There is absolutely no doubt that academic practices are changing – in fact text and what we can do with it is probably changing faster than other modes are being adopted – for me the question is how we reframe in the new knowledge media landscape what is valuable about academic modes of communication.
There are two strands of this issue for me: one, as Helen Beetham says, text is changing (a la Roland Barthes’ Joy of Text: what is a “text”), but the other strand might be characterised as a rear-guard action to protect certain privileged forms of text: limiting access to “academic modes of communication”. So, I take hope from Helen’s observation (via the BL) that image search is on the rise. I hadn’t realised this at all. Is is a sign that I am old that I use image search only to search for images? Am I actually part of that rear-guard action to defend “traditional” text-based knowledge, arguing – for example here – for new epistemologies while practising – promulgating that argument – and shoring up old ones? Note to self: start using those voice tools, videos and images to make academic arguments.
rWorld2 