My response to PART A #1

Studying post-colonial criticism, or examining texts from a post-colonial standpoint, has always been challenging for me. It has led me to question the most basic assumptions I have about my race, identity and culture, and recognize manifestation of power relations between cultures. As a student of literature I have gone through many classes that have embarked upon post-colonial examination of everything I could get my hands on. Every single discussion had been enlightening and liberating for me. Consequently, as a teacher I have felt hugely responsible for leading my students to learning experiences that might bring about that same kind of enlightenment. Frankly, it is not easy when you teach in the English language and via texts in English.

However, time had come when I just had to ask myself—and sometimes am ashamed to ask—“when will we ever get ‘over it?’” Though I understand that knowing one’s history is to wield power over those who try to fool you with it, I can’t help asking if would be possible to just move on and really start anew without being bitter about the past? Could it be that our fixation with the past and to the injustices of the past (because we were told that to forget what happened in the past might cause it to happen again) are the reasons behind our not being able to rebuild as a nation? Please excuse the analogy, but I have pictured it in my mind this way: most post-colonial discourses, such as those of Fannon’s and Said’s (both of whom I greatly respect), can be likened to the first few stages lovers go through after a bad break-up. They wake up one day to find that they had been duped, they lash out, they retaliate, they eventually pick up the pieces, try to recover their sense of self and self-esteem (if they can manage it), but constantly warn ourselves against the possibility of a relapse.

I will risk sounding naïve just to express something that I have kept to myself for some time now, something that I still have internal conflicts about (because I am aware that a lot of injustices are still being done and some sectors of our society are far from being ready to “move on”). I welcome any kind of reaction.

The discussion that we had during the last meeting of our Media 210 class has reminded me again of these questions I have regarding post-colonialism. We discussed how certain colonial systems still persist in our present-day academic institutions. Classifications of fields of knowledge that have become obsolete or at least problematic since people are slowly realizing the importance of interdisciplinary studies. Now I would like to talk about a similar concern almost on the same topic: scholarship.

My concern sprouted out of an incident with a faculty and a several fellow students at the College of Arts and Letters. I have expressed my interest in studying zines (search words: alternative media/ self-published texts) as revolutionary literature. They have observed however that most of the zines in my collection include extrinsic material whose sources are mostly unacknowledged (graphic cut-outs, whole blocks of ‘borrowed’ texts, designs, etc.). Apparently, they were somewhat appalled that this kind of “literature” could get away with such plagiarism. Of course, most of them changed their minds when I explained that the breaking of such literary conventions are part of the subversive nature of zines. Even then that particular incident in one of my graduate classes made me question how we generally view literature, art, research, or texts in general as the exclusive property, if not by the one who composed it, then of whoever has enough power or resources to acquire rights to the property.

The ways in which we have been conditioned to perceive research and art as a unique and privileged object produced and owned by someone of exceptional stature and therefore cannot be duplicated is basically the perpetuation of intellectual elitism. I admit that as a teacher I have many times acted out the role of the academic-nazi, spending long hours on the internet while going over student compositions, on a witch-hunt for unacknowledged (hence plagiarized) material. Post-modernism sheds light on this by exposing that texts are actually polysemous, language as intertextual, that pastiche and parody are becoming more and more persistent these days, and that everything that can be said and created has been said and created…we merely reuse, recombine and re-present them into “new utterances.”

What I’m saying is that there must be a better way of viewing scholarship, something that we could benefit more from. Looking at research and artistry in an elitist way can only bring us this far. Since I do not want to sound like a nihilist, I would like to share a few hazy insights that might eventually lead to concrete alternatives. Which brings me to this major point:

Discover, Disclose, Connect, Co-create:

The dramatic changes in the content of uploaded materials on the internet, and the intentions of the people who have uploaded them, can lend insight to the kind of scholarship might be ideal these days. With every instance of uploading one is aware of the inevitability of downloading. One can only hope that others would join in this culture of free-sharing and eventually collaboration in the development of information.

This is the concept behind Wikipedia and peer-to-peer (P2P) software. Wikipedia, the most popular web search tool and information generator relies on its users’ voluntary contributions to it its growing pool of knowledge. Cited as the best example of and the prime-mover of the open source mover, Wikipedia and other collaborative venues online eradicate the “ivory tower” representation of intellectual/artistic work and our attitudes toward it. Of course there are still the traces of customary citation—the least you could do is to mention where information came from if it’s not yours originally. This accounts for the consistent use of hyperlinks within wiki texts, a convenient and more accurate way of referring to other units of knowledge relevant to the topic under discussion, thereby saying that production of new knowledge relies on building upon or hailing in prior knowledge. The hyperlinking is I think, less intrusive and more interesting method to take in researching because it requires students to synthesize (and not just merely parrot) all the information that they could get. Synthesizing—which includes searching, selecting, categorizing, critiquing and evaluating—is after all a more complex cognitive process.

Below is an example of how a student, in a couple of his blog entries, use hyperlinks in knowledge generating and sharing. Pat Ambrosio, a computer science student and software/internet enthusiast shares new knowledge by including links in his blog entries and contributes something new by offering short critiques of the sites and applications he has linked to, giving trouble-shooting or how-tos that he probably has discovered on his own, and putting down his insights about the possible effects of these tools in the industry.

A colleague of mine, Mr. Joel Yuvienco, shared with me several terms that seem to have the beginnings of a new framework for the Internet generation. These terms are discover, disclose, connect and co-create. The terms don’t necessarily come in that order; the sequence may vary through experience, but these are the major patterns that we go through when we engage in collaborative work, such as online networks and communities on the Internet. I think these terms are very applicable to collaborative activities offline, too, especially those that aim to emancipate others. Discovery pertains to new perspectives, information, tools, frameworks, beliefs that we find when we decide to Connect or directly engage in communicating through the given media. Once we open our web browsers, type key words or tags on search engines and enter sites, we discover what people have to say or have Disclosed readily. Of course, connecting could also mean signing up or joining already existing groups and networks, also creating user accounts for social software. Disclosing involves your sharing yourself or a part of yourself to the world wide web audience. Disclosing may be intentional by putting in aesthetic elements of your choice, linking other people’s sites (especially those you want to be associated with), or unintentional, like sharing music, videos and artworks that you like, or by writing blog-entries in the stream-of-consciousness mode, etc. Co-creating pertains to the probability of contributing new knowledge by consistently engaging in the exercise of Discovery, Connecting and Disclosing. The more we learn from others, the more we would like to share and reach out to others. Sometimes, to be able to do this you have to make new communities and invite people to communicate with you. Encouraging people to take part for the first time, to make them connect and disclose, this in itself is Co-creation.

I may be sounding really abstract right now, but there’s just too many and varied examples online and choosing just one or two will fail to illustrate my point. And I attest to the fact that a lot of people right now are unselfishly sharing their knowledge online with no expectation of being [financially] compensated for it. It is enough that people interact and put it there two cent’s worth to the development of information (see discussions on and the actual texts of Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom). But I guess if one is familiar with the Internet, one will understand what I am saying. My point is that if “critical social science makes a conscious attempt to fuse theory and action” or praxis³ (from Jelai’s report on Classical Marxism), then asking students to merely mouth or repeat what their teachers wanted to hear is less empowering than asking them to create/cocreate new knowledge. We need to change the way we look at research in the academe (from intellectual property, unique, authoritative, exclusive discourse). To something wrought out of collaboration, sharing, non-exclusive. Educators somehow have to realize that everything could have been said already. The Philosophers and Critical Thinkers of the past might have beaten us to it, and it is just a matter of reading, selecting, converging texts (viewpoints, realities) and presenting them as a new statement (the combination is unique but the content has been there ever since).

There are similar changes happening in other forms of media; film/video production for instance. Developments in technology has made the art of visual storytelling more accessible to all; there are some established film authorities who resist change because of the possible loss of prestige and authority over the industry. Fortunately for us, many had been willing to share knowledge skills in film and video production, photography, editing, graphic arts, etc. Maybe if similar changes in the culture of scholarship can be made,the concept of plagiarism will cease to exist be around if we viewed research, knowledge and scholarship in a different way. And my other point is that it can be done, to be able to shed intellectual elitism—which is a byproduct of the industrial/capitalist age of thinking in terms of “property and profit”—and opt for more emancipating collaboration and free-sharing of knowledge. Put simply, we can just focus on individual self-expression and the worth of what each one has to say.

My response to PART B # 2 and # 3

Compared to newer forms of media such as the Internet, traditional media such as radio and TV broadcasting, popular print (serials, romances, magazines) and film seem to move slower in terms of shaking off dominant ideologies that oppress more people than they actually benefit. Classical Marxist theories explain that the mode of material production (base) within a society determines the nature of relationships between people (superstructure). And because the economy of capitalist societies is built upon gain or profit, cultural texts (art, music, film, literature) follow suit in privileging ideas that would gain the producer or owner more profit from the consumer. Dominant ideologies—and the accepted patterns, narrative conventions, codes, significations within cultural texts, for that matter—therefore perpetuate themselves in traditional media. Needless to say, representations, such as characters and events, will most likely be consistent to established icons, images and themes.

Furthermore, gate-keeping and agenda-setting theories shed light on actual media practices wherein produces, owners and financiers hold sway over content and representations in media texts. Narratives such as those exploited in telenovelas and fantaseryes follow familiar patterns, use the same old linear and chronological sequencing of events, showcase typical characters by typecasted actors, and even recycle old “twists” and “surprise” endings. The proliferation of and our exposure to these texts make audiences unable to appreciate texts that attempt to break such narrative conventions (ex. Putot, 21 Grams, Babel), and the failure of such “avant-garde” texts to sell in the market all the more maintains the status quo.

I apologize if I seem to make hasty generalizations and other fallacies in reasoning; but the state local TV programming has led me to considerably lessen my TV viewing since 2003. Perhaps for others, for the people whom television programming had been geared at, the familiarity of olds patterns and conventions brings respite from the harsh realities of life (“opiate of the masses”); but more often I had found it disappointing how TV has failed to provide people with alternative characters, ways of thinking, situations, realities—new heroes that might somehow lend insight into the dilemmas of modern life. Going by the Uses and Gratifications theory, by refusing to watch TV I have refused the idea that someone like Ally McBeal or the characters in Friends and in many other programs were representative of me and the life I lead. I felt alienated by experience, taste, culture whenever I watched most of these shows. Just recently however, because of the advancements in technology and subsequently in piracy, I developed this knack for watching foreign sitcoms/tv series by the season (its amazing how a whole season of series such as Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, CSI can fit into a single DVD). Sex and the City (which I have just started to watch a couple of weeks ago) is slowly turning out to be a let down for me. Despite the great humor, the creative story-telling device and great visual/narrative hooks, I felt that it did not represent me nor the majority of modern women I know. Their idea of “liberated women” was problematic. I thought that the series became sort of a backlash against women’s lib in general, that being liberated for women primarily meant being sexually liberated. Sure it is entertaining, but at the end of each season you find the lead characters back in the rut (the same rut you had originally been in): depressed and unhappy had earlier on been perceived as “new, liberating opportunities for women.” In the end they still long for the security of being in an ‘ideal relationship’ with the ‘ideal man;’ in Sex and the City it was Mr. Big, the elusive alpha male who goes for the ‘uncomplicated woman’.

Because of what I said earlier about the Internet I believe that more alternatives are available for me online. The Internet culture has changed so much over the past few years due to opensource software and many other venues for online collaboration. I have been fascinated by the amount of disclosure and obstinate attempts to reach out to others that people put into blogs, vodcasts, networking sites, etc. Surfing the net—made easier by keyword-selection skills, tagging and bookmark organization—is a rich source of alternatives and a freer venue for managing identities. Unlike watching TV, personal/personalized websites, blogs, podcasting, vodcasting (or video-casting), and photosharing on line opens you up to various perspectives, experiences, tastes, cultures, insights, attitudes, ideas, art, images and new icons. The stories people share online have actually opened my eyes to so many possibilities; for instance, there are actually a lot of women who are happy being single, who are fulfilled and empowered by their profession or their art, and who are passionate about empowering other people as well.

The non-profitability of zines and their independence from dominant modes of production have given their makers a lot of leeway in self-expression. Layouts are freer, texts and graphics can be as varied (or vulgar) as one needs it to be without being filtered by a profit/reputation-conscious editor. Zines are therefore appealing to individuals who want to manage their identities as they can use these texts to represent themselves. This process of representation involves the use and manipulation of signs, codes and symbols to bring about audience effects. For instance, a zine chooses to cut and paste texts and graphics from a magazine and rearrange them unto a page in her zine. One doesn’t have to be a semiotician to perceive how the items she has selected and the way she has placed them onto the page (as in a montage) would reflect her preferences, personal politics, body image, desires or fears. The fonts, spaces (silences), colors, are as potent in meaning as extra-textual aspects of the zine such as the quality of its production (printed, photocopied, risographed), the number of copies produced, the price, and instances or venues of distribution.

In the same light, the availability of the Internet and online resources (free blogs, networking, audio/visual streaming) to a greater number of users, the slowly changing dynamics of software (user friendly interfaces, drag and drop, presets, options, etc.) and hardware (plug and play, everything-USB, firewire, etc.), and more accessible media formats (digital video, photo, mp3, 3gp, flash/JAVA script presets) made easier to recreate one’s image and express one’s self online. Perhaps people who have been attempting to define or capture the essence of Postmodernism have been thinking of the Internet because it could very likely be a very liberating tool for transcending established truths and relations.

To be more specific, I’d like to share observations I have made on how people construct their images on line. Blogs (Blogger, Livejournal) and network sites (Friendster, My Space) and hybrid sites that combine both such as Multiply make it possible for their owners to manipulate page elements easily to be able to express themselves as freely as possible. One can customize their otherwise standard-layout profiles by changing background colors or graphics, adding photos, rearranging component or adding, classifying their audiences and regulating access to their website (termed “protection” in Friendster and Flickr). Even showcasing who regularly access their sites (readers, followers, friends) contribute to the identity of the owner.

The following are screenshots of customized profiles and blogs that, as I understand using the semiotic method, promotes the author’s personality or aspect of personality that the owner chooses to highlight:

My student Alex Staley’s Friendster profile exhibits a basic choice of changing the site’s background. The choice of choosing this pattern over the standard blank background for her profile page suggests an attempt to express her personality.

Ska band Barrio Morning Glory’s Friendster account, which they primarily use for self-promotion, announcement of gig schedules, and interaction with fans. The bottom right side of the image shows their membership in other groups. This linkages may contribute to their image as a young, hip music group.

This online gamer’s use of graphics from Tekken could be seen as an attempt to attract fellow gamers by disclosing what currently interests her of what she is a fan of.

And this is how another student, Yvanich Agno, chooses to reinforce her image of “young, rebellious rocker.” She used the following elements as signs for her personality: a photo of rock icon Avril Lavigne, an X-mark in red, terms such as “mistfit,” “confessions”, the font used (courier) resembles that of an old typewriter (used frequently in punk zines to mean ‘old school’ or DIY), and the white background to provide dramatic contrast.

The following screenshots show how blog titles and graphics can be used to create or, in the case of my student Joey (egoy), reclaim identity by negotiating new meanings for previously derogatory terms.

Joey Trinidad’s Egoy writes… is a way of ‘writing back’ to those who used to discriminate him by his physical attributes.

Peachy Herrin’s Pinay G-Spot is an apt and witty title for a blog about women empowerment. The color and graphics represent life, growth, abundance and fertility in terms of ideas and potentials.

A screenshot from my own blog below shows how one can use widgets—placeholders for third party sites and external applications within your own page—to construct and promote identity. The widgets located on the left side of the screen may show aspects of my personality, my interest and even my profession.

The activities the people engage in online to express and continuously construct identities, especially the younger generation, are clearly applications of post-structuralist and post-modern thought (or at least the attitude). I have not even begun to scratch the surface by presenting what I perceive. The internet and other similar activities off-line (zinemaking, indie filmmaking, independent music production, formation of radical movements or special interest groups, etc.) are indicative of the “chaos” that needs to be expressed, and there seems to be no traditional framework that could contain it. Audiences of media texts these days are as empowered as the makers because they have the ability to produce their own texts. I would like to cite what my classmate quoted from Habermas for his/her report on the Frankfurt School of Media Studies...“No aspect of life is interest free. An emancipated society is free from unnecessary domination of any one interest, and everybody has equal opportunity to participate in decision-making.”

The way we generate meaning from our reading of the text, however, still calls in semiotic or structural frameworks. We are still dealing with signs and symbols…can we say that they are as stable as before? I feel that the Internet has managed to lessen the potency of what were once dominant codes of meaning; some hardly exist anymore. When we express ourselves on the net through any far-reaching new media (digital), one is aware of the infinite ways in which people can interpret [or misinterpret] our messages, and we open ourselves to new meaning we might chance upon when we share knowledge. Perhaps this is the essence of the new generation, to know that the number possibilities are as infinite as the variety of perspectives and cultures that abound.