Twitter is the new haiku

I originally published this blog on August 26, 2009.

Poetry has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I do not come from a family of avid readers. If my father has read one book, that is one more than I would have guessed. He says The Executioner’s Song is his favorite, but I inherited his copy and, judging from its pristine condition, I think he saw the movie. My mom reads during one week a year, when she is on vacation at Ocean City, Maryland. She has gone to the same bookstore and the same rack for as long as I’ve been alive. She reads those lewd pulp fiction novels with strapping, shirtless muscle-bound heroes on the covers. She voraciously charges through the books, so much so that any observer would guess she’s a pro. I asked her once why she only reads when on vacation, since she clearly enjoys the activity; she just shrugged her shoulders. But, like a lot of parents, they believed in the importance of reading and bought me mounds of books.

My childhood hero was Shel Silverstein. I wanted to be like him. I wrote my first book of poetry in the second grade; although the quality has been downhill since then, I fear, I have continued to write. Now my heroes are mostly Irish: W.B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Novels are nice, but I am impatient and have trouble sitting still. I appreciate the brevity, precision, and thoughtfulness present in a great poem. Every word matters. Haiku is a perfect example.

At the turn of the 19th century, the Imagists–Ezra Pound, in particular–were influenced by haiku and the economy of words to convey an image. They thought, “Why write a poem with 30 lines if you can do it in three?” The same logic has resurfaced recently in the form of micro-blogging, twitter being the most known example. Now, instead of 17 syllables, we get 140 characters or less.

Bashō, I think, would be great at tweeting. With its abstractness, Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” just seems like an amazing tweet: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; / Petals on a wet, black bough.”

The point I am trying to make–and I am trying to make a point–is that twitter is not simply the plaything of constantly plugged-in techies. Micro-blogging is not an untouchable, immutable concept. Twitter has value. Twitter has substance. Twitter can be relevant in learning settings. But we, educators and students, are the ones that have to imbue it with meaning.

Twitter as the public sphere or a daytime talk show?

Is Twitter a new version of the public sphere? That is the question I posed last week.

Let me revisit the three basic criteria for the public sphere:

•     First, participants treat others as equal;  
•     Second, participants agree to discuss and question issues related to the common good;
•     And third, everyone participates.

Considering the criteria, how are academics actually using Twitter?

I follow hundreds of professors from around the country. The users I most appreciate are the ones who post new articles and blogs as well as mention events and conferences. The social media provides a great venue to link content. It also changes the pace of academia. No longer do we have to wait days for feedback or years for articles to go through the publication process.

Twitter also presents opportunities to connect and converse with academics across the country. These exchanges most closely resemble Twitter as a public sphere even if they do not fulfill all of the criteria.

But, sometimes the tweeting habits of individuals, including professors and teachers, assume less professional tones. I have read long, heated, and scandalous exchanges of 140 characters or less between esteemed professors. A few weeks ago, during an organized conversation when participants all used the same hashtag, I viewed an academic conversation about school choice degenerate to a personal attack about the professional associations of one of the well-known participants. These are not only issues of etiquette but also the ultimate goals of social media use as they pertain to education. 

Current uses of Twitter do not seem to indicate it is an emerging public sphere. So, after two blogs, what is the point? 

Academia is changing and so is technology. My goal is not to tell you how to use social media. At one level, because the line between the personal and professional is blurred, I think we could all benefit from a few more conversations about standards and practices. At another level, from fomenting revolutions in Egypt to spreading the latest Internet memes, the value of Twitter to discuss and diffuse ideas is clear. I wonder if using the social media to take potshots at colleagues is a missed opportunity to spread innovative ideas and genuinely improve education.

Twitter as a public sphere?

I.

Over the next month, I am going to discuss issues pertaining to education as a public good. The purpose—or purposes—of education has become a polarizing issue (for an introduction to this topic, see David Labaree’s “Public Goods, Private Goods”). Some argue for education to improve democracy; others argue for education to improve the economy. An individual’s opinions about the purposes of education often shape his or her thoughts regarding educational issues such as school choice, standardized assessments, common standards, and Race to the Top.

Because my views rarely fit either / or categorizations, I am going to state some of my basic assumptions upfront. 

• First, we ought to strive for education as a global public good. That is—even though education as a public good is imperfect in its current form, and possibly any form—quality education available to everyone worldwide ought to be our principal goal. 
• Second, education fulfills individual and communal interests at the same time. In other words, a college education may help an individual become socially mobile and democratically inclined. 
• And third, while education ought to be available to everyone, the shape of education (i.e. curricula, testing, schooling options, etc.) ought to be publicly deliberated to meet local needs and interests. As such, forums for discussion are essential. This last point brings me to the idea of the public sphere.

II.

For those unfamiliar with the origins of the public sphere, the most popular treatment of the concept occurs in Jürgen Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. He provides three criteria:

•     Everybody treats everybody as equal. Social status is irrelevant. 
•     The participants agree to discuss and question issues related to the common good. 
•     The forum is all-inclusive. 

The public sphere is situated within Habermas’s larger interest in communicative rationality, the idea that we may achieve mutual understanding through discussion. 

Where does the public sphere occur in contemporary society? Options range from community meetings and parent-teacher associations to newspapers columns, television shows, and radio stations. Opportunities for public discourse are key. However, considering the above criteria, each of the options contains shortcomings. The reason pertains to the core of the concept. As Nancy Fraser points out, the idea of the public sphere itself is fraught with problems, including issues of bracketing social differences, providing equal access, and ignoring subaltern counterpublics. 

Nevertheless, I have recently heard academics suggest Twitter as a new public sphere. The social media, they argue, is our 21st century version of the 18th century coffee house or salon. I understand the allure of social media as a public sphere, but I am not convinced.

So, what do you think? Is the increasingly popular social media a new public sphere?

Next week, I will discuss my thoughts regarding the promise and peril of 140 characters or less.