research sources: March 2007 Archives

I'm assigning an essay by Thomas de Zengotita to the College Writing class for reading this weekend. It was originally published in Harper's (one of my favorites), and is summarized in a blog called How to Save the World. (The same entry also mentions "Carnival of the Capitalists" and "Warren Buffett pays his taxes," both of interest.)

de Zengotita asserts:

He continues, "Remember that T-shirt from the eighties that said "High on Stress"? It was sort of true and sort of a way to bluff it out and sort of a protest - it had that 'any number of meanings' quality we now prefer to depth. That's because the any-number-of-meanings quality keeps you in motion, but depth asks you to stop."

As I've been thinking about how to continue blogging (a.k.a., how to continue writing), I find inspiration from my students and other writers. (It doesn't hurt that a friend actually confessed to reading my blog once-in-awhile, a secret he has been keeping because he doesn't want me to ask him to become more involved, as if I would ever do such a thing!) Natalie Goldberg encourages us "to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist" (Writing Down the Bones, p. 43).

"Our lives are at once ordinary and mythical. We live and die, age beautifully or full of wrinkles. We wake in the morning, buy yellow cheese, and hope we have enough money to pay for it. At the same instant we have these magnificent hearts that pump through all sorrow and all winters we are alive on earth. We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter" (emphasis added, p. 44).

Siny thinks I didn’t reference her last time, but I did. The birthday girl had it right: no permission, no name - but one might still appear-by-implication in an account of some interaction! This time I only intended to stay an hour but then blogtalk happened. I became excited . . .

Sangria Grrl gave me the hardest time. “The blog feels private, like I’m reading your diary!” Nah – I am just sharing my mind (such as it is!) Nicole nailed the point: once I have written and “published” online then the information (the thinking) “is public.” Some of us had fun recalling the new tradition (we tried to invent) at Winter Solstice: various cuisines throughout the night, except “American came first and was so big there was no room for anyone else!” Gulp, we’ll definitely have to recalibrate for next time. :-)
(All the parties, by the way, are categorized (with some other things) as “group dynamics.”)

I got totally jazzed talking with Adam and attempted to blog right then and there. (Never did that before!) Sangria Grrl busted me, even to the point of confiscating my notes (she did return them, so now she is complicit, right?)! Later in the evening, I was double-teamed sandwiched between Halona and The-Guy-Who-Doesn’t-Trust-Me: “Do you think everybody has an accent?” Of course! But it is not the sound that matters (imho). The cool ness factor of people learning and speaking new languages is the process of making meaning - in fact, this is a very-darn-neat process even among monolinguals: how does anyone agree on what something means?

Adam told me about Tanzania, which is the only country in Africa that is united by a common tongue. “What you have to understand is that we have one national language which one can speak east to west and north to south.” Swahili is one of the most widespread African languages, but unlike other countries with large Swahili-speaking populations (Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Congo), all 120 tribes of Tanzania speak Swahili and therefore do not have to resort to a colonial language (i.e., English in Kenya & Uganda, French in Burundi and Congo) to communicate with each other. The “local-local tribes” also speak native Bantu languages. This singular fact makes Tanzania “peculiar,” according to Adam, because the common tongue “makes us more united – we are the only [African] country where everyone speaks one language.” Indeed, Adam attributed the presence of a unifying national language to the fact that Tanzania has never had a civil war.

Neat, huh? :-) The phenomena, and Adam’s pride in it, seems to support (or extend?) Benedict Anderson’s argument about the functional role of languages in Europe as a tool in the construction of nationalistic imagined communities. My more specific interest is in how (if, whether) current language policies and practices in the European Union will promote a shift away from nationalism (egoistic, xenophobic) to broader self-identifications and also if, when, and how language policies can be extended beyond the political borders of citizenship to the practical day-to-day livelihoods of transnational workers, displaced persons, and their families.

Donal sends this on from the European Communication Research and Education Association listserv. It reminds me of the conversations I had with interpreters for the European Parliament. Some interpreters were worried about misrepresentation of their accounts about interpreting. I'll formally present some results next month in Sydney at an international conference on community interpreting, Critical Link V.

Subject: [ecrea] EU project AIM looks into world of Brussels-based journalists

Source: CORDIS News - 9/3/2007

EU project looks into world of Brussels-based journalists

The EU's communication activities and the work of EU correspondents both in Brussels and around Europe were the focus of the EU-funded AIM (Adequate Information Management) project, which is just drawing to a close.

The Brussels press corps is one of the largest in the world, bringing together over 1,000 journalists from over 60 countries. Through interviews with a sample of Brussels-based journalists, the project partners sought to understand how they viewed the EU's communications efforts and how they arrange their work.

One of the key points to come out of the project is the diversity of journalistic cultures which come together in Brussels. However, there is a certain level of homogenisation of the different cultures, which newcomers have to adapt to. Furthermore, not all journalists are created equal, with some journalists having more clout than others.

Speaking at the final AIM conference in Brussels, project participant Paolo Mancini of the University of Perugia explained that journalists from the old Member States tend to dominate those from the newer Member States, although some of the larger new Member States such as Poland were now starting to pull their weight more. This follows another trend identified, namely that large countries tend to dominate small ones.

'Journalists from bigger countries have more power because sources are more interested in talking to them,' he said, noting that the biggest publications, which are more European than national in their nature, wield considerable power. 'For example the Financial Times is able to affect the process of news gathering for other journalists.' Journalists from smaller countries also often have to cover more issues, making things harder for them.

Journalists also experience a certain level of contradiction in their daily lives, noted Professor Mancini. 'They live abroad and cover international institutions and work with a lot of foreigners, but they respond to a national, i.e. local, audience of people who are in a very local culture,' he explained.

One of the biggest challenges facing journalists is the vast amount of information coming out of the institutions, and the jargon used. Learning to understand the jargon and how to decide which pieces of information are relevant and important is a hard task for journalists arriving in Brussels.

Based on its findings, the project partners have come up with a range of recommendations as to how the EU could improve its communication activities. These include the idea that the European Commission should take national media agendas into consideration, and provide more communications training to its spokespeople and media experts.

Another major issue highlighted by the study is the way the EU avoids mentions of controversies and discussions of internal conflicts in favour of a policy of 'speaking with one voice'. For journalists however, conflicts and controversies are a source of good news stories. Furthermore, the project partners note that admitting to the existence of these internal debates would make the EU more credible among journalists.

'A central problem of European information is bound to the extent and will of the Commission to accept political controversies as a matter of course and, therefore, a matter of public discourse,' the project partners write in an overview of the final project report. 'The contribution of journalism in enhancing transparency and openness could be remarkably built up if journalists would gain access to better insight into the very mechanisms and procedures of decision-making.'

A previous study of the AIM project looked at how media coverage of EU affairs varied in the 10 countries involved in the project.

For more information, please visit: http://www.aim-project.net

Data Source Provider: CORDIS News attendance at AIM project final conference

I read that book (1950) once, so long ago I remember no details except that it elicited strong emotions.

The phrase returns to mind often as an ethical aim: to make choices in such a way that my life unfolds under the premise that there is enough time in a world endowed with meaning.

Here is a literature, Journal of the European Institute for Communication and Culture
Javnost - The Public, definitely worth perusal.

Searching for the book by Robert Penn Warren, I discovered a new Star Trek movie in the making! Plus the original poem which probably inspired Warren's choice of title. A NYTimes article: World Enough and Time for ‘a Good Death’, a ton of blogposts simply using the phrase, and World Enough and Space-Time. How much happier could I be? :-)