ENGL 1102: Identifying Assumptions in Contemporary Debates (Extra Credit)

Exercise: Study a piece of participatory media, noting your responses to the various issues raised below. Are there any further issues that the discussion brings into focus?

Instructions: Take a piece of participatory media (what is sometimes called ‘open access’ or ‘talkback’ media – one of the ever-widening range of broadcasts in which panels of experts and members of the public discuss and debate the issues of the day). This could be a website message board, a radio phone-in, a television discussion program or a news item in which journalists interview members of the public on the street. Your chosen program might deal with an obviously political issue (foreign policy, say, or the health system), but it will not be a pointless exercise if it deals with something that seems more personal or everyday – perhaps a discussion of obesity, a program about relationships, or a sports phone-in. What I want to suggest is that, despite the heterogeneity of voices taking part in these programs – their apparent variety and diversity – certain values will be shared amongst the program makers, the participants and the audience, not least the beliefs that heterogeneous opinion is itself to be applauded, and that the broadcast media provide a neutral forum for its display. I want to suggest further that the ways in which these values are negotiated indicate the equilibrium that is constantly being established between different social and political groups.

In particular, I want you to note four features of the program. First, what is its context? Why is it being broadcast now rather than at some other time? Such programs are frequently motivated by a newsworthy event, or by a pronouncement made by a prominent figure. Is your chosen text a product of such a recent and singular occurrence, or might there be a broader ‘climate’ in which it is being transmitted (a heightened sense that parental authority is waning, say, or a feeling that the institution of marriage is in jeopardy)? Second, what constitutes the ‘reasonable center of the debate, for which there will be a large groundswell of support? Are there commonsense assumptions that go unchallenged (or are enthusiastically supported) by the great majority of the participants? And are there positions within the debate that are noisily silenced, or opinions that are not heard at all? Which wisdoms are used to conclude the debate? A third thing to look for is the role of experts in your chosen discussion. Does the format allow for a single expert, or does it reproduce the principle of diversity and heterogeneity by offering a number of experts with differing positions on a topic? Does the program’s host have a role in mediating or choosing between these competing positions? Is the host cast in the role of expert him- or herself? Do experts provide a touchstone of authority for the discussion, to which non-experts will always defer? Or are they characterized as out of touch with common sense, and noisily silenced? Fourth, I want you think about how the debate constructs the meaning of things spatially. Does the program fashion an image of the nation (as, perhaps, being under threat from immigrants, or as a nation of couch potatoes), or is its spatial frame of reference more local (this will, of course, be particularly true of regional programming, but fierce local loyalties may surface in other formats in, say, discussions of sport, work, health or food policy)? What kinds of discussion might lead participants to think beyond these boundaries, to describe themselves as, for example, good Americans, global citizens, or members of world religions, and do other participants readily accept these identifications?

Length: 1-2 Pages
Grade: Up to 3% of the Semester Grade (Calculated in Short Assignments)