Saturday, October 20, 2007

aoir in vancouver, day two

today's sessions and conversations at aoir8 were particularly engaging.

i served as a respondent to a five-paper panel called "critical perspectives on web 2.0: surveillance, discipline, labor." the room was crowded and the five presenters - anders albrechtslund, michael zimmer (also the panel's organizer), soren mork petersen, kylie jarrett, and bilge yesil - were excellent. too often, panels are haphazard collections of random papers; this panel's papers spoke to and built upon each other.


i kept my comments brief ("four points in two minutes!"):

* i noted that it was a real pleasure to be part of a panel on web 2.0 that addresses things like capitalism and consumerism and labor - topics usually ignored by american internet researchers;

* i mentioned that the papers puncture the hype of web 2.0 and do so with careful attention to history, to labor and capitalism, and with critical approaches;

* i noted that some of the papers do not puncture the hope of web 2.0. there's plenty that we like about web 2.0 and we need to remind ourselves about that. as soren said in his paper, "we need to focus on capitalism, but we also need to focus on joy and creativity."

* and i assigned the panelists homework! i said that they should write an article or hijack a special issue of a journal to talk about how we teach critical approaches to web 2.0. the ideas discussed in each of the papers were fascinating and extremely applicable to the everyday online activities of all of us - especially our students. how about a special issue on teaching web 2.0 or an anthology titled web 2.0 and its discontents?

a lot more happened on day two - and here's some pics to prove it.

3 comments:

Irina G. said...

yes. great idea on teaching with 2.0 issue! i'd love to read it.

Anonymous said...

Good to learn that the relations of production are not entirely being neglected in favor of the means.

The Sheck said...

Both ideas, teaching with 2.0, and 2.0 & its discontents, are needed! I wish that the library community would devote a conference to those topics. What I especially appreciate it the effort to create balance in 2.0. Let's talk about the wonders of 2.0 but also how to sustain the energy surrounding it. Way to go David, for making those conversations happen.
Go Silver Go!