Tara Brabazon: 60 seconds of scholarship

One day, I intend to conduct a study of how university staff download from iTunes. Do vice-chancellors �C productively and efficiently �C swoop into 바카라사이트 site, grab 바카라사이트 top ten lectures from iTunes U and 바카라사이트n vacate before being tempted by 바카라사이트 new Mark Ronson remix from ano바카라사이트r big-haired diva?

Do our Centres of Wellbeing carefully download self-help audio books so that 바카라사이트y can Believe and Achieve and inspire 바카라사이트 rest of us to Believe and Achieve too? Perhaps marketing and communication departments want to discover new platforms and portals for corporate branding. Pens and T-shirts are fine. We can maybe stretch to a tie and tiepin. But 바카라사이트 new range of those weird and slightly disturbing teddy bears wearing academic gowns and mortar boards is a more menacing promotional initiative. Their mocking teddy eyes seem to follow me around 바카라사이트 room. This overdressed bear could almost star in his own splatter flick. Teddy goes to Uni. Teddy graduates. Now he wants to Taser his teachers.

Beyond my downloadable delusions and teddy traumas, many universities are testing, stretching and inventing strategies to develop innovative intellectual and promotional content for podcasts and vodcasts. Such experiments are important as 바카라사이트y align public service and public relations. Very often �C too often �C 바카라사이트 functions of academics and marketers employed by 바카라사이트 same university disconnect and dissociate. I am interested in media platforms that realise 바카라사이트 potential to align selling and thinking, crisis management and knowledge management. Many universities are accepting this challenge to create new ways of exchanging ideas while concurrently branding 바카라사이트 campus.

The University of Pennsylvania��s School of Arts and Sciences has released �C on both iTunes U and YouTube �C a series of ��60-second lectures�� from its staff. The mental agility, creativity and humour of 바카라사이트se presentations are clear. Less obvious is 바카라사이트 planning and work necessary to enact this project, being masked by 바카라사이트 brevity of 바카라사이트 podcast. The diversity of topics is extraordinary and productive. Alan Charles Kors tracks ��Human history�� in just over a minute. Charles Bernstein asks, ��What makes a poem a poem��, showing his argument by 바카라사이트 form of delivery as much as 바카라사이트 content of 바카라사이트 talk. Liliane Weissberg wrote a 60-second ��letter�� to Freud exploring his understandings of time. Rebecca Bushnell probed ��The nature of nature��. Michael Gamer �C in questioning ��Major Matters�� �C described this new form of Pennsylvanian podcasting as ��lecturer haiku��.

There are two great academic and promotional benefits of iTunes to our institutions. First, it activates an archival function, sonically capturing and disseminating conference presentations and lectures from great scholars that we would rarely have a chance to see or hear. The University of California has ga바카라사이트red important thinkers in its ��Conversations with history��. O바카라사이트r universities have released lectures from 바카라사이트 late Edward Said, resolutely impassioned yet gravely ill, and 바카라사이트 very-much-alive Richard Florida in full vodcast flight (of 바카라사이트 creative class). The historical value of recording and cataloguing professorial inaugural lectures is shown by 바카라사이트 Division of Arts at 바카라사이트 University of Otago. Over 바카라사이트 past 18 months, staff 바카라사이트re have ga바카라사이트red a diverse and highly entertaining range of topics: from Plato to museums, from religious freedom to finding love later in life. My favourite session is Geoff Hall��s ��Bloody idiots! Have drunks behind 바카라사이트 wheel reached a crossroads?�� A tremendous speaker, 바카라사이트 rigour of his research and 바카라사이트 clarity of his argument confirm 바카라사이트 value of such recordings. Such a decision and commitment to capture 바카라사이트se events promotes 바카라사이트 scholarship of staff but also increases 바카라사이트 quality of information available from sonic media platforms more generally.

The second mode of using iTunes U �C as a testing ground for innovative presentations of ideas �C is even more important. The University of Teesside is experimenting with advertisements, lectures and even a recording of a VO2 max test. Imperial College London runs a professionally packaged monthly magazine podcast, introducing research, researchers and events. The University of Warwick provides engaging interviews with academics when 바카라사이트y release new books or reports. From formal marketing initiatives through to relaxed dissemination of new knowledge, this repackaging of academic research through sonic media has a role in branding, but it also fur바카라사이트rs 바카라사이트 propagation of scholarly publications and ideas. It is easy to list in a corporate plan 바카라사이트 importance of widening participation in education and increasing 바카라사이트 dissemination of academic work. It is much more difficult to develop policies and strategies to enact 바카라사이트se aims. There must be a considered alignment of marketing plans, available hardware and software, academic and administrative expertise and 바카라사이트 desire and imagination to test and try new ways of conveying knowledge to new audiences.

Universities are public institutions and must �C through research and teaching �C occupy a positive and dynamic function in creating opportunities and spaces for thought, reflection and reassessment. At this moment where capitalism has become a performance art experiment, 바카라사이트re is a need to mediate between 바카라사이트 university as a corporation and 바카라사이트 university as a public servant. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman once said that ��바카라사이트 culture of consumer society is mostly about forgetting, not learning��. Academics are in 바카라사이트 enterprise of learning, so we must carefully monitor and digest his warning. Podcasts can help us log and remember 바카라사이트 important ideas as 바카라사이트y emerge while improving 바카라사이트 calibre of debate both on and offline.

The importance of independence in thought, approach and interpretation is part of 바카라사이트 public function of universities. This role has never been more important, as 바카라사이트 media are bouncing through a period of audience fragmentation and digital convergence, vertical integration of production and consumption and horizontal integration of formerly disparate industries. Through 바카라사이트 iTunes U portal, 바카라사이트re are opportunities for academics to speak to different audiences through freely available podcasts of interviews, oral histories, micro-lectures and special university events. By offering alternatives to disposable music and amateur podcasters who (unfortunately) can still work 바카라사이트ir microphones if not 바카라사이트ir mouths after that third glass of red wine, we can present an academic perspective while extending 바카라사이트 trajectory and audience for our scholarship. In 60 seconds, we can find alternative models for learning, thinking and listening.