Dewey's Cosmic Traffic: Politics and Pedagogy as Communication (original) (raw)
Related papers
Communication and (Educational) Media: Dewey as a Theorist avant la lettre
In addition to being an educational reformer and philosopher nonpareil, John Dewey also theorized media and communication. The inimitable Marshall McLuhan once characterized Dewey as “surf-boarding along on the new electronic wave [that] …has now rolled right over this age.” Dewey himself repeatedly emphasized that “the radio, the railway, telephone, telegraph” had rendered “social life …almost completely changed.” This paper undertakes a historical reconstruction of Dewey’s theory of communication and media avant la lettre, particularly as it relates to education, scholarship and democracy. It then considers his later privileging of “communicative” aesthetics and the “winged words” of oral communication. It concludes that despite its periodic imprecision and ambivalence, Dewey’s “theory” of media and communication in education remains both current and compelling.
John Dewey's aesthetics of communication
2004
Discussion of John Dewey within the discipline of communication is often restricted to his “ritual view” of communication or his youthful hope in the democratic potential of mass communication technologies. However, both of these approaches neglect the importance of his aesthetic theory for understanding both his philosophy of communication and his overall social thought. This essay takes a developmental perspective on Dewey’s philosophy and traces how his concepts of experience and communication evolved over three decades and finally came to be unified in his concept of aesthetic experience. I argue that a developmental perspective on Dewey’s aesthetic philosophy contributes a broader and more flexible understanding of communication that leads to the view that communication, at its best, is a form of art in which poiesis and praxis are united within a single, consummatory experience.
Dissertation: John Dewey on the Art of Communication
2001
John Dewey once wrote: “Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful.” For him communication is the highest of the “arts of life,” for it is in communication that society is born and nurtured. It is by communication that we discover the possibilities of nature. And it is through communication that we make our shared experience meaningful. It is no wonder, then, that Dewey would conclude The Public and Its Problems with this provocative statement: Democracy “will have its consummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art of full and moving communication.” Dewey, however, does not adequately explain what he understands by “the art of full and moving communication” and never tells us how “communication” functions in the varied contexts of practical life. Despite, then, his obvious affection for communication, he leaves many questions about it unanswered. For instance, what makes communication possible? In what kind of situations is communication called for and why? How does an inchoate feeling or idea find concrete embodiment in language? What are the connections among language, communication, thought, feeling, and action? Most importantly, what is the process by which one employs the art of communication to influence the beliefs and behaviors of others? This dissertation addresses these questions by approaching Dewey’s thinking on communication from a distinctly rhetorical perspective. Even though Dewey almost never mentions “rhetoric” in his entire corpus, I argue that it is precisely the absence of the term from his writings that makes a rhetorical reading of his work all the more imperative. Such a reading permits us to understand the practical importance of the “art of communication” in the larger context of his social thought. If, then, the problem with Dewey’s writing on communication is that it often drifts into abstractions, one remedy is take those abstractions and place them into concrete situations, where communication is required to transform some part of the environment through transaction with human thought and action. Because this kind of activity has been the specific domain of rhetoric since the time of the sophists, it is only appropriate to read Dewey’s work through that tradition. In effect, the goal of this dissertation is to explicate Dewey’s theory of communication in the terms of a rhetorical theory. But insofar as his thought went through three distinct “periods” in his lifetime, beginning with his Idealistic period in 1880, moving into his Experimental period in 1903, and culminating in his Naturalistic period in 1925, Dewey can be said to have had three implicit rhetorical theories. To articulate and explain each of these theories, I trace Dewey’s theoretical development through time and construct, through published works, private correspondence, and biographical material. I show that the first theory envisioned rhetoric as a form of eros that helps us grow towards Absolute self consciousness. The second theory views rhetoric as a form of critical inquiry whose goal is the development of phronēsis, or practical wisdom. The third theory treats rhetoric as a productive technē, or a naturalistic form of art that has the power to transform experience, nature, and society through its transactional character. By tracing Dewey’s theoretical development and explicating three implicit theories of rhetoric in his writings, this dissertation not only provides a unique perspective on Dewey’s changing views on language, ontology, and social practice, but also demonstrates how each theory can still be effectively used to interpret and guide the art of rhetoric. This kind of work enables us to grasp different facets of this diverse and vibrant art. At the same time, it shows how Dewey’s work remains an important resource for those who wish to promote and sustain a democratic way of life by educating citizens in the art of full and moving communication.
Contemporary Pragmatism, 2021
James W. Carey saw a tension between two views of communication in John Dewey’s work: a transmission view which takes communication as transmission of messages for the control of distance and people, and a ritual view which conceives communication as constructing and maintaining a cultural world. This article shows how Dewey may be seen to apply both views in analysing two complementary aspects of communication. It points out how Dewey’s naturalistic perspectives on culture and meaning provide a basis for his analysis and have affinities with Carey’s cultural approach to communication. The article further considers Dewey’s analysis through Carey’s critical reminder that models of communication serve both as representations and as guidance for action. Finally, Dewey’s and Carey’s approaches are contrasted by focusing on their epistemological and ontological underpinnings.
Digitizing Dewey: Searching the Internet for the great community
Distance, education, and access are but some of the obstacles that scholars and critics claim impede perfect democracy. At the turn of the century, John Dewey lauded the emerging mass communication technologies as mechanisms that would bring the country closer together and encourage the rational spread of ideas and plant the seeds for a better democracy. Yet, as Czitrom (1989) shows, Dewey's ideals fell before the capitalization and corporatizing of the mass media (142). Still, the longevity of Dewey's insight is his greatest strength, and with the propagation of the Internet, scholars can again ask some of the same questions Dewey attempted tackle, namely, how can this technology be used to strengthen democratic ideals?
John Dewey and the Notion of Trans-action
John Dewey and the Notion of Trans-action, 2020
Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology In various disciplines such as archeology, psychology, psychoanalysis, international relations, and philosophy, we have seen the emergence of relational approaches or theories. This series, founded by François Dépelteau, seeks to further develop relational sociology through the publication of diverse theoretical and empirical research-including that which is critical of the relational approach. In this respect, the goal of the series is to explore the advantages and limits of relational sociology. The series welcomes contributions related to various thinkers, theories, and methods clearly associated with relational sociology (such as Bourdieu, critical realism, Deleuze, Dewey, Elias, Latour, Luhmann, Mead, network analysis, symbolic interactionism, Tarde, and Tilly). Multidisciplinary studies which are relevant to relational sociology are also welcome, as well as research on various empirical topics (such as education, family, music, health, social inequalities, international relations, feminism, ethnicity, environmental issues, politics, culture, violence, social movements, and terrorism). Relational sociology-and more specifically, this series-will contribute to change and support contemporary sociology by discussing fundamental principles and issues within a relational framework.
Dewey and Political Communication in the Age of Mediation
2019
The present sociopolitical environment in the United States is perpetually mediated and beset with information from innumerable sources. This paper argues that Dewey’s conception of communication as a mutual act of meaning-making holds insights for explaining the connections between pervasive mediation and political polarization, in addition to understanding why political discourse has become more degrading in recent years. It also points the way toward viable solutions by arguing for the reorientation of schools toward valuable living experiences that are becoming less pronounced in the broader culture, such as sustained face to face engagement on matters of social import.
“Traffic”—On the Historical Alignment of Media and Mobility
Transfers, 2013
In a nineteenth century context, traffic could mean both communication and the transportation of goods and people. For instance, the German term “traffic” (Verkehr), referred to “communicating” (verkehren) and to “traffic”/“transportation” (Verkehr). Historically speaking, before the age of telegraphy, any communication over distance required the physical transport of a message or a messenger. Many authors, thus, identified the latter as a fundamental caesura in the relationship between media and mobility, uncoupling media from their previous reliance on physical movement. At the same time, telegraphy and the railway formed a paradigmatic symbiosis that enforced the ongoing duality between media and mobility: traffic depended on and sometimes boosted communication and vice versa. Hence, traffic and media were not disconnected as such, but their connections were rearranged and new ones emerged while others such as the postal services persisted.
Dewey and Education in the 21st Century: Fighting Back
2018
This chapter introduces the book through discussing the context in which it came about, namely a conference to mark the centenary of the publication of Dewey’s Democracy and Education. The first section relates to the book’s subtitle by describing and analysing the context in which speakers at the conference engaged in a ‘fightback’ against educational policies found to be narrowly based on economic aims, and to have lost sight of the humanistic aims of education, aims which Dewey analysed and championed. The book is structured around three key areas, all related to Dewey’s philosophy of education the first concerns technology, the second, embodiment and the third, democracy and development. A discussion on the significance of each of these areas for contemporary educational theory is followed by detail on the individual chapters within them. This chapter concludes with an introduction to the cautiously optimistic and forward-looking epilogue by Gert Biesta on the matters and issues...