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Articles Conference Reviews |
2008O12LeeYouTube U: Home Video Goes to College This session started with two unfortunate instances: (1) the panel did not have access to a projector, thus making it impossible for them to present the YouTube videos germane to their presentations properly, and (2) presenter Virginia Kuhn was unable to attend the conference. The former was perhaps more disconcerting, as it seems illogical for a panel under the title of “Information Technologies” to not be provided adequate technology. However, despite these immediate drawbacks, the session as a whole was still a success. In “You, Too: Knowledge Communities, Mutual Production, and Writing Change,” Sarah Arroyo focused on Alexandra Juhasz’s media studies course, “Learning from YouTube,” which was offered at Pitzer College in Fall 2007. The class, although interesting because it is considered the first devoted entirely to YouTube, caught Arroyo’s attention because of the students’ perception of the class. Though it may not be surprising that Juhasz’s class was lambasted on FOX News—“They’re teaching our students what?”—it was surprising to Arroyo to learn that the students shared such predominantly pejorative opinions. The students did not find the materials on YouTube pertinent to learning; they thought the site focused more on entertaining viewers rather than educating them; and they were disappointed that their posted comments (posting comments to videos was an integral part of the class) were “buried” and thus disappeared in days. The students ultimately believed that the public’s negative perception of YouTube (that it presumably is geared more toward humor) would reflect poorly on them. Once the class became fodder for the mainstream media, the students became concerned that the course made them look “ridiculous.” The students also believed YouTube to be a platform that could not co-exist with higher education, an idea Arroyo attended to in the rest of her presentation. Arroyo then turned toward Gregory Ulmer’s concept of electracy—a name for the literacy fostered during interaction with and communication via new media—as a lens through which to examine the class. Juhasz’s justification for the class remained steady: while her students’ concerns were reasonable, she reiterated that content is more important than platform—a concept her students seemed unable to grasp. Arroyo concluded by emphasizing the pedagogical benefits of YouTube in the class: YouTube is not a self-contained platform and thus permits a form of participation that can both lead to and foster other networks; more importantly, YouTube is a viable pedagogical tool because it provides applicable content amongst the “humor.” To clarify this latter point, Arroyo juxtaposed YouTube with Philip Eubanks and John D. Schaeffer recent CCC’s article, “A Kind Word for Bullshit: The Problem of Academic Writing,” which suggests that what we consider academic also contains connotations of bullshit. In the future, Arroyo intends to continue working with this project, specifically the claim that YouTube does not foster or sustain communities, an idea she “disagrees with on all levels.” Geoffrey Carter followed Arroyo and began by referencing a YouTube video titled “I heart Hofstadter,” which features a young women opening her new book: Douglas Hofstadter’s I am a Strange Loop. Carter used this video to frame the title of his presentation, “I Heart YouTube: Video Clips and the Writing of Strange Loops.” Returning to his example, Carter was intrigued by the women’s enthusiasm for the book; however, he was more interested in the book itself, Hofstadter’s first since his 1979 Pulitzer Prize winning Godel, Escher, Bach. Carter posited that I am a Strange Loop is a lens from which to examine not only other “strange loops” but also many of the videos circling YouTube. In analyzing what many categorize as “strange loops” on YouTube, Carter turned to French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and his cinematic concept of “bal(l)ade”—where a typical movie would suddenly shift genres, turning into a “musical.” In further illustrating Deleuze’s cinematic concept, Carter relied on the work of French New Wave filmmaker, Jean-Luc Godard. What Carter thus underscored was that both “strange loops” (uninterrupted flow of images and sound) and “bal(l)ades” (sudden shifts in genre) are manifesting themselves on YouTube and might even be indicative of the YouTube phenomena. For those interested in learning more about “strange loops,” Carter suggested looking into Byron Hawk’s A Counter-History of Rhetoric. Though he aptly admits that not every YouTube video is applicable to this study, Carter does a good job of providing those that do; for instance, the spontaneous dance number in Napoleon Dynamite or the phenomena of Rick Rolling. In the future, Carter intends to continue working with these theories as well as examining how genres shift amongst the plethora of videos on YouTube. Though both presentations were connected via the topic of YouTube, each presenter took a different approach. Arroyo’s aim was pedagogical, examining not only a class devoted to YouTube but also how we as instructors can see YouTube as a fruitful, educational medium. Carter, however, took a more theoretical approach, connecting YouTube media with theories of “strange loops” and “bal(l)ade.” |