Posts by Russell Brown
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Leo has provided us with some Friday clips ...
nintoaster
Nintendo in a toaster.
gunpowder microwave
Oh, so THAT'S what happens when you put gunpowder in a microwave.
grigori grimoire
A hilarious gmod video of a magician somewhat messing up.
cat with bag on his head
That cat made my day.
hk-47 unhinged
HK-47 starts quoting stuff. A lot of stuff.
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Yes, but surely we don't also want them to be trained up into merely consenting to and replicating the myths perpetuated by folk like du Fresne (eg "the marketplace of ideas"--which is a claim ripe for unpicking and unpacking).
No, we don't. And I was meaning to be provocative, so I'm sorry if I upset anyone. If I get time later on I'll tell a couple of stories that might further clarify my position.
By 'theory', I don't necessarily mean Continental cultural theory--it also includes the important ideas about democracy and public access raised in last night's Media 7.
Neatly embedded in this morning's Hard News post, telly fans! I'm really pleased with the ground we covered.
Indeed, regular inclusion of commentaries such as Media 7, Mediawatch, Charlie Brooker, The Daily Show, Brass Eye, FlowTV etc should an integral part of journalism training but I know this doesn't happen.
I suppose I'm thinking of the Christchurch course, where I think Norris, Zanker and Pauling do provide their students with a flow of challenging ideas. I fly down and talk to those kids every year, because they're bright and engaged. There are courses closer to home that I no longer bother with.
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So maybe it's worth interrogating the structure of the thing, and if practicioners were encouraged to do it themselves when they're learning the trade, it might be a good thing.
Of course. But Phelan hasn't demonstrated that that doesn't already happen, or considered to what extent it does.
I remain of the view that he's made a relatively limited set of observations last 20 pages, and used language to aggrandise that set of observations.
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No doubt Paul Litterick will correct me, but I bet that art schools have valuable staff members who nonetheless cannot produce compelling works of art themselves.
It doubt it's that Phelan is incapable of communicating effectively, more that he is subject to a cultural expectation to be long-winded. Either way, the last thing you want is this kind of writing serving as an example for young journalists.
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Alright, show me where I'm wrong, with reference to the paper. Show how it supports its arguments.
Should it have to refer to the the reality of training courses -- ie, how much theory is currently taught? what kind? -- if it's to mount an argument for an increase in that proportion? What evidence does it present for its case? Does it present any evidence?
Go on, argue its merits, rather than merely mounting a tribal defence.
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Actually, the genius of Phelan's article is that it produces reactions from journalists that prove the point he tries to make, which is that they hate theory that goes beyond craft.
Personally, I've been taking a strong position to try and flush out a discussion that might be useful where the paper isn't.
I am struck by how defensive some of you are in response to criticism of the paper, and by the readiness to offer excuses for its lamentable style.
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Anyway, it's not just boofheads like du Fresne saying so. Chris Bourke posted this in the comments:
Phelan's academic claptrap is a scourge upon journalism and writing. This kind of incoherent posturing also does academia no favours. It may pass 'peer review' - of course - but would it pass any kind of relevancy audit? Thanks for your hard work translating it; it should become a web viral classic and hopefully have an effect. Is there any single good thing that has emerged since theorists invaded journalism training?
Chris is an intelligent guy. He's not alone in thinking what he does.
Someone later justifies Phelan's writing as necessarily "complex" because of its subject matter, but it still appears to me that's indulging two pages of argument over 20.
It sometimes seems to me that this kind of writing, which purports to employ a wide and sophisticated vocabulary, actually tends to revolve around a very restricted set of jargon-words that serve more as a signal to others in the club than to convey real meaning. I do know what "liminal" means, but Phelan's use of it is really quite pretentious.
At any rate, the very last thing we would want young people in communications jobs to do is emulate such a style.
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Dunno about you, but the stuff in Discipline and Punish wouldn't just have occurred to me, and it's not transmitted by cultural osmosis either.
But you might say the same of classics, or physics. Or Hayek, for that matter. What's postmodernism's special claim on journalism training?
But at any rate what Phelan is saying is not that we shouldn't have practice, but that we should also have some theory. Pretty hard to argue against that, I would have thought. And the corollary of course is that theory is useful, otherwise, why bother with it?
Surely, if he's saying that, shouldn't he at least have a try at quantifying the level and character of theory actually already present in training courses?
There have been genuine concerns about the ill-equipping of young people for journalism in some courses. I know of one talented educator who simply wanted to teach journalism, but could only do that on condition that he pursued academic "research", so that the institution concerned could style itself as a university. He left.
It's probably imprudent to go into detail, but my direct experience with po-mo sorts in communications courses has not been productive either. I have encountered people who didn't serve their students well.
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The academic study of journalism doesn't have much point if its insights don't influence journalists. Current journalist training, which focuses on practice, shies away from looking at the effects which journalistic practice has on society.
But he never even attempts to demonstrate that that is in fact the case, beyond saying, effectively, "if the poor dears haven't read Foucault, how can they really know what's going on?"
Do you really think the students at, say, the Christchurch Polytechnic Broadcasting School, spend their whole year learning to work a camera?
Anyway, gotta make tea. I'll be back.
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Is it that tired routine where he tries to make comedy out of "inpenetrable" academic writing? Never gets old, that one.
The du Fresne post is here and the paper in question is here.
Unlike du Fresne, I did read the paper, and even tried to get beyond my active distaste for the kind of writing it represents (so many unnecessary words, such a burning desire to aggrandise ideas with more words lest they seem too simple). And I still disagree with it.
The paper's argument is that journalism training courses should teach far more critical theory and (by implication) fewer practical skills.
The author defines 'theory' as "reading - or at least distilling - the insights of critically engaged thinkers like Marx, Foucault, Bourdieu, Laclau, Fairclough, etc. and, what in a more precise disciplinary context is variously signified as ‘journalism studies’, ‘critical communication studies’, ‘media studies’, ‘cultural studies’ and ‘critical political economy’ scholarship."
We even get a mention:
These hegemonic limits were exemplified by the configuration of the discussion panel on a recent broadcast of the Media7 programme, which was billed as an examination ‘of the often uneasy relationship between journalism and academe’. None of the three members of the panel offered what could be called a distinct academic perspective on New Zealand journalism. Two members represented the more liminal figure of the practitioner-academic and both were, or had been, institutionally located outside the University system. The third member of the panel was a working journalist.
Consequently, in the spirit of Trotter’s column and Du Fresne’s review, the general tone of the discussion was – to quote from the promotional blurb – structured by the question: ‘does modern journalism education emphasise theory over practical skills?’ (Media7 Blog, 2008). My point is not to suggest that industry-centric perspectives are illegitimate or irrelevant. However, it is to highlight the deeply ideological nature of a discussion on a programme that, ironically, self-regards itself as a reflexive media space. And by ideology here I have in mind the concrete theoretical account formulated by Laclau (2005), who describes an ideological representation as a ‘particular’ discourse misrecognizing itself as the ‘universal’ one.
Short version of the author's argument: unless you think like us and worship our ideological gods, it doesn't count as thinking. The experience of the "practitioner" is to be especially distrusted. Talk about misrecognising one's particular discourse as a universal one, eh?
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