GEDI – Arash's Academic Blog 2018-01-21 22:48:34

 Yes, the digital revolution that was supposed to transform our intellectual lives, through constructing a public global square for sharing ideas and facilitating dissemination of information, did actually happen. But the changes it brought about were, to say the least, underwhelming.

And Reading through one of this week’s readings (Tim Hitchcock’s 2014 blog post), I sense a great deal of optimism in the passionate calls of the academic for better use of web technologies and social media. Being in 2017, it is obvious to me that the transformation has not taken place. The “American scholar” is still struggling to find its broader audience while the masses vehemently reject “taking life advice from Elites.”

While I am being deliberately cynical here to make a point , It is only fair to point out some of the positive changes: MOOCs have indeed democratized access to some levels of higher education. Open text-books are finding their place, although their growth is disproportional in STEM fields and the open-access frameworks allows free of charge access to academic research.

Nonetheless, our diminishing attention spans and the changes in our information consumption habits (from text to audio to visual content) is in direct contrast with blogging. It is also true that I prefer long-form content over fast-food style provocation-delivery services of tweeter. A successful contrasting example that comes to my mind is Vlogging. It is a form of content making that allows engagement with all sensory abilities. (some examples: + , + , +). And many video sharing platforms such as Youtube support discussion groups. It is still an open question where comprehensive, meaningful and constructive conversation can taking place online.