Talking Point IV: Questioning Epistemological Assumptions
One distinct advantage that online scholarship possess is its
subversion of dominant power relations. When it comes to enacting the
discourse of multivocularity, traditional print journals talk the talk,
but hypertext publications walk the walk. Critical treatises of cultural
domination printed in traditional publications seem to fit awkwardly in a
medium where hierarchy and linearity govern the procedures for
publication. Scholarly critiques conducted under the rubrics of feminism,
cultural studies, and critical rhetoric, to name but a few, often
critique hierarchies such as those found in publishing circles where
gatekeepers enforce epistemological biases. Alternately, the hypertextual
environment and differentiated practices of on-line publications, such as
those we have described in Kairos, provides the opportunity for a more
humane exchange of ideas. Landow (1992) asserts that hypertext is a
textual environment where multilinearity and networks disrupt the
traditional structures of domination. Meaning in hypertextual
environments is co-constructed by the poster, who presents material and
establishes links, and the reader, who enacts a unique pattern for
reading the text. This opening of the text represents an opportunity to
reassert that sense of scholarship being a collegial exchange, rather
than received knowledge from expert opinion. One could conclude that
perhaps online publication is not the appropriate place for "traditional"
scholarship. However, it would clearly seem to be an appropriate forum
for innovative scholarship.
The problem facing untenured professionals is they are engaged in a
discipline that encourages the questioning of epistemic assumptions but
is reticent to accept the answers they propose. Certainly, we and the
numerous serials that have already appeared online are suggesting that
posting to a hypertextual environment like the World Wide Web is one
possible answer to the dilemma of opening access to disenfranchised
peoples and disenfranchised ideas. Trying to count online activity as
tenurable activity returns us not only to questions of academic rigor but
also to questions of epistemic value. Until the members of tenure
committees, like their junior colleagues, begin to question the
epistemological assumptions which inform their tenure and promotion
policies, untraditional scholarly activity like monitoring a listserve or
maintaining an Aristotlean homepage is not likely to count. Ultimately,
change can only come when scholars take a reflex turn and ask: Does what
"counts" as possessing academic value have more to do with producing
"cookie-cutter" articles or to creating recognizable contributions to the
intellectual community? The possible answers to this inquiry help to
shape how departments of communication will recognize and reward online
activities.
