Rogue Scholars Roundtable III:
The Rogue Scholar Strikes Back
Panel Proposal submitted to the Communication Theory Division
for the 1998 annual meeting of the Southern Speech Communication Association,
San Antonio, April.
Purpose: "Rogue Scholars III" is the third in
a series of panels and other forums designed to bring scholarship out of
the insular academic community and into the larger community in which academic
research is embedded. In other words, our goal with this panel (and other
endeavors) is to make scholarship accessible to those whom we study. This
particular panel will focus on defining rogue scholarship, identifying the
purpose of such scholarship, and discussing issues associated with rogue
scholarship. Specifically, the panel will focus on how the concepts of rogue
scholarship can be theoretically framed in order to form unifying concept
for scholars and non-scholars to follow and access. The panel is bracketed
Jim Kuypers discussing activist and traditional scholarship and the media
and Ted Coopman's guidelines for Rogue Scholarship. The other presenters/roundtable
discussants will address research areas such as organizational communication,
community building, and rhetoric.
Format: This panel is meant to be a public discussion of
scholarly research. Presenters will write a 2500 word (or less) papers on
how their research could be used and/or disseminated in a manner the general
public can access and understand. An interviewer/moderator will question
the panelists and serve to facilitate the discussion. These papers will be
available on a Web page one month before SSCA for all presenters and potential
audience members to read at http://www.roguecom.com/roguescholar. Thus, the format
for the panel will be BRIEF presentations (no more than 5 minutes) by panel
member, followed by MUCH discussion among panelists and audience members.
Participants:
Kim White-Mills; Rollins College; Kim.White-Mills@rollins.edu; moderator
Jim A. Kuypers, Dartmouth College; jim.kuypers@dartmouth.edu; paper presenter/roundtable
panelist.
Michael Leitao, Texas A&M University; paper presenter/roundtable
panelist.
Joy Hart, University of Lousiville; jlhart01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu; paper
presenter/roundtable panelist.
Shirley Willihnganz; University of Lousiville, scwill01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu;
paper presenter/roundtable panelist.
David Sutton; suttoda@mail.auburn.edu, paper presenter/roundtable panelist.
Ted M. Coopman, Rogue Communication Consultants; rogue@cruzio.com; paper
presenter/roundtable panelist, panel coordinator
Abstracts
"Issues of Scholarly and Media Bias in Public Consumption
of Elite Knowledge"
Jim A. Kuypers
The important question to be considered in this paper is: "How do
academic researchers better transmit our research finding to the general
public?" Before answering this question, however, we must consider
two forms of scholarship: traditional and activist. Depending upon which
form of scholarship one pursues, the answer to the question given above
will change. Thus, this paper will briefly explore the differences between
traditional and activist notions of scholarship, and then describe how the
knowledge produced by either method is disseminated to the general public.
It is my contention that research finding are filtered through the media.
Therefore the role of the media in shaping the final interpretation of research
results must be explored.
"Creating Spaces for Public Conversation: The Public
Dialog Consortium and the Cupertino Project"
Michael Leitao
From its start, the goal of the PDC in developing the Cupertino Community
Project has been to create the "space" for open dialogue to occur,
and for this dialogue to assert a positive influence on shaping the future
of this community. This on-going project, which now has spanned over two
years, has afforded us the opportunity to take our communication practices
and theories directly into the community in order to bring about more productive
and less polarized forms of public discourse. Based on systemic practices,
this program of "action research" has created the real desire
and commitment within the community to not only to continue these conversations,
but to explore, with us, new ways in which this dialogue can continue to
be an instrument for positive change. Phase Four of our plan is to conduct
workshops for the city officials and citizen leaders of this community as
well as work with the community schools in creating an interdisciplinary
approach to dialogue with the aim of assuring that this conversation will
keep going.
"The Needs of the Many" and "The Needs of
the Few "
Joy Hart and Shirley Willihnganz
Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock may debate the logic (or lack thereof) in
the facets of our title. We, however, are going to argue (as all fans of
the Enterprise know and Kirk and Spock implicitly recognize) that an integration
of these perspectives is often the best position. In this vein, we believe
that the study of communication in organizations has much to gain from many
open dialogues with practitioners and that we as researchers can learn much
from such interaction. For example, many of our theories still rest in such
"rational" logics that it is little wonder that the few of us
some practitioners ever meet do seem alien. So, one goal of our participation
here is an on-going conversation with real people in real organizations
with real concerns.
Lest we appear too critical, however, let us stress that we do believe
that organizational science does have much to contribute to daily work life.
But the bulk of it is published in journals read by few people or presented
at conferences like this one (again, attended by relatively few people).
And so, often, our messages reach only a few and/or are written in forms
accessible by few. What Rogue Scholars tries to do is disseminate the messages
wider (via the Web site, etc.).
In short, we see much science which needs to reach many more than the
current few and many possibilities for how a few more (or especially many
more) "conversations" between practitioners and researchers could
benefit us all. And Rogue Scholars' overarching goal of boldly going where
the knowledge we produce can be applied and where we can continue learning
in new ways seems at least one vehicle capable of transport.
The Goldfish Dialogues: Plato's Format in the Age of the
Internet
David Sutton
Being an untenured assistant professor, people repeatedly tell me that
I should play it safe and package my ideas in a conventional format--introduction,
literature review, methodology, analysis, discussion, conclusion, bibliography--and
mail them off to conventional paper journals to await the judgment of a
group of anonymous reviewers. This long-established and well-worn process
has plenty of seriousness, but where, may I ask, is the playfulness, the
bitterness, the irony, the fairness, and the basic freedom to use one's
stock of poetic imagery?
So I began to listen to a persona that lurks somewhere in the nether
regions of my psyche, the entity called Rogue Scholar. This rascal, this
scamp, urged me to try something different. "Go on, write a dialogue."
it said, "If it was good enough for Plato, it should be good enough
for the likes of you. Don't be such a wimp. Push a few limits. Publish your
ideas on electrons instead of pulp wood. Where's your spirit of adventure?"
There is another voice that speaks to me, and it issues from the pages
of that ponderous volume I bought so many years ago. In the "Phaedrus",
Socrates issues a warning about putting one's thoughts down in writing.
Once we write something, he said, our "composition, whatever it may
be, drifts all over the place, getting into the hands not only of those
who understand it, but equally of those who have no business with it"
(275e). With the advent of the Internet, our compositions can now drift
at the speed of light, and they are instantly accessible to anyone with
a modem. This development would probably cause Socrates to experience shortness
of breath, or at least a mild headache.
The voice of the impish Rogue Scholar is much louder. It says to me,
"On this issue, Socrates is so very wrong. Accessibility of ideas is
what scholarship should be all about."
A Rogue Scholarship Manifesto (version 1.0)
Ted M. Coopman
Over the course of the first two Rogue Scholar panels, we attempted to
define rogue scholarship and identify goals, ethics, and the means of conducting
such endeavors. In this paper, I will define the rogue scholar ethic and
the basic elements and guidelines to producing scholarship accessible to
all. For this I will utilize what has been presented and discussed by past
rogue scholar panel participants as well my own perspectives as a participant
and the organizer of these panels. This will include the discussion of the
social underpinnings and historical precedents that form the "deep"
background of rogue scholarship and its relationship to the foundations
of liberal thought and modern democracy. This, in turn, will be related
to the guidelines, styles, philosophies that have developed over the previous
panels.