how many discourses does it take to screw in a humor symposium: theorizing the pedagogical...
TRANSCRIPT
How Many Discourses Does It Take to Screw in a Humor Symposium?: Theorizing the Pedagogical Possibilities of Humorous Media
Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference, April 2015 Renee Hobbs, Mike RobbGrieco, Will Luera and Jillian Belanger
Outline of Our Presentation
Fooling around getting the PowerPoint working
Outline of our presentation
Introduction
Realization that half our time has already gone
Waste some more time trying to open a video
Increasingly shambolic run through main content
Abandonment of carefully crafted conclusion
(Taken from a tweet that @AcadeemicsSay took from @ANU_RSAT)
Meet the PanelistsRenee Hobbs
@reneehobbs
Mike RobbGrieco @MikeRobbGrieco
Jillian Belanger @PaperWithPencil
Will Luera @wluera
What did we do? •Photo booth and music in the main
lobby
•Gag bags instead of swag bags (whoopee cushions, anyone?)
•Keynote address by Dr. Jerry Zolten of Penn State Altoona on the historical roots of stand-up comedy
•Sessions presented by practitioners and scholars
•Film screening and discussion of stand-up excerpts addressing race, gender, politics and religion
•Performances and discussions by comedians Myq Kaplan and Erin Judge
•Workshops to create original comedic material addressing social issues
•Comedy show by Patton Oswalt
One-day humor symposium on Saturday, 3/22/14 at URI
Who was it for?
•Scholars•Undergrads•Grad students•Researchers
•Comedians•People interested in comedy
Why did we do it?
“Comedy deals with a lot of areas where our defenses are strongest– race, religion, politics, sexuality-- only by approaching them through humor instead of adrenaline, we get endorphins, and thealchemy of laughter turns our walls into windows, revealing a fresh and unexpected pointof view.”-Chris Bliss, 2011 TED Talk
What did participants say about it?
“I learned more today than I have in semester-long grad classes!”
“I liked the mix of academic research, educational praxis sharing, comedians’ reflections on humor communication, and practical participation in making comedy.”
“The music in the lobby was too loud.”
You know what would be really great?
People who study comedy
People who do comedy
Media Literacy Praxis
From: Media Education Labster,Mike RobbGrieco, editor
Ideas for teaching & learningabout media using funny media.
Humor in Media Literacy Education: Practical Topics &
Theoretical TensionsTopics in ML Practice
Engagement, motivation1
Genre practice, critique (satire, parody) 2
Transgression3
Sources: 1Hobbs & Moore, 2013; 2Buckingham, 2003; 3Hobbs, 2011; 4Masterman, 1985; 5Jenkins, et. al., 2006; 6 RobbGrieco, 2014
Tensions in ML Theory
Critical distance vs. immersion2,4,5
Disturb pleasures vs. celebrate pleasures in popular culture4,5
Teacher/academic agency vs. student agency2,4,6
Future RQ: Can using humor in ML pedagogy help resolve these tensions?
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory
• exploration of power in media reps.
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory
• play theory, benign-violation; transgress social norms in safe settings
• exploration of power in media reps.
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory
• play theory, benign-violation; transgress social norms in safe settings
• exploration of power in media reps.
• play as new ml; informal learning via peers, affinity groups
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory
• play theory, benign-violation; transgress social norms in safe settings
• exploration of power in media reps.
• play as new ml; informal learning via peers, affinity groups
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital
• play as learning links experimentation, safety & emotions
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory
• play theory, benign-violation; transgress social norms in safe settings
• incongruity-resolution theory
• exploration of power in media reps.
• play as new ml; informal learning via peers, affinity groups
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital
• play as learning links experimentation, safety & emotions
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory
• play theory, benign-violation; transgress social norms in safe settings
• incongruity-resolution theory
• exploration of power in media reps.
• play as new ml; informal learning via peers, affinity groups
• disrupting immersion to reflect on media’s constructedness
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital
• play as learning links experimentation, safety & emotions
• activating prior knowledge, discourses for transfer
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory
• play theory, benign-violation; transgress social norms in safe settings
• incongruity-resolution theory;
• computational theory (error correction) pleasure evolved to reward reframing and revising beliefs
• exploration of power in media reps.
• play as new ml; informal learning via peers, affinity groups
• disrupting immersion to reflect on media’s constructedness
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital
• play as learning links experimentation, safety & emotions
• activating prior knowledge, discourses for transfer
Connections in Theory and Practice
Humor Communication Media Literacy Pedagogy
• superiority theory1
• play theory,4 benign-violation5; transgress social norms in safe settings
• incongruity-resolution theory8;
• computational theory (error correction)11 pleasure evolved to reward reframing and revising beliefs
• exploration of power in media reps.2
• play as new ml6; informal learning via peers, affinity groups
• disrupting immersion to reflect on media’s constructedness9
• disturbing immersion as pleasurable?12 Activate multiple perspectives
• mastery, knowledge, skills=cultural capital3
• play as learning links experimentation, safety & emotions7
• activating prior knowledge,10 discourses for transfer
• reflective praxis to abstract experience in “scientific concepts”13
Sources: 1Hobbes, 1840; Eastman 1936; 2Kellner & Share 2005; 3Smith & Connolly, 2005; 4Gervais &Wilson, 2005; 5McGraw & Warner (2014); 6Jenkins et al. 2006; 7Felt, 2014; 8Ritchie, 1999; 9Masterman, 1985; 10Hobbs, 2011; 11Hurley, et al., 2011; 12Redmond, 2012; 13Buckingham, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978.
What did we learn?
Comedy as transgression
Including more discourses/perspectives
Now you go do one! And tell us all about it!
Deconstruct a comedy clip
Improv time!
Questions?
REFERENCES Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. London: Polity. Eastman. (1936). The enjoyment of laughter. New York: Halycon House. Gervais, M. & Wilson, D.S. (2005). The evolution and functions of laughter and humor: A synthetic approach. Quarterly Review of Biology 80, 395-430. Hobbes, T. (1840). Human nature. In The English works of Thomas Hobbes. London: Bohn. Hobbs, R. & Moore, D. (2013). Discovering media literacy: Teaching digital media and popular culture in elementary school. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Hurley, M., Dennett, D. & Adams, R. (2011). Inside jokes: Using humor to reverse-engineer the mind. Boston: M.I.T.
REFERENCES (cont.)
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robinson, A.J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Chicago: MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved August 20, 2007 from: http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/ Masterman, L. (1985). Teaching the media. London: Comedia. McGraw, P. & Warner, J. (2014). The humor code: The global search for what makes things funny. New York: Simon & Schuster. Redmond, T. (2012) The pedagogy of critical enjoyment: Teaching and reaching the hearts and minds of adolescent learners through media literacy education. Journal of Media Literacy Education 4(2), 106-120. Ritchie, G. (1999). Developing the incongruity-resolution theory. In Proceedings of the 9th AISB Symposium on Creative Language: Stories and Humor, Edinburgh, Aprill 1999, 78-85. RobbGrieco, M. (2014). Media for media literacy: Discourses of the media literacy movement in Media&Values magazine, 1977-1993 [Dissertation]. Retrieved January 30, 2015 from Proquest Dissertations: http://gradworks.umi.com/36/71/3671948.html
REFERENCES (cont.)
Smith, M. W., & Connolly, W. (2005). The effects of interpretive authority on classroom discussions of poetry: Lessons from one teacher. Communication Education, 54(4), 271-288. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.