Warner goes on to say that public texts create feedback loops so that people can respond to them, articulate themselves in a particular vernacular to show a relationship to their audience, and use intertextual reference to keep themselves bound together.
These are some of the reasons that I have been using music to talk about publics. Music can be made quickly (at least quicker than books) so it can keep up with politics. Music uses a particular vernacular to show a relationship between the artists and the audience; conversely, it can get stuck in people's heads so that the audience adopts the vernacular of the artist. Music pulls on events that are common to the public so that the audience feels connected to the peice. Finally, music is relatively cheap to make (especially in the digital age) so people are constantly talking back to one another (occasionally this happens directly, but more often than not it happens indirectly.)
I think one of the historic instances were we can most easily see how music functions as a public utterance is in the year and a half between September 11, 2001 (the attack on the World Trade Center) and March 20, 2003 (the beginning of the Iraq War). My goal here is not to discuss the political decisions of the Iraq War, but to discuss the public rhetoric of private, music making citizens during that time period. The first musical selection is Darryl Worley's 2003 song "Have You Forgotten."
The rhetoric of this piece is strong. The song came out 10 days before the start of the Iraq war as the justifications for war were being debated in the public, which made the message very timely. The use of the phrase "Have you forgotten" mimics the posters, bumper stickers, and other paraphernalia at the time that read "Never Forget" with pictures of the towers. The video uses footage and events that were familiar to all Americans at the time. Finally, the lyrics are directly inserted into the debate at the time and acknowledge the arguments of those who disagree with Worley.
On the other side of the political spectrum, we have the song "Boom" by System of a Down released November 6, 2002:
The visual rhetoric here is interesting, but the lyrics have a fair amount of rhetorical strength as well. The video was released the same day that America went to war, and shows its ability to contribute to public political debates through the images of the protests. The lyrics build off the work of notable public intellectual Noam Chomsky, and the visuals represent a situation still fresh in the public mind in response to an even that was still unfolding. The signs about greed and money allude to what the artists believed to be the motives of those on the other side of the political argument.
These two songs reflect the ability for the public utterance, especially in the form of music, to enter into meaningful, political discussions. It makes the whole idea of entering the public sphere seem important. My questions to you are these:
- Can the academic essay enter into the public sphere?
- If not, why not? If so, what strategies can we as authors use to make sure that we are staying as relevant as possible?
It would be nice to think that the academic essay could enter the mass public sphere and be as successful as an utterance such as a song, but unfortunately I think we live in a public that views the academic essay as boring, and more work than it’s worth. Back before our culture was so digitally advanced utterances in the forms of writing were the only form of publicly displaying ideas and they were also the only form of entertainment. The reason why political messages in songs, television, and movies are so effective is because the public relies on these things not only for information, but mostly for entertainment. When I get home from a long day of school and rehearsal on a Friday night I don’t think to myself, “ Oh boy now I can finally read that academic journal I’ve been dying to read all day!” I think “ Awesome now I can watch that new episode of Family Guy everybody has been talking about all day.” I don’t know if I can honestly say that I believe academic writing can be as successful in affecting the mass public as other media that we use to gain information. I do believe the academic essay has at least a better chance of gaining a voice in the mass public as long as it adheres to a few general things. I believe topic is very important. I think if the topic isn’t something that has at least some amount of controversy, an audience isn’t going to care about it as much. I also believe language and voice use is very important. While an academic essay must fit into the academic genre, meaning that it uses intelligent word choice and conventions, I believe it also must still be readable by the average Joe. I think there is also a lot that can be said for writing about something that is relatable to a majority of different peoples and that is relevant to the current times. This does not mean you should avoid writing academic texts about historical subjects it just means you need to be able to justify why they are still important to the public in the world of 2013.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the academic essay can enter A public sphere. Such as the public of scholars or well educated individuals. But I do not think that the academic essay can fit into the mass public. Music and music videos are something that is enjoyed by people of all ages, ethnicities, cultures, ect. Academic essays are not enjoyed by a very wide range of the mass public. Even those who are being forced to read these academic articles for school criteria for example may not be effected by it because reading it is not their choice. Not only does one need to acknowledge an utterance for it to be effective, but they also must be open minded and willing. This is not always the case for the academic essay. Another difference between music lyrics and the academic essay are the jargon. An academic essay uses a more complex vocabulary whereas music use a vocabulary that is often times easier to understand. The jargon impacts the public who is willing or not willing to read (or listen to) it. Music reaches a larger percent of the mass public in this way too.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that an academic essay can enter a public sphere because education is a standard for many individuals in our culture and country. I think that academic essays that are relevant to more people and relate to multipe meanings can reach most of the public. I don't think EVERYONE in a mass public will know about the subject, but if it catches the attention and relevance of interest of most people, the academic essay stands a chance. Music has always had great strategies of relating to an individual's life, hopes, dreams, and aspirations to the importance the artist is trying to say. The mass public loves the lyrics, the beat, the sentamental thoughts that give the listener a chance to gaze into deeper thought. I believe if an author of an academic essay used strategies such as gaining deeper meaning and relevance, the academic essay could really impact the mass public as a whole in interesting ways. As an author I just think that over all we need to keep the reader in tune, egaged, and make the material desirable to them also as individuals. Make them think and leave them wanting to know more.
ReplyDeleteThe academic essay can definitely "enter" public sphere. An academic can be shared in a variety of ways from being posted on a blog to actually getting published. The real question is, will the academic essay be as effective? I think not. The reasons why these videos are effective are clear. The mass majority of people in the public simply don't want to sit around reading an academic essay. It's much easier find time in one's busy schedule to play a song compared to read an essay. Also, let's face. Reading an academic essay can be boring, while music can usually be pretty interesting. To improve the success of an academic essay, it would definitely help if it were smaller in size (faster to read). Like a song it would also need the ability to spread rapidly, using the benefits of the internet. Even still I don't think it will be as effective as a song, being they are just so dang catchy!
ReplyDeleteI think that the academic essay has the potential to successfully enter the public sphere. We are in a world today where education is very valued and there is a large public that the academic essay can speak to. However, Gabby has a very valid point in the sense that our society views the academic essay as bland in our generation. I personally would never want to sit down and read academic essays for information and enjoyment; I'd rather read some fiction that would draw me into a completely different world. Despite that point though, I think that there are many academic essays written and being written that are very relevant to today's public. For example, lots of teens and adults and children all enjoy listening to Beyoncé and my academic essay could suddenly become interesting to them. It doesn't have to be about advancements in medicine or problems in politics to be academic; I think that's a stereotype that we correlate the academic essay with today. To make sure that we are staying relevant in our writing as authors, we could speak of topics of interest to the mass public very much like the videos shown. Events that are current and happening to our society as a whole instead of just a counter public could result in more discourse because of the wide variety of opinion. For example, speaking of the war when it began in an academic essay could very actively involve the public sphere because of it's relevance and importance to our society. Speaking of a possible cure for cancer on the other hand, may not involve the public as much because although many are affected by cancer, it's still a separate public that doesn't include all American citizens.
ReplyDeleteThe academic essay has a public of its own. I don't believe that it can fully enter the public because many people within the public are not really interested in the academic essay frame work. If they were to fully enter the public, it would need to be written in a different form, as a book, or maybe a blog. Incorporating things that are popular in the public at the time as examples, or text, to draw people to read it and understand more in-depth.
ReplyDeleteThe academic essay only circulates within a public of scholars. Occasionally, students may stumble upon them while researching, or their teacher may have them read it for a class. Reading is not as popular today as it used to be. An essay could reach the public if it was available online. As an author, you could publish your essay via blog. If your topic was relevant to a hot topic in society, it might be picked up by a website like Huffington Post, Buzz Feed, or Jezebel. Articles featured on these websites normally get shared and spread around on social media sites. With today's obsession over social media, that would be the best way to get your essay into a public larger than a scholarly public.
ReplyDeleteAcademic essays are considered academic because of conventions employed, and expected, when they are being written. Those conventions include everything from jargon, to citation, to academic writing voice and can definitely make an academic essay unable to cross into the public sphere. These conventions while helpful in the academic world can be limiting and off putting to those outside of it in the larger public sphere. So I guess my point, like Devon above, is that the question is less about entering the public sphere and more about how effective an academic essay would be once it's there. One thing that I've always believed would help that effectiveness is for more leniency regarding the ways in which you can use language in an academic setting because I personally don't think layman terms hurt an idea. If anything, they could be helpful in clarity and then writing like the academic essay becomes more accessible to a larger, general, public sphere.
ReplyDeleteI think that academic essays sometimes are able to reach the public, but probably not in most cases. The public's view towards academic essays are that they are boring, especially when people are able to easily access information from the internet instead of looking at an entire essay. The public is more interested in getting quick and easy facts without having to do too much research. However, I also think that amacdemic essays are useful because someone who is passionate and interested in a topic might go through the task of reading articles about it and then sharing what they have learned. Through this we get conversations going and in some cases, songs about the topic. Since an academic could potentially be about anything, it depends on its relevance to what is going on today like what was said in the prompt. To make sure that what is being said stays relevant, authors should always try to tie what they are talking about to the present. Even if they are writing about something from the 50's if they make a connection to today, people will be more interested because it can affect them and their lives.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the rhetoric these artists were using was very effective and contributed to this extremely heated topic. I am not quite sure that an academic essay could provide the same amount of momentum and input that these two examples did. I say this for the reason that the audience that popular media outlets reaches is much wider than the number of people who will sit down and read an academic text for fun or a different outlook on a problem. These texts probably reached many more people than any of the myriads of essays that were written on the topic. This is one reason that I feel that other media outlets, such as music, can be more effective at getting a point across, yet not as effective at building ethos and projecting a respected, academic, voice to its audience.
ReplyDeleteTo answer the question directly, yes i do believe that an academic essay can enter the public realm, yet it is much harder due to the massive percentage of people that the academic voice leaves out. In order for a good writes to effectively enter the public sphere, he or she must try to appeal to a massive audience instead of trying to aim for one respected portion of the population. This is why I feel that popular outlets of artistic expression, such as visual and audible art, are better for the wide broadcasting of a message. Especially when the artist is trying to promote public or social change.
The academic essay I believe has potential to thrive in the public sphere. In soceity today people value academics and education. Therefore people would be more interested in reading an academic essay or it could enter the public by students having to read the essay for an assignment. Although as some have said in earlier post's, academic essays can be sort of boring and bland. Individuals do not have the attention span to sit and read an essay that drags on and uses a large range of vocabulary. So it is possible to enter the public sphere it just may be a little more difficult than other utterances.
ReplyDeleteAuthors can use some strategies to make sure they keep the audience pulled in and attentive to the essay. They need to choose a topic that interest the public. A main stream topic that many people commonly are interested in. The topic should have some degree on controversy to make it interesting and make readers want to see the opposing sides. The author should make sure it pulls the reader in by choosing a topic that is current so it is relevant to society today and wont bore the reader. They should be able to relate to the topic a little bit.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that the academic essay can potentially enter the public sphere; however, it is very hard to accomplish this. Many academic writings are not seen in the public sphere. Unless a student uses a writing as an example, or a teacher uses an academic essay to teach his class something, academic writings are not common in the public sphere. That is why music is more affective Everyone hears it, so points are easier to get across and are more publicly known. Academic essays are usually very full of information and aren't necessarily the most enjoyable pieces of writing to read. That being said, I don't think an academic essay would thrive in the public sphere or be popular and well know in the public sphere. The academic essay is more suited for an educational and academic atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I do not feel an academic essay can enter a mass public sphere. While an academic essay that is assigned reading to a class room could be considered a little more public than normal, I find it extremely difficult to see an academic essay reaching any broader of a public. Like some people have said before me, we just live in a culture that is not in tune with reading academic essays. Movies, music, comedians, news reports, and other sorts of utterances can say a lot about the world we live in, and this is because we as a people so easily eat those types of things up. I am not saying it is impossible for an academic essay to become public, but I cannot think of an example where one ever has. Academic essays I feel are too closely restricted to their own public, that of academia, and therefore cannot branch out from that sphere since it is such a complex public to bring front and center to everybody.
ReplyDeleteI think in certain circumstances the academic essay can enter into the public sphere. Such as if the essay is directly related to a topic of controversy such as the songs above, but this is not easy to do. While music can be distributed to the masses at a rapid pace an academic essay doesn't have this same opportunity. An academic essay would have to be very powerful about a topic of controversy to really make it to the public sphere because I feel that people in today's society are most interested in controversial topics. Otherwise I think that it would be difficult for an academic essay to reach the public sphere unless it is about a topic that is going to make a huge impact. If the essay is on a generic topic or about an event that is no longer as prevalent in today's society then it will probably not make it to the public sphere. We learn when writing essays that one must have an attention grabber to keep the reader interested; well this guideline needs to be used to its extreme limits to really make it into the public sphere. So, yes I think that it is possible for an academic essay to make it into the public sphere if it is an extreme topic of controversy that goes along with or defies something that is going on in the world, but it is extremely difficult to do so. More times than not the academic essay will remain in the educational public rather than making it into the public sphere.
ReplyDeletePersonally I do not really think that the academic essay enter the public sphere in the same way music does. The main reasons these songs made it into the public sphere for one is because it was on a very controversial topic and it's music. I would say that there are probably a lot more people interested in hearing that song with the video and visuals that are given. However, the academic essay doesn't allow us the same sort of freedom and ease. I think as we have discussed in class before, it's all about asking almost nothing from the reader (or listener) and listening to a 3-5 minute song is much easier than reading a paper that is several pages long. Now is everybody interested in music? No. Therefore this isn't true for all people. I don't want to catagorize everyone. However, I feel like for the masses of the public sphere the academic essay just won't enter that sphere so much and if it does, maybe not have as much of a crowd for it. My opinion for what authors can do to stay relavent would be to make their writing less structured. More free, and more interesting to read. Provide facts, but don't overuse them. Provide stories but keep listeners interested, meaning don't have a 3 page story that you have to explain why it applies to what your saying. And most of all be interesting in the way you write. If you use boring vocabulary or vocabulary that your readers may not understand it is going to make the public less interested. However, as far as my personal experience and opinions of America, I would say the academic essay just wouldn't enter the public in this way.
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