Pleased to Resolution
Transcript
"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt" (Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene IV).
At heart, live-tweeting not only enacts our experiences of learning, but it also allows for an exciting simultaneity of presence. With an Internet connection and my Twitter feed, I can be in several places at once. While I’m physically here at this conference, I can nevertheless stay informed about the RSA Institute, The THATCamp, and the Digital Humanities Institute that are all apparently happening this weekend.
And when we live-tweet at conferences, something magical occurs—we shift into the liminal space between actor and spectator. We translate and perform ideas for our friends and followers. We extend presence across the campus and out into the world—allowing those who couldn’t be here to nevertheless benefit from and participate in the conversation.
Woodruff advocates an ethical necessity of theater, of watching human action. He points out that our need to watch others grows out of our need to care about them, that “You pay attention because you care, and paying attention allows you to care.” And for Woodruff, this is vital to the functioning of society. He feels that “We will become better people if we become accustomed to paying attention to other people—to be good and caring watchers.”
So how do we do this in an academic setting? How might we learn to care about each other through watching, to move away from competition and toward a sense of community? How might we participate in this theater of ideas in a caring and ethical way?
As spectators and tweeters, we can treat our power with the respect it deserves. We can strive for accuracy in our quotations. We can commit to courtesy in our questions and comments.
As performers, we can begin by agreeing to let the tweeters tweet. To invite the live-tweet—say, by including your Twitter handle on your presentation slides—is to proclaim a willingness to take risks. It's an invitation to the audience, asking them to participate, an invitation to ask questions, to promote, to disagree. And it is risky. There is always the potential for misrepresentation, misquotation, mistakes. But, again, this is a risk inherent to all language; live-tweeting simply amplifies the risk and makes it more public. And it's a risk I'm willing to take and that I encourage others to take as well.
I have seen nothing but the benefits of live-tweeting at conferences. I now have friends and connections on college campuses across the country. I’ve arranged or been invited to join conference panels via Twitter with people I’d never met face to face. Which is, perhaps, one of the best examples of why live-tweeting is both valuable and important. It brings me closer to a community that I hadn’t yet met.
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