive nature of zines. Even then
that particular incident in one of my graduate classes made me question
how we generally view literature, art, research, or texts in general as the
exclusive property, if not by the one who composed it, then of whoever has
enough power or resources to acquire rights to the property.

The ways in which we have been conditioned to perceive research

and art as a unique and privileged object produced and owned by someone
of exceptional stature and therefore cannot be duplicated is basically the
perpetuation of intellectual elitism. I admit that as a teacher I have many
times acted out the role of the academic-nazi, spending long hours on the
internet while going over student compositions, on a witch-hunt for
unacknowledged (hence plagiarized) material. Post-modernism sheds light
on this by exposing that texts are actually polysemous, language as
intertextual, that pastiche and parody are becoming more and more
persistent these days, and that everything that can be said and created has
been said and created…we merely reuse, recombine and re-present them
into “new utterances.”

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What I’m saying is that there must be a better way of viewing

scholarship, something that we could benefit more from. Looking at
research and artistry in an elitist way can only bring us this far. Since I do
not want to sound like a nihilist, I would like to share a few hazy insights
that might eventually lead to concrete alternatives. Which brings me to this
major point:

The dramatic changes in the content of uploaded materials on the internet,

and the intentions of the people who have uploaded them, can lend insight
to the kind of scholarship might be ideal these days. With every instance of
uploading one is aware of the inevitability of downloading. One can only
hope that others would join in this culture of free-sharing and eventually
collaboration in the development of information.

This is the concept behind Wikipedia and peer-to-peer (P2P)

software. Wikipedia, the most popular web search tool and information
generator relies on its users’ voluntary contributions to it its growing pool
of knowledge. Cited as the best example of and the prime-mover of the
open source mover, Wikipedia and other collaborative venues online
eradicate the “ivory tower” representation of intellectual/artistic work and
our attitudes toward it. Of course there are still the traces of customary
citation—the least you could do is to mention where information came
from if it’s not yours originally. This accounts for the consistent use of
hyperlinks within wiki texts, a convenient and more accurate way of
referring to other units of knowledge relevant to the topic under
discussion, thereby saying that production of new knowledge relies on
building upon or hailing in prior knowledge. The hyperlinking is I think,
less intrusive and more interesting method to take in researching because
it requires students to synthesize (and not just merely parrot) all the
information that they could get. Synthesizing—which includes searching,
selecting, categorizing, critiquing and evaluating—is after all a more
complex cognitive process.

Below is an example of how a student, in a couple of his blog

entries, use hyperlinks in knowledge generating and sharing. Pat
Ambrosio, a computer science student and software/internet enthusiast
shares new knowledge by including links in his blog entries and

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contributes something new by offering short critiques of the sites and

applications he has linked to, giving trouble-shooting or how-tos that he
probably has discovered on his own, and putting down his insights about
the possible effects of these tools in the industry.

A colleague of mine, Mr. Joel Yuvienco, shared with me several terms that
seem to have the beginnings of a new framework for the Internet
generation. These terms are discover, disclose, connect and co-create. The
terms don’t necessarily come in that order; the sequence may vary through
experience, but these are the major patterns that we go through when we
engage in collaborative work, such as online networks and communities on
the Internet. I think these terms are very applicable to collaborative
activities offline, too, especially those that aim to emancipate others.
Discovery pertains to new perspectives, information, tools, frameworks,
beliefs that we find when we decide to Connect or directly engage in
communicating through the given media. Once we open our web browsers,
type key words or tags on search engines and enter sites, we discover what
people have to say or have Disclosed readily. Of course, connecting could
also mean signing up or joining already existing groups and networks, also
creating user accounts for social software. Disclosing involves your sharing
yourself or a part of yourself to the world wide web audience. Disclosing
may be intentional by putting in aesthetic elements of your choice, linking
other people’s sites (especially those you want to be associated with), or
unintentional, like sharing music, videos and artworks that you like, or by
writing blog-entries in the stream-of-consciousness mode, etc. Co-creating

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pertains to the probability of contributing new knowledge by consistently

engaging in the exercise of Discovery, Connecting and Disclosing. The
more we learn from others, the more we would like to share and reach out
to others. Sometimes, to be able to do this you have to make new
communities and invite people to communicate with you. Encouraging
people to take part for the first time, to make them connect and disclose,
this in itself is Co-creation.

I may be sounding really abstract right now, but there’s just too many and
varied examples online and choosing just one or two will fail to illustrate
my point. And I attest to the fact that a lot of people right now are
unselfishly sharing their knowledge online with no expectation of being
[financially] compensated for it. It is enough that people interact and put it
there two cent’s worth to the development of information (see discussions
on and the actual texts of Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the
Magic Kingdom). But I guess if one is familiar with the Internet, one
will understand what I am saying. My point is that if “critical social science
makes a conscious attempt to fuse theory and action” or praxis3 (from
Jelai’s report on Classical Marxism), then asking students to merely mouth
or repeat what their teachers wanted to hear is less empowering than
asking them to create/cocreate new knowledge. We need to change the
way we look at research in the academe (from intellectual property,
unique, authoritative, exclusive discourse). To something wrought out of
collaboration, sharing, non-exclusive. Educators somehow have to realize
that everything could have been said already. The Philosophers and
Critical Thinkers of the past might have beaten us to it, and it is just a
matter of reading, selecting, converging texts (viewpoints, realities) and
presenting them as a new statement (the combination is unique but the
content has been there ever since).

There are similar changes happening in other forms of media; film/video

production for instance. Developments in technology has made the art of
visual storytelling more accessible to all; there are some established film
authorities who resist change because of the possible loss of prestige and
authority over the industry. Fortunately for us, many had been willing to
share knowledge skills in film and video production, photography, editing,
graphic arts, etc. Maybe if similar changes in the culture of scholarship can
be made,the concept of plagiarism will cease to exist be around if we
viewed research, knowledge and scholarship in a different way. And my
other point is that it can be done, to be able to shed intellectual elitism
—which is a byproduct of the industrial/capitalist age of thinking in terms
of “property and profit”—and opt for more emancipating collaboration and
free-sharing of knowledge. Put simply, we can just focus on individual

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self-expression and the worth of what each one has to say.

Posted by Ruby Soho at 9:35 PM

Labels: Post-colonial criticism and alternative research questions/paths

1 comments:

betsyenriquez said...

Ha-ha-ha! I appreciate the analogy of post-colonial discourses to the first few

stages lovers go through after a bad break-up. This is novel and easy to relate to.
---------------
Ok, I can identify with the rebelliousness expressed in the 5th paragraph.
However, I am internally conflicted about the issue myself. On the one hand,
people deserve credit for what they do/write/invent/create. On the other, indeed
nothing is original, everything is somehow a version of something(s) that
precedes it. Also, the benefit (or ill effect) of any knowledge should be shared, so
knowledge producers have an ethical obligation to share what they have
produced. But there should be an acceptable middle ground here. Plagiarism, or
the act of copying someone else's work and claiming it as one's own for benefit to
the plagiarist, such as a grade in school or fame for oneself or material profit, is
unacceptable to me. Acknowledging the work of others in some way and
acknowledging their influence, desirable or not, good or bad, on one's work are
acts of honesty and build trust among scholars/students/writers/journeyers or, as
you would say, co-creators.

8:52 PM

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My response to PART A #1
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