Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 310.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Matt Huculak <huculak@uvic.ca>
Subject: RE: [Humanist] 37.309: why e-mail, why not social media (125)
[2] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: "social media is broken" (47)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2023-11-15 18:29:54+00:00
From: Matt Huculak <huculak@uvic.ca>
Subject: RE: [Humanist] 37.309: why e-mail, why not social media
In defense of email, it is worth noting that our colleague Matthew Kirschenbaum,
whom I've followed for some time, has had to lock his Twitter account because of
serious, negative exchanges that have occurred this past week. He is no longer
participating in "academic twitter."
I am reminded of Dr. Lynne Siemens' article, "It's a team if you use 'reply
all'" (2009, DOI:10.1093/llc/fqp009), which argues email still carries with it
sense of belonging, mutual responsibility and accountability--features that
continue to erode on social media platforms.
Three cheers for email!
-----Original Message-----
From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2023 9:52 PM
To: Matt Huculak <huculak@uvic.ca>
Subject: [Humanist] 37.309: why e-mail, why not social media
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 309.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: scholar-at-large@bell.net <scholar-at-large@bell.net>
Subject: Social Media and the Conduct of Scholarship (43)
[2] From: Ken Friedman <ken.friedman.sheji@icloud.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.305: why e-mail (36)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2023-11-14 21:11:16+00:00
From: scholar-at-large@bell.net <scholar-at-large@bell.net>
Subject: Social Media and the Conduct of Scholarship
Willard,
I have read the praise of email for intellectual exchange and am dismayed by the
scorn inflicted on social media. I think some of the affordances are overlooked.
Concision helps concentrate the mind (in social media, creative threads get
around the limitations of individual posts). Speed: social media norms for quick
response (hours and not days) lend a sometimes giddy air to its proceedings… an
affect not unbidden by some. Social media is good for many tasks: asking about
which books, films or music to consult; boosting the work of colleagues (with
reposts and likes); sharing in jokes and memes. I bow to wiser folks to do
justice to the topic of humour and scholarship.
To illustrate my point: two posts from a longer thread (well worth reading in
full). Matthew Kirschenbaum sums up a fruitful exchange from December 2021:
https://twitter.com/mkirschenbaum/status/1475866810943688705
[quote]
I’m very grateful to everyone who engaged with this yesterday. I’m especially
grateful that (by others’ accounts as well), it was a balanced, respectful
exchange— no small thing on this website! Here are some of the verbs that were
offered as alternatives to discover or find:
[/quote]
https://twitter.com/mkirschenbaum/status/1475866872881025040
[quote]
Located, identified, uncovered, unearthed, recovered, elevated, evaluated,
noticed, learned, surfaced, retrieved, worked with, drew from, activated, was
enabled, leveraged, analyzed, revealed, saw, examined, used, encountered,
witnessed.
[/quote]
I submit that such a suggestive list could be collectively-produced by email,
after all, inventio is not foreign to either social media or email. But to pull
it off despite constraints and culture is indeed “no small thing”.
I am not disparaging the evocative format of the exchange of email. I am simply
pointing to some interesting activity in another part of the agora.
F
François Lachance, Ph.d.
Life cannot be all told.
It is lived in the telling.
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2023-11-14 07:13:37+00:00
From: Ken Friedman <ken.friedman.sheji@icloud.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.305: why e-mail
Dear Willard,
Interesting thread.
Maurizio makes a particularly good point. I often find myself editing and
rewriting in email. If the flow of life interrupts, I can put the email to the
side and return to work further. One a list where I found myself posting long,
serious notes, I sometimes took two or three days to write and polish a comment.
Email encourages — or at least permits — careful correspondence. Social media
discourage this.
Yours,
Ken
> On 14 Nov 2023, at 07:51, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
> --[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: 2023-11-13 23:43:52+00:00
> From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.302: why e-mail?
> and me personally I find myself writing and rewriting phrases,
> choosing a word, displacing/relocating a block of words, etc. which is
> the contrary of "rapid bursts of short utterances”
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal
of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in
Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-
journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation
| Tongji University | Shanghai, China | Email
| ken.friedman.sheji@icloud.com |
Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2023-11-15 06:29:29+00:00
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: "social media is broken"
Some months ago I came across that quoted sentence, "social
media is broken", on a poster fixed to a decrepit telephone box.
I had just walked out of a local, mostly Victorian, badly neglected
churchyard near my house. That sentence was a caption to a
photo of a bewildered man's face. We can be certain that the poor
fellow was not reacting to a 21st Century Emily Dickenson's or Kenneth
Rexroth's laconic poem. We've heard enough stories about Twitter
storms driving their victims to distraction. While it's true that brevity
and speed of exchange can be used for many good purposes, indeed
are used thus, the misuses were not my point. Rather it was that e-mail
serves a particular function very well. I like to think that thanks to its
members, Humanist demonstrates that abundantly.
What distresses me about social media are its anti-social uses:
discouragement of considered, reasoned argument or description, and the
tendency of rapid exchange to establish rumour as truth. Since
there's no room in radically brief verbal exchange to persuade or argue,
statements tend not to be challenged. Indeed, inflammatory tweets
quickly proliferate. If my experience is a guide, it would seem that tweets
and the like are read by many who haven't noticed or had time to challenge
the initial allegation. Insults follow in rapid succession. No use arguing back,
or pointing to evidence or even making the attempt.
Flame-wars, as they used to be called, were once commonplace on e-mail
lists, such as this one. I served as Humanist's fireman for a time. This
worked well due to the opportunity to discuss some problem or other at
a relatively leisurely pace, to explain that holding back further comments
was not 'censorship' but editorial good sense. Then social media provided
a route for the inflammatory to find its tinder--and whoosh!
In our relatively little world I think we have a role (one model among
several) to show what casual, low-key but serious intellectual discourse
can do. More than to announce events and our latest publications, as
valuable as this may be. I think often these days of Kobayashi Issa's haiku:
"Slowly, slowly, O snail / Climb Mt Fuji!" Ironical--a proto-tweet!--, but then
haiku were written out, presumably on rice paper with a brush dipped in
hand-ground ink in contemplative surroundings, or so I'd like to think.
Comments?
Yours,
WM
--
Willard McCarty,
Professor emeritus, King's College London;
Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Humanist
www.mccarty.org.uk
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