Post by Laura Cunningham on Mar 17, 2016 18:00:58 GMT
Feminist Labor in Media Studies/Communication: Is Self-Branding Feminist Practice?
Feminists are using online platforms more than ever. They spend time working on blogs, updating Facebook, or tweeting about issues and events that are relevant to feminist discourse. They can be, aptly, described as media feminists. Yet, with this moniker comes the prerequisite of engaging in self-branding. Social media self-identifies as places of "both self-expression and business" yet it is widely understood that to be successful (read as: influential), users must engage in some sort of self-branding to distinguish themselves from the rest of the herd. In a situation like media feminism, that separation can create an island effect, isolating individuals from the larger collective. I don't mean to suggest individuals are farther from the conversations, they create it. However, they lose something in blogging that was evident within the web board culture: community cohesiveness.
In this dialogic article, Drs Banet-Weiser and Juhasz discuss the shift from a cohesive, feminist community to a individualistic online presence of feminists as they attempt to successfully navigate social media while propagating their agendas. It begins with an introduction of labor as a means of sexism, particularly within the neoliberal university world they both work within.
They argue that the shift to individual, 'cheap' labor is inherently gendered. Their discussion is admirable and timely. They open up conversation between older generations of feminists, who remember a time before the Internet, and those of us who grew up with a computer mouse in hand.
The dialogue begins with Dr. Juhasz (Alex) admitting she writes from a position of class and racial privilege, illustrated by the fact that she was currently on sabbatical from her tenured position at a liberal arts college. She admits this bias, but explains that many of the issues other female academics who may not have her same socioeconomic standing are still within her as well. In particular, she explains the way the "impostor syndrome" shaped her as a young academic. Her hope is that by starting a conversation of where feminism used to be, the growing gap between the feminist community and the individual feminist internet user can be bridged. Also, she hopes to bridge the gap between older academics and their younger counterparts, dedicated the article to both graduate students and young professors.
Dr. Banet-Weiser argues that intertwining of feminist media production and self-branding is "an especially slippery terrain" because the goal of feminism has been about the creation of voice and agency in fields that have been historically inaccessible (Banet-Weiser and Juhasz, 2011: 1771). She prefers the concept of self-promotion, rather than self-branding, as it espouses concepts of confidence and power-of-knowledge rather than the normative views of self-branding as vain and business-like. Within the context of academic labor, self-branding attempts to represent itself as a legitimate form of scholarship, which isn't always regarded as "real" work. It is, essentially, a waste of labor (time) from an academic perspective, particularly when an academic's focus is outside the field of online discourse.
However, it can be noted that the practice of self-branding is closely connected to many of the ideals of the neoliberal university which "privileges individual self-interest over collective pursuits of justice, rewards self-promotion, and normalizes self-branding as the logical way to position oneself on the job market." (Banet-Weiser and Juhasz, 2011: 1774). Both authors argue that these concepts are detrimental to the success of feminism in the post-Web 2.0 era; I would argue that they are also detrimental to the development of knowledge in an academic setting.
Feminists are using online platforms more than ever. They spend time working on blogs, updating Facebook, or tweeting about issues and events that are relevant to feminist discourse. They can be, aptly, described as media feminists. Yet, with this moniker comes the prerequisite of engaging in self-branding. Social media self-identifies as places of "both self-expression and business" yet it is widely understood that to be successful (read as: influential), users must engage in some sort of self-branding to distinguish themselves from the rest of the herd. In a situation like media feminism, that separation can create an island effect, isolating individuals from the larger collective. I don't mean to suggest individuals are farther from the conversations, they create it. However, they lose something in blogging that was evident within the web board culture: community cohesiveness.
Feminism helps us to understand self- empowerment as a part of larger processes that move in three directions: toward building community (enabling other’s voices and connecting varied forms of expression); speaking critique that is grounded in personal experience (the feminist adage of “the personal is political” is even more heightened in the neoliberal university); and making change accordingly. In academia, our voice enables each of us to speak our profound feminist-inflected textual and institutional analyses in ever expanding and varied forms.
Dr. Banet-Weiser
Dr. Banet-Weiser
They argue that the shift to individual, 'cheap' labor is inherently gendered. Their discussion is admirable and timely. They open up conversation between older generations of feminists, who remember a time before the Internet, and those of us who grew up with a computer mouse in hand.
The dialogue begins with Dr. Juhasz (Alex) admitting she writes from a position of class and racial privilege, illustrated by the fact that she was currently on sabbatical from her tenured position at a liberal arts college. She admits this bias, but explains that many of the issues other female academics who may not have her same socioeconomic standing are still within her as well. In particular, she explains the way the "impostor syndrome" shaped her as a young academic. Her hope is that by starting a conversation of where feminism used to be, the growing gap between the feminist community and the individual feminist internet user can be bridged. Also, she hopes to bridge the gap between older academics and their younger counterparts, dedicated the article to both graduate students and young professors.
Dr. Banet-Weiser argues that intertwining of feminist media production and self-branding is "an especially slippery terrain" because the goal of feminism has been about the creation of voice and agency in fields that have been historically inaccessible (Banet-Weiser and Juhasz, 2011: 1771). She prefers the concept of self-promotion, rather than self-branding, as it espouses concepts of confidence and power-of-knowledge rather than the normative views of self-branding as vain and business-like. Within the context of academic labor, self-branding attempts to represent itself as a legitimate form of scholarship, which isn't always regarded as "real" work. It is, essentially, a waste of labor (time) from an academic perspective, particularly when an academic's focus is outside the field of online discourse.
However, it can be noted that the practice of self-branding is closely connected to many of the ideals of the neoliberal university which "privileges individual self-interest over collective pursuits of justice, rewards self-promotion, and normalizes self-branding as the logical way to position oneself on the job market." (Banet-Weiser and Juhasz, 2011: 1774). Both authors argue that these concepts are detrimental to the success of feminism in the post-Web 2.0 era; I would argue that they are also detrimental to the development of knowledge in an academic setting.
