Globalization and Academic Communication

Over the last decade a great deal has been written about the integration of digital communications technology in higher education institutions (Winner, 1997; Oblinger & Rush, 1998; Geoghegan, 1998). Positions regarding this integration fluctuate between two extremes reflecting opposing views of what higher education should provide and how it should be delivered. Some are calling for a technological transformation of higher education, claiming that university education should respond to the business and technological realities of the new economy, while many within academia believe that the pedagogical project does not need to be changed.

Throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries various major technological developments were heralded as the next great breakthrough in education delivery systems. Each time, however, it become clear that the particular technology in question, be it radio, TV, telephone, film, was not the 'savior' of education, that the primary model of a professor in a classroom was still the most effective and efficient way to deliver this service. However, political and economic events converging at the end of the 20^th century, and at the beginning of the 21st, have created a radically different context from that of previous times. Traditional practices in education presuppose a strong link between what an individual student learned and the prosperity of civil society. The pedagogical project closely related community and individual. But increasingly the link seems to be between education and the global market with its major actors. The social "sub-contract that formerly linked education to modern industrial society is now being negotiated to respond to the business and technological realities of the new economy" (Winner 1997: 169).

Regardless of opposing views, the struggle to 'technologize' education is being waged in many respects including the integration of new technologies in scholarship practices. Numerous studies have addressed the implications of technological integration in education institutions at the administrative level. By comparison, few studies have addressed the academic use of such technology, specifically in terms of faculty and student adoption, refusal or modification of new technologies for teaching and learning, publishing and research. Studies of information technology in education, which indirectly address faculty resistance, for example, suggest that this resistance may be cultural rather than technical or structural. Differences in adoption of new technologies do not reflect differences in levels of use of certain communication tools such as email, or information resources such as the Web, but rather they demonstrate differences in attitude towards changes in what faculty consider fundamental scholarship practices. It is not clear, however, whether adoption of new communications technology is a reflection of academic culture.

My research project explores how academic culture has changed and adapted to the development of digital communications. Specifically, I examine the role that new communication technologies play in the academic lives of professors and students in terms of the ways in which the technologies are adopted, refused and modified in teaching, learning and scholarship. The university's professors (and students to a lesser extent) are principal actors in the contentious issue of intellectual property. Universities are focal points for examining broader intellectual property themes of a knowledge based society such as the social construction of authorship, author's rights, the emergence of academic computer mediated models of teaching and learning, and examine and suggest regulatory models for distributed environments like the Web and the Internet. In order to address these and other issues related to changes brought about by new ways of communicating in an academic setting, I propose to answer a number of questions including: is lack of adoption of certain aspects of electronic communications a form of resistance to the "globalizing" tendencies of the technology? Can we understand lack of adoption of certain communication tools to be an expression of the anxieties surrounding the role of the university as an institution, and the role of the professor as a teacher? To what extent do different universities, departments and faculties vary in levels of use, purpose, and kinds of technologies used?

The integration of new technologies in universities, and subsequent changes in academic practices, must be placed within a macro and a micro context. The macro context of this integration is market driven, by technocratic and corporate alliances. Witness for example, Rupert Murdock's ownership of the major conglomerates in broadcasting and entertainment (television, film, cable, books, magazines and satellites) in England, or Bertelsmann in Germany, Hachette in France, Berlusconi in Italy. Additionally, there is a basic monopoly on computer software, such as Windows products, owned by Bill Gates and Microsoft. As Herman and McChesney point out in their analysis of the global media, "it is when one combines the effects of media conglomeration, corporate concentration, and hyper-commercialism upon media content that the nature of the global media system's culture comes into focus" (1997: 63). Policy making regarding the use of communications and information technology tends to occur within this corporate context. Additionally, "chain ownership of newspapers, cross-ownership between media, and acquisition of media by ordinary industrial concernsÉmeans thatÉrules and procedures adopted to regulate at a national level cannot any longer easily be applied" (Smith, 1991:1). This context directly affects academia to the extent that it precipitates new models of education, which emphasize the adoption of technology as the necessary and inevitable means for improving education.

The micro level of analysis deals specifically with individual teaching, learning, research and publishing practices. New academic practices of communications include research using digital media, the Web or other Internet search engines, databases, teaching and learning using Web courses, electronic mail as a form of communication and transmission of information, and publishing in electronic journals. Although further research will include an analysis of these practices, for the purpose of this paper the focus will be on publishing, partly because this is an important and controversial aspect of scholarship, and partly because publishing directly relates to academic communication.

To integrate these levels of analysis this research includes three phases of study. The initial phase consists of semi-structured interviews with professors and students at universities in Montreal. These interviews will closely follow an interview guide, they will be audio-tape recorded and the interviewees will be required to sign a consent form describing their role and summarizing the project prior to beginning the interview. The inclusion of students in my study addresses a major shortcoming in current research, which generally concentrates either solely on administration or on both faculty members and administrators. The second phase entails documentary research on publication records, participant observation of online communication, and field work on the technological infrastructure at the universities. Following the collection of data through this methodological triangulation, the final phase will involve the analysis and interpretation of the data concerning issues related to the effects of digital communications on the creation of knowledge and the delivery of higher education.

Academic use of certain forms of electronic communication, whether in the form of acceptance or resistance to publishing in electronic journals, will be analyzed within a theoretical framework that, in addition to Harold Innis's (1991) ideas on monopolies of knowledge, emphasizes European social theory. Specifically I will use Pierre Bourdieu's (1988) theories on forms of capital and Michel Foucault's (1977) notion of discursive formations. French critical theory has had an important influence on communications theory and critical methodology. All three approaches are complementary in addressing issues of power and the imposition of discourses on the practices of academics.

This research project complements my M.A. thesis, entitled Information Technology and the Postmodern Community, which entailed a sociological study of the impact of computer mediated communication on the formation of communities and identities. It is also part of my larger interest in the effects of new communication technologies on culture and the institutions that represent it. This project will contribute to a limited body of social knowledge that addresses the role that new communication tools and interfaces play in the academic practices of professors and students in Montreal, and it can be expanded to include other universities in Canada and Europe. This analysis is of critical importance to policy makers and academics concerned with the cultural and political implications of implementing new communication technologies in higher learning institutions, whose main objectives remain delivering education and generating knowledge.