Decolonising Advertising through content creation, broadcast on social media, to inspire social transformation
CARL W. JONES
I argue that Advertising in Mexico is a means employed by the ruling class in order to colonize Mexican society. It re-enforces a colonial thinking that started to be imposed five centuries ago by invaders of what is currently called the nation state of Mexico. My argument is based on a theoretical framework that maps the history of key concepts such as Post-colonisation and Decolonization. Anzaldua and Drussel’s definition of colonization from a Latin American point of view, and Mignolo’s observations on decolonization through ‘delinking knowledge’ are applied to advertising to reveal how this field can possibly be decolonized. The basis of the practice part of my PhD by Practice that is discussed in this article are theories of Detournement and Guerrilla semiotics. An important part of the strategy for this practice is using social media to search for solutions that can be reflected back at Mexican citizens in order to inspire a social transformation within the advertising industry.
Carl W. Jones
Carl W. Jones is Senior Lecturer at the Westminster School of Media and Communication, research member of the Communication and Media Research Institute and a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London. With a rich experience in marketing and advertising, he is now undertaking academic teaching and research on discrimination in advertising.
Please take a look at these four Mexican advertisements, and think about what is not there:
In a country like Mexico where 90% of the citizens are people of colour (POC) I ask why are indigenous or POC not appearing in these advertisements, or in the hundreds created every day in the metropolis of Mexico City? What is not shown is important, as it is a form of erasure, a way to forget certain peoples.
When I first moved to Mexico to work in the advertising industry in the 1990’s, my title was Creative Art Director and I couldn’t help but wonder why the people I saw on the street were not shown in the advertising, which featured what would be considered to a Mexican audience as mostly models with European features such as lighter skin. As part of my job, I had to recommend actors and models to appear in the advertisements and I would pick people of colour who reflected what I saw on the streets of Mexico. However, my clients would usually select models that appeared like a stereotypical European with lighter hair and eyes, even though those same clients were often what is termed in Mexico as ‘Moreno’ or mixed race that tend to have a darker skin tone and dark eyes.
After 20 years working in the practice of advertising I switched to academia and decided to investigate racism and decolonial theory for my PhD by practice. My research revealed that many advertisements contain two meanings (Jones 2015). One that the brand wants consumers to see and the secondary messages that re-enforce colonial concepts such as race, class and gender (Jones 2018). Therefore, I propose that advertising is a tool used by the ruling class in order to colonize.
For over 100 years western advertising agencies have been invading developing countries and promoting their clients’ brands through the appropriation of cultural codes and signs, that are re-interpreted, in order to seek authenticity with both the consumers and what Marx called ‘the ruling class.’ The spectacle of Advertising is part of mass media and encourages consumerism. French theorist Guy Debord in his book Society of the Spectacle (Debord 1995) defines The spectacle as everything “that once was directly lived has become mere representation” (thesis 1) and this representation can be defined as the ‘mass media’ (thesis 24).
In 1957, Debord founded the Situationists International (SI) which was made up of “avant-guard groups” (Knabb. ix) through an alliance with the mostly Paris based organization called Lettrist International (LI) merging with other vanguard organizations from Germany, England, and Scandinavia. (Debord 1992, p. 6). The S.I. produced the journal Internationale Situationniste and its first 200 copies were made available in 1958 with Debord as editor. The journal criticised popular culture through words and images.
The Situationists International (S.I.) dissolved in 1972 but their work inspired various writers, artists, and movements, including punk rock whose leader was Malcom Maclaren and this work often critiqued the ruling classes, or ‘peoples in power’ through the method of detournement. The advertising industry has also been directly challenged by the Canadian magazine Adbusters, through subvertisments, that make fun of commodity culture and capitalism. Subvertising can be described as “the production and dissemination of anti-ads that deflect Madison Avenue’s attempts to turn the consumer’s attention in a given direction, is a ubiquitous form of jamming. Often, it takes the form of “sniping” — illegal, late-night sneak attacks on public space by operatives armed with posters, brushes, and buckets of wheatpaste.” (Derry 1993). The world famous academic, book author and semiotician Umberto Echo claimed that in order to disrupt the mainstream, and keep control of the communication we need as a strategic solution, “to employ a guerrilla solution.” (Eco 1983, p. 11).
These are the main theories and methods that I employ to decode signs, including symbols which are then appropriated to ‘jam’ messaging through a weaponized advertising campaign. The rationale of this semiotic framework is to investigate if and how can advertising can be decolonized.
To accomplish this, I created seven different posters and placed them in sites close to where advertising agencies and their clients are located (Fig 5) in Mexico City. The name of the campaign is Racismo Neon (Neon racism) and the text printed on the posters is based on the literature review investigation. In total 4,000 posters were printed.
The Spanish language headlines translated into English are:
- If advertising reflects society, then advertising is racist.
- Whites are 10% of the population but are in 70% of the ads
- If Morenos are 80% of the population, why are we not in 80% of the ads?
- Advertising only reflects indigenous culture in charity ads
- “Consumers dream of being white even though they are brown”
- Why do ads favour white models and the American lifestyle?
- “I want blue eyes so I will buy these potato crips”
An important part of my research practice involves broadcasting on social media. I use social media to create a social transformation within the advertising community through an online conversation on how to decolonise Mexican advertising. Therefore, I created Racismo Neon social media pages on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. To inspire online discussion, I took photographs of the posters in-situ, to post as content on social media along with the hashtag #racismoneon. If the targeted consumer did not walk past the posters on the street, then they could still see them in the social media posts.
After creating the social media conversation, I am now analysing it through Social Listening and content analysis of the conversation on social media and in the press. My objectives are to see if the Mexican advertising community agrees whether there is an issue with racism in advertising and search for solutions. Already a consensus seems to be crystalizing that there is such a problem. In this case, analysis of the online conversation will produce solutions.
Social media is a tool that can be used to both instigate racism and assist in decolonizing advertising. Through weaponizing advertising and going out to the very people who create messages, my research through practice has generated a conversation on social media, with the objective of inspiring a social transformation within the community. I believe that social media can be applied both as a negative, and positive tool. As a Negative tool it can be used as a method of control to spread disinformation. However, as a positive tool it can also be appropriated to generate a wide discussion with specific publics, and search for community-based solutions. My research through practice is not solving the process of decolonization, but is making a small contribution through the theoretical technique of subversive strategies.
References
Debord, G. (1992). Society of the spectacle and other films. London: Rebel press.
Debord, G. (1995). The society of the spectacle. New York: Zone books.
Dery, M. (2010 [1993]). Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs. (last accessed November 25th 2022). This essay originally appeared in 1993, as Pamphlet #25 in the Open Magazine Pamphlet Series.
Eco, U. (1986). “Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare.” In Travels in Hyperreality. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. 138, 143, 144.
Jones, C. W. (2015). Ads send out more than the clients’ message. (last accessed April 2, 2021).
Jones, C. W. (2016). “Advertising tools and techniques appropriated to construct the global brand Mr. Clean”. In Proceedings of the world congress of the IASS/AIS 12th WCS Sofia 2014 New Semiotics. Sofia: NBU press. DOI: 10.24308/iass-2014-062.
Jones, C. W. (2018). Racism and Classism in Mexican Advertising.In Olteanu, A., Stables, A., Borţun, D. (eds) Meanings & Co. Numanities – Arts and Humanities in Progress, vol 6. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91986-7_13.
Jones, Carl (2019) Personal Branding using advertising tools and techniques a case study. In Zantides, E. (ed.) Semiotics and Visual Communication III: Cultures of Branding, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
Knabb, Kenn (2006) Situationist international anthology. revised and expanded edition. Berkley, Ca.: Bureau of public secrets.
Figures
Fig 1-4: “MI BELLEZA NO TIENE NADA QUE ESCONDER” / “MI JUVENTUD SE GANA CON LOS AÑOS” / “MI GÉNERO NO TIENE GÉNERO” / “SOY LA MEDIDA PERFECTA” Billboards. Espectacular. 2018. Client: Palacio de Hierro. Mexico City. Palacio Billboard broadcast in Mexico City, and other cities where Palacio De Hierro has stores. First air date TBC 6.3.2018. Images obtained from news article. Source. 03/03/2018. Excelsior. https://www.excelsior.com.mx/de-la-red/2018/03/03/1223987 (last accessed 23 Nov. 2022), see also: https://www.sdpnoticias.com/estilo-de-vida/2018/03/06/el-palacio-de-hierro-lanza-campana-que-busca-romper-con-estereotipos (last accessed April 2nd 2021).
Fig 5: Racismo Neon posters in the streets of Mexico City. Photo Carl Jones (authors own) July 2022.
Proposed citation: Jones, Carl W. (2022). Decolonising Advertising through content creation, broadcast on social media, to inspire social transformation. https://khk.rwth-aachen.de/2022/12/02/5074/5074
c:o/re on film – highlights of the inauguration
On July 4th, we celebrated the Inauguration of our Center in Aachen’s Historical Town Hall with many friends and colleagues. The program included an insightful key lecture by STS scholar Karin Knorr Cetina on epistemic shifts in the digital age and a rich discussion on interdisciplinarity and the past and future transformations of research cultures with the journalist Jan-Martin Wiarda, historian Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, chemist Matthias Wessling, and microbiologist Lars Blank. If you would, besides our written report of the event, you can get an insight into the even by watching the highlights here:
Science night @RWTH Aachen University. c:o/re asks: what is science?
On November 11 a Science night (Wissenschaftsnacht) took place at RWTH Aachen University. This was an open-doors event in the University’s impressive CARL building, where various university departments and research groups exhibited their work, in a welcoming ambiance, aided by food and drinks (see program here). The c:o/re team took this opportunity to engage in dialog with the attendees. While many colleagues such as engineers and natural scientists represented their work by showcasing actual technological products, we thought to best represent our work by irritating and inspiring science-enthusiasts with the question what is science?
That is, in the best of philosophical traditions, instead of pointing to solutions and giving answers, important and urgent as that is, we invited to reflection and dialogue through questioning. Specifically, prompted by materials that we prepared aiming to inspire conversation we asked the more subtle and challenging question addressing our interlocutors: what is your science?
This was an excellent event and we are grateful to the University for organizing it. It helped us both to better reach out to interested stakeholders that are not formally part of higher education institutions and, also, to connect with colleagues from other departments and faculties. As a result, many citizens from the Aachen region now know about the Käte Hamburger Research Centres and about c:o/re. We had very interesting and challenging discussions with a diverse public, from children to students and to professors, and we discovered many common interests with colleagues working in, for example, bioeconomics and teacher training. We used prompts, such as postcards and posters, to intrigue passers-by about the difficulties of pinning down what science is. The people we talked to left their impressions on what is science on post-it notes. We collected the notes, thus forming a collection that can now serve as an unusual set of data, at least for stimulating wonder and inspiring questions, if not for conducting concrete research. The many answers ranged from claiming that science is “magic”, to “applied imagination”, “ongoing” and to “what can be debunked” and “fallibilism”.
We are now pursuing the dialogues that we started with colleagues at this event and we look forward to next year’s Science night!
Software as research culture: new study group at c:/ore, focused on software
The work that this group pursues aligns with that of the Computational Science Studies Lab, set up by Professor Gabriele Gramelsberger, Chair for Philosophy of Science and Technology (Humtec, RWTH Aachen University) and Director of c:o/re. The work of c:o/re fellow Alexandre Hocquet and his co-author Frederic Wieber on computational chemistry has been instrumental to setting the directions of this research group. An important observation by Alexandre Hocquet, through which this group is working to conceptualize software, is that software is not just code. It involves much more, being a cultural practice. Also, a critical insight came from Gabriele Gramelsberger who stated that “software is an alien”.
On November 8 and 9 the Engineering Practices Workshop: New Horizons in the Social Study of Science and Software took place at c:o/re. This workshop marks the formation of a group, within c:o/re, focused on software research. The group consists in former and current c:o/re fellows and c:o/re team members, all of whom share an interest for software studies, but coming from various angles.
The workshop started with two talks by c:o/re team members Dawid Kasprowicz on Managing the unmanageable: Is software engineering the art or science of scientific programming? and Phillip H. Roth on Scientific communication in the age of software: Sorting out materiality, community and infrastructure. c:o/re fellows Benjamin Peters and Arianna Borrelli acted as discussants to these presentations, opening then the debate to the entire group. Dawid Kasprowicz opened the question on how does scientific programming look like from a software engineering perspective, touching upon matters such as research reproducibility and the transferability software engineering knowledge. In his response, Benjamin Peters remarked that software in unmanageable in interesting ways. Analogies to previous technologies and practices are often improper, as software it is not 4-dimensional, but potentially (infinitely) n-dimensional.
Phillip H. Roth asked how do representations of science and, consequently, science itself, too, change through technological change?
These talks were followed by a roundtable consisting in several c:o/re team members and fellows. Each tackled software from a disciplinary angle.
On the second day of the workshop, the group tried to make a synthesis of the discussion and set the ground for a position paper on software on which they are now working.
Welcome new c:o/re fellows!
We are delighted to announce the fellows starting their projects at c:o/re this year! We are warmly welcoming Arianna Borelli, Anna Laktionova, Clarissa Ai Ling Lee, Benjamin Peters, Svitlana Shcherbak, Jan Cornelius Schmidt, Roland Wittje and Nelson Casimiro Zavale!
We hope that they will have a great time at c:o/re!
Biosemiotic Erasmus adventures
CHIARA SCHUMANN AND JULE JANßEN
As the first RWTH Aachen University students benefitting from the new Erasmus Blended Intensive Program (BIP) funding scheme, we wrote this text to convey our personal experiences to academics and university managers but especially to other students, who might be thinking of using Erasmus BIP.
We used this type of funding to participate to the 22nd Gathering in Biosemiotics, in the Czech Republic. We very much enjoyed attending this conference, organized by the International Society for Biosemiotics. Not only did this open new professional horizons for us, but it was also a very fun experience. Attending this event by using Erasmus funds was made possible by Dr. Ľudmila Lacková and her team, who arranged such a funding program at this conference, which was hosted at Palacky University Olomouc from June 25th to July 1st, 2022. We would like to thank Dr. Alin Olteanu, who facilitated our participation to the conference from the RWTH Aachen end. We met Alin through a BA introductory seminar to semiotics that he teaches, part of an interdisciplinary module at our faculty. Through this seminar, we became fascinated with semiotics.
Chiara Schumann & Jule Janßen
Chiara Schumann and Jule Janßen are both B.A. students in Linguistics and Literary Sciences at RWTH Aachen University.
Chiara Schumann is interested in the interdisciplinary fields Bio- and Zoosemiotics as well as Neuro- and Psycholinguistics. In her B.A. work, she considers animal behaviour data in light of concepts from cognitive linguistics and Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics. In this way, she aims to contribute to the state-of-the-art in animal cognition.
Jule Janßen is interested in semiotic approaches to notions of linguistics, among which, primarily, mental lexicon and language evolution. She aims to explore grounding these concepts in ontological discussions on the relation between mind and body. Given her interest in semiotics, she intends to work further on the interface between linguistics, cognitive science and semiotics. She hopes to contribute to the interdisciplinary study of language development.
The 22nd International Gathering in Biosemiotics (2022) comprised 65 talks, by renowned researchers in the field, some excavating in detail, others orbiting or framing the discipline’s colorful spectrum with multidisciplinary questions on the study of living systems. Hosted by Palacký University Olomouc in Czechia, the conference program was excellently organized by the Department of General Linguistics – Ľudmila Lacková, Claudio J. Rodríguez Higuera, Tyler J. Bennet and their colleagues. The entire conference was live-streamed on YouTube. It is accessible on the channel “Biosemiotics Palacký University in Olomouc”.
Biosemiotics bridges natural sciences and humanities by approaching classical issues of biology (for example, DNA replication or various modes of intra- and interspecific animal communication) from a reflective point of view, in the interrogation of sign exchanges within and between organisms. Expanding the investigations of pioneers like Thomas A. Sebeok, Jesper Hoffmeyer and John Deely, the semiotic study of biological organisms generally draws on basic questions like: How do cells of flora and fauna create meaning? What stimuli are engaged in species specific perception? How does biosemiosis contribute to the understanding of human and non-human cognition and what should the study of life encompass, theoretically and practically?
The Gathering started with two pre-conference workshops that particularly addressed students and early career researchers. Prof. Dr. Elize Bisanz, who holds the Charles Sanders Peirce Interdisciplinary Chair at Texas Tech University hosted the workshop “The Future of the Humachine”, with a digital humanities focus. This covered topics such as the impact of AI and digitalization both on the biopshere as well as on cultures and societies. Discussions led to questions on whether we can implement in machines an ability to experience meaning, in a Peircean semiotic construal. To shed light on the diversity and variation of sign systems in the human world, graduate and undergraduate students were asked to present an artistic object of their choice analyse their subjective experience of it within the semiotic notion of meaning as triadic relation of ‘representamen’, ‘object’ and ‘interpretant’. As BA students, we were excited to speak in front of this impressive audience. Debates emerged based on our inputs and the feedback we received was kind and constructive.
Doc. RNDr. Anton Markoš and Dr. Jana Švorcová (Charles University in Prague) led the second workshop, “Life as a Semiotic Category”, which addressed the work and heritage of John Deely. This started with the consideration of ‘cellular closure’ and ‘mutual communication within cell ensembles’. Participants were led through a reflection on the remarkable fact that the minimal equipment of prokaryotes, say mouth, flagellum, organs, and a protective skin turned out so phylogenetically irreducible and effective that these characteristics still determine the appearance of higher animals and their immanent semiotic processes.
Honoured with the dreamlike location of a baroque chapel, the Gathering started on Monday with warm welcoming words by Donald Favareau and Kalevi Kull, veterans of biosemiotics. Claudio Rodríguez Higuera opened the first panel of talks, followed by other very important scholars in biosemiotics, Morten Tønnessen and Timo Maran. Thanks to the diverse educational backgrounds of the presenters, each day’s panels were filled with the most thought-provoking talks, from sign exchange on the level of the genetic code and cells over embodiment, endo- and exo-semiosis, Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt and Peirce’s sign theory and up to metaphysical approaches to the universe and God concepts. While the speakers of the first day provided general, though highly inspiring and sophisticated overviews of topics like ‘zoosemiotics’, ‘organism intersubjectivity’, ‘iconicity’ and ‘cognitive metaphoric approach to the genetic code’, on the next days presentations zoomed in on more specific and detailed issues.
Here, we briefly overview a few among the many intriguing talks. To begin with, we highlight Josh Bacigalupi’s presentation of his heuristic model of semiogenesis, inspired from Gilbert Simondon’s theory of individuation. This aims to offer a better and updated theoretical support for Peirce’s notion of sign as triadic. Coming from an interdisciplinary background of environmental sciences, chemistry and architecture, his approach is located at the interface between design and the maintenance of vitality in life systems. We found it an inspiring and creative approach.
Anton Markoš and Jana Švorcová discussed symbiogenetic dependency across species, in a talk titled “we, the cyborg”. Their argument starts from a criticism of one-way construals of relationships in the biosphere: species are interdependent as they are suppliers in some relationships and receivers in others. With reference to the notion of a cyborg, they lay focus on a collaborative rather than a competitive model and thus draw attention on collaboration as a principle that is essential not only for evolution, but also, more specifically, for scientific work.
Dr. Jamin Pelkey held a captivating talk on “analogy in evolution: a Peircean biosemiotic perspective”. More than convincing, the talk offered an inspiring and original language view on development. Jamin Pelkey showcased the language development of his own daughter, with examples of her linguistic expressions. By showing how his daughter went from calling her long green building block a ‘/kini/’ based on the similarity to a zucchini to naming her red and blue blocks ‘red’ and ‘blue’ ‘/kinis/’, but not her yellow block (named ‘/nænə/’ for banana), he demonstrated the importance of iconicity and analogy, automation and diagrammatization in language evolution.
We also highly appreciated the presentation of Yogi Hendlin and Matthew Slayton and of Martin Švantner. These presentations on “the musical turn in biosemiotics – an expressivist model of communication” and, respectively, “missing simple musicalities: the incomplete nature of music”, innovatively drew on (zoo)musicological studies to discuss communication, broadly. The co-development and particularly shared interpretable quality of music and language in the biosphere led Hendlin and Slayton to uncover musical qualities in some iconic and aesthetic aspects of meaning-making in general. Švantner explored the consequences of imputing music with expressions of a “simple language”.
As we see it, most talks revolved either around the topic of endosemiosis (semiosis taking place within living beings, i.e. message exchange among cellular organelles, cells, tissues, organs and organ systems) or around ethical and philosophical meta-discussions about general semiotic theories and frameworks. On the fourth day of the Gathering, Alin and Chiara presented their papers on “Umwelt as Embodied Mediatization: a Biosemiotic Approach to Technology” and, respectively, “Image Schemas and Behavioral Deception in American Eastern Grey Squirrels – a Zoosemiotic Approach”. Chiara feels that presenting her work in this setting was a very enriching learning experience. As a study using theories both from semiotics and cognitive linguistics to investigate the rodent’s intraspecific intentional deceptive communication, retrospectively, Chiara thinks of her presentation as part of the few ones that focused on exosemiosis and practical, illustrative applications of the Umwelt-principle, the ‘pluralistic approach’ and, implicitly, non-human intersubjectivity. Hopefully, this contributes to sedimenting a non-anthropocentic perspective on non-human animals’ subjective and embodied construction of environments, which uniquely correspond to bodily- and cognitive apparata. From this perspective, it is misleading to deem some types of perception as qualitatively superior to others. Image schemas and the correlation of object, representamen and interpretant, as defined by Peirce, were used to describe the wild squirrels’ deceptive behavior in a systematic manner. Addressing heteroperception, theory of mind, metasemiosis and possible worlds led to various interesting questions and suggestions from the audience. By receiving positive feedback and constructive criticism, Chiara was enabled to reflect upon her future work. We both learned from well-established scholars, who were always eager to help and discuss any issues we raised. Speaking in front of the great minds of this discipline is a worthwhile challenge. This Erasmus experience will surely stay with us, further guiding our personal and professional development. Not only did this trip determine Chiara to write a BA thesis within the field of biosemiotics, but it also encouraged us both to think beyond our study program, broadening the horizon of feasible possibilities for us in the academic environment.
Coffee and lunch breaks in-between talks were most enjoyable, allowing for networking and pursuing conversations on specific interests. The conference had a rich social program, involving visiting the nearby Bouzov Castle, a soirée in the university’s gardens and a celebration of the 70th anniversary of biosemiotics professor Kalevi Kull. On top of the interesting academic program, such social events made this Erasmus experience surpass our expectations.
In the friendly atmosphere of the conference, together with other participants, we tried several local restaurants and pubs. We learned that academic conferences have two inseparable parts: listening to hours of academic presentations is made easy and even more interesting by personally getting to know and spending time with the scholars themselves. Meeting the persons behind the literature we studied was a delightful experience. Everyone was respectful, friendly, open-minded, fun and, unlike how students might perceive senior academics at times, down-to-earth. Casually chatting with your favourite scholars about their presentations, their latest research, their points of view on animal ethics or even personal interests seemed hardly possible until attending this conference. We highly enjoyed all of these dialogues. Group talks went from sophisticated discussions about semiotics to everyday matters. Beside other wonderful talks, we had the pleasure to learn from great minds like Timo Maran. Chiara sat two times for a whole hour, next to a beer, talking with Timo Maran about research interests, future plans and even their pets.
From professors to PhD scholars, many scholars kindly offered to help us with literature and subject-specific questions. Having been encouraged to develop and submit her paper to the journal Biosemiotics and being asked to collaborate, Chiara had the confirmation that she found an important topic to focus on. This reassured her desire to further engage with bio- and especially zoo-semiotic research. It was nice to see how a large number of young participants was welcomed at this Gathering. Becoming part of this community is a beautiful experience. While in class it is difficult to find like-minded colleagues, with whom to debate specific arguments, at a conference all attendees are passionate about the topic. Kalevi Kull emphasized the importance to overcome bad competition in science and advised: “[W]hen we think about what academic life is, what its meaning is, I strongly think that we can formulate – and that will be the most right formulation of academic work – helping each other in understanding”. In him and in many other scholars we met at this conference, we find excellent examples to follow, showing us that academic development needs practicing care and affection. We hope that we will be able to apply and give back what we learned at the Gathering.
proposed citation: Schumann, Chiara and Jule Janßen (2022). Biosemiotic Erasmus Adventures. https://khk.rwth-aachen.de/2022/07/25/4290/4290
Cultures of research in dialogue
We would like to thank Wissenschaft im Dialogue for the inspiring Hackathon on science communication! We, the c:o/re team, learned a lot from the intense two-day dialogue we had on science, science communication, designing interactivity and many other related topics.
The Notebook pt. 2: “I liked the idea of carrying my research in just one bag”
Academic writing is a basic practice that does not start in writing up one’s research results for publishing. Right from the start of an idea for a research project, researchers are noting down things: thoughts, questions, observations, ideas. Let’s have a look at the often neglected but very central object that inhabits these very first materializations of research ideas: the notebook. How does the notebook of a researcher look like? How do practices of note taking change in the digital age? I asked some of the fellows at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) about their habits of note taking.
Markus Pantsar
Markus Pantsar is a philosopher of mathematics and artificial intelligence at the University of Helsinki, Finland. As a senior grant researcher, he worked on the epistemology of mathematics and will continue to do so with a focus on arithmetic and geometrical cognition with a funding by the Finnish Cultural Foundation that starts in autumn 2022. In the meantime, Markus tackles questions of complexity, human cognition and intelligence with regard to the development of artificial intelligence, simulation and machine learning during his fellowship at c:o/re.
Stefanie Haupt: Markus, what is the most recent thing that you noted down in your notebook?
Markus Pantsar: [thinks for a short moment and checks his notebook] It was something I wrote down from last week’s workshop. I usually take notes only sparingly. They are mostly personal reminders of things that inspire me when listening to talks – for example names or books and papers.
Stefanie: Your notes are handwritten but on a digital devise, how does that work for you?
Markus: It works fine. I can either convert the pages to images or, and this is what I use mostly, the built-in AI transforms my handwriting to searchable type-written text. It just needs some editing afterwards. The software does not recognize, for example, names so easily. But otherwise, it works well for me.
Stefanie: And what happens after you convert the notes?
Markus: The software turns them into pdf-documents that I keep in different folders, for example, for conferences I attended. I also have a folder for my fellowship here in Aachen. Typically, I remember better where I heard interesting thoughts than when I heard them. Therefore, my folders follow a structure based on places rather than on pure chronology. I save everything in the cloud because I can see myself pouring coffee over my stuff [smiles].
Stefanie: I am looking at your desk right now and I see hardly any paper. When did you switch to the digital? Was it a conscious decision?
Markus: Yes, definitely. For me this is a very recent development. I bought this notebook in preparation for my fellowship in Aachen. I wanted something like this for a long time: a devise to write and to read digital papers and books on. Previously, I used to print articles and write into paper notebooks and they kept piling up in the bookshelf. But as a researcher you often have to move and switch places. I liked the idea of carrying my research in just one bag.
Stefanie: This is close to the ideal of the paperless office, which is also very ecological. Do you also see disadvantages compared to the analogue notebook?
Markus: Well, regarding the ecological factor you need to consider the production of such an electronic devise. Disadvantages – there aren’t many: The notebook won’t transform special symbols that the software does not recognize. For example, I use a kind of flash-symbol to mark points of disagreement with the arguments of others. Also, the notebook does not display colours, so whenever I read a paper and there is a coloured image, for example a graphic depiction of different activation areas in the brain, I am missing some of the information there. One disadvantage is also that for such a simple machine, it is still very expensive. It does not have internet access, aside from the cloud function for the files – but this is something I appreciate, actually: I can sit on the couch reading and not get distracted.
Stefanie: Did switching to digital change your practice of note taking somehow?
Markus: Now that we are talking about it, I would say: Yes, it did! Unlike with analogue notes, I have to go through the digital notes again to edit them after converting the text. This is necessary to find names and other keywords via the search function later. It has already become a kind of routine for me. And it also often prompts me to write down more about what I heard and inspires me to think deeper about it. I would say that now I am working more with my notes than before. But there is also a qualitative difference, in that my notes end up being more polished and easier to apply. I don’t think I will switch back to the analogue.
Stefanie: Thank you very much, Markus, for a short glimpse into your notebook!
Dialogue on robotics an AI at c:o/re
c:o/re started during a new wave of academic interest for the philosophy of AI. Many seminars, lectures and workshops that took place at c:o/re during its first year, hence, pursued this intellectual current, often with a focus on human-robot interaction and rethinking the object of anthropological study in light of newly emerging reflections in this area. Stemming from these discussions we would like to direct our readers to Joffrey Becker‘s (2022) recent paper and Dawid Kapsprowicz‘ (2022) response to it.
Taking a social anthropology perspective, Becker (2022) aims “to identify the fields to be studied in order to address the effects that so-called intelligent machines can have for societies.” He concludes “that it is not possible to fully grasp the social transformations at work without considering at least three categories of problems.” The categories he identifies have to do with (1) the status and reliance of machines on life processes, (2) human interactions with machines and (3) the reconfiguration of human organizations and activities that machines produce.
Kasprowicz’ (2022) answer is favourable, with some observations. He remarks that AI is not the only attribute of robots and that, in understanding robots, matters such as life-likeness, robustness, anthropomorphism and resilience in hostile environments must also be closely considered. Kasprowicz concludes by adding to Becker’s proposal that “No matter how ‘smart’ the machine will act, the contingency of communication between two bodies and the need for maintaining relations will continue.”
References
Becker, Joffrey. 2022. “The Three Problems of Robots and AI.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 11 (5): 44-49. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-6OH.
Kasprowicz, Dawid. 2022. “Maintaining Relations and Re-Engineering the Social: A Reply to Becker’s ‘The Three Problems of Robotics and AI’.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 11 (8): 50-56. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-74G.
The Notebook pt. 1: Taking Notes – “it’s a learned skill”
Producing, sharing, questioning, and contesting knowledge – in academia this is done mostly by writing and publishing papers. To make themselves heard in the academic world and to take part in scholarly debates, researchers have to write down their thoughts, ideas and suggestions to research problems and questions. Writing is an essential research practice. But rather than focussing on the finished product, the well composed text, edited, proof-read multiple times, peer reviewed, and published in a (most desirably high-impact) journal, let’s take a few steps back to the very beginning of a research project. What precedes even the “shitty first draft” of a written piece? I would like to look at the threshold where thoughts “materialize” and are written down for the first time. Let’s do this by shedding light on a particular object that is often overlooked when it comes to academic writing: the notebook. I interviewed some of the fellows at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) about their note taking.
Catharina Landström
Catharina is an Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden. Prior to that, she was as senior researcher at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, England. Right from the start of her professional carrier, she has conducted a lot of field work, for example on water challenges such as flooding, draughts and water quality. At c:o/re she explores how environmental scientists present and convey results from- and tools of computer simulation modelling for decision making processes
Stefanie Haupt: Catharina, when I saw you with your notebook during the c:o/re Lunch Talks it really fascinated me how neatly you were taking notes. Your notebook has lined pages in an A4 format. Do you prefer a certain type of notebook?
Catharina Landström: I do take notes on any sort paper I can get hold of! Normally, I just use what I can find: binders that came as a kind of gift at conferences etc., or I use whatever I can find in the storage of the university. I prefer writing on lined paper. Squared paper does not really work for me. And blank paper – I get paralyzed when the page is empty! Papers with a column on the left side are quite nice for making comments. I like taking notes in wire bound notebooks. Then I can easily take out the page because, depending on the topics I am working on, I collect the pages on different piles. I also have different notebooks for different topics and tasks, for example for the different PhD projects that I supervise. The notebook you saw in the Lunch Talk is my c:o/re notebook.
Stefanie: When did you start taking notes and in which situations do you use your notebook? You did a lot of field work. Did you also bring a notebook when you were out in the field?
Catharina: Right from the beginning of my studies I took notes. But the way I do changed much over the time: I remember in my PhD project while working in the field, I took so many notes, I sometimes could not make sense out of them afterwards. The field is a difficult place for taking notes. It is a really stressful work. Everything that happens “passes” through you. In the field you are the tool. And notes are more than notes. So, I tried to capture everything. Today, I take less notes but they are more precise. It is really a learned skill.
Stefanie: So, what is it that you note down?
Catharina: Thoughts. Thoughts of others, my own thoughts while listening to a talk for example. My notes help me to remember better. For example, I note down what I discuss with my PhD students. I also write down ideas for project proposals. By going through them, my notes help me to further develop ideas.
Stefanie: Did you develop a kind of private system? Like a colour code? And how do you further process your notes?
Catharina: A colour code would require having a fixed set of colour pens with me all the time – so, no. But when I listen to talks and note down what I hear, I distinguish the thoughts of others from my own by putting mine in squared brackets. Questions that arise come in round brackets. The notes I take are only for myself. I switch to the digital when I want to further develop ideas for myself or when I want to share them with somebody else.
Stefanie: Do you keep your notebooks?
Catharina: I keep them for a while. Everything is time limited, you know. Then comes the time when you can either store your notebooks in a box in the attic or throw them away. Once I suggested to a friend to throw away the notes she took during an interview project in the 90s. She was really irritated by this suggestion.
Stefanie: You told me that you were wondering at some point if you might also switch to the digital for note-taking, too.
Catharina: Oh, I did. Everybody brings their (laptop)notebook to academic discussions today. I tried that for a while, too. But I noticed that I never go back to look at digital notes again [Catharina laughs]. I don’t know what it is, maybe it is the paper, the feel, the way you can browse through the pages. It has a different quality somehow.
Stefanie: Thank you, Catharina, for your time!
