Article Blog # 2

I have come, Gentle Reader, to that part of the semester where my brain is having more and more trouble with producing understandable pieces of prose. I’m fried, in other words. So, for this week’s blog I’m doing an old-fashioned pull-a-quote-and-respond type of analysis. Proceed with caution…

From the Berry et al. book:

Ethnographic practices…need to consider how the classroom is a location that connects to other locations, locations that subjects constantly inhabit, dwell in, and move between" (p. 210). In other words, we need to move beyond the classroom while holding on to pedagogical concerns.

Stopped really paying attention pretty much right after coming across this quote. Rhet folks don’t truly do ethnography; in order to do that, they’d have to be students again, and I don’t see it happening.

From Rubria and Gil-Egui article:

“The first has to do with the change it has caused in the definition of the public opinion’s agenda within Cuba. The first has to do with the change it has caused in the definition of the public opinion’s agenda within Cuba” (154).

This is continual within and throughout Castells book: that social networks have shaped the ways in which a public sees its society. This is much like what the occupy movement gave, I believe, to Americans: that now we have a different discourse that surrounds how we talk about the rich versus the poor.

 “Your blog provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba” (Obama qtd 157).

I don’t remember something like this coming up in Castells’s book, that is, to have a leader of a country praise the work on a blogger.

“Lamrani raises questions about Sanchez’s ability to maintain Generation Y without strong financial and technical support from foreign agencies, pinpoints what he deems to be inconsistencies in Sánchez’s accounts of harassment by the Cuban government  and finally accuses her of profiting from her critical position regarding Cuba’s current affairs” (157).

It’s true that blogs and such can have an unfair slant to the writing. But then, what writing doesn’t? From the words journalists use, to the networks/publications they work for, every bit of political news we consume is going to have some sort of slant to it. So, what becomes crucial here is to ask those rhetorical ethnographic questions of: for whom is this text written, under what circumstance, and for what purpose. While it may be true that no news is impartial or purely objective, I do believe there are truer things out there. It’s something I don’t think enough folks think about; it was hinted within this article and not really found at all within Castells’s book, that it’s our job to choose carefully whose truth we buy into.

“…the majority of respondents saw the Internet as a discursive medium, rather than as a way of becoming involved in ‘real’ collective action or shaping policymaking” (159).

Yes, point very well taken. Castells was remiss in not fully excavating how the social movements were constructed online. There was a bit of this sentiment in the beginning of the Castells book, but this quote hits home more for me because of how social networking sites are typically used, consumed, and viewed. I can see how folks would consider this not the real work of social action, but rather as a hobby. I mean, that’s how facebook, twitter, and others are often used: as the coffee house philosopher. A place where people can say stuff, and get people to respond, but we don’t think enough about how these are sites for conversation; should they also be sites of action?

“Regarding social issues, the loss of civic values and the need for an unrestricted dialogue among all Cubans, both inside and outside the country, are stressed” (162).

It’s rather fascinating how this is a common thread to all social movements, that is, the loss of having basic rights as a human as the impetus behind folks gathering together for change. Castells is right when he writes about how when fear is removed, folks start banding together. It’s a shame it doesn’t happen more often. I think about the ways I was motivated by fear at the insurance company I worked at; I think about the ways in which some not-so-nice folks still try to control me with fear. At one point in the article, Rubria and Gil-Egui write about apathy of the masses. Fear is a good way of creating and sustaining that inertia, because if we didn’t feel like we’re replaceable, if we didn’t fear that we’d lose jobs, if we didn’t fear what others think about our writing, then maybe change would come and stay awhile. Just a thought.