A British professor is accusing Google, Wikipedia and other user-generated content of creating ‘an age of banality and mediocrity by providing consensual information and stifling debate.’ Is Tara Brabazon bashing the Internet just to get attention?
Digital Journal, Op-Ed — On Jan. 16, a professor of media studies at the University of Brighton will explain why Google is “white bread for the mind.” Tara Brabazon will also implore universities to teach students to argue, debate and challenge facts pulled from sites like Wikipedia and Google.
The upcoming lecture will give Brabazon an opportunity to fully explain the problem with the “University of Google,” as she labels it — she calls out students for relying on superficial Web surfing and shallow ideas. As the University of Brighton’s press release states, Brabazon argues: “We need to teach our students the interpretative skills first before we teach them the technological skills.”
Brabazon goes on to attack sites like Google for offering easy answers. She hopes the students of the future will rely on analogue media as well as Net sources: “I want them to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels – both are fine but I want them to have both – not one or the other – not a cheap solution.”
This professor backs up her statements with action. Her students at Brighton are not allowed to use Wikipedia or Google as research tools. Instead, they are provided with 200 extracts from peer-reviewed printed texts at the beginning of the semester.
Giving students the opportunity to read print media should be applauded. But Brabazon’s anti-Net argument goes only so far before it begins to look close-minded.
Google isn’t just “white bread for the mind”; it allows people to enrich their knowledge on a certain subject by parsing through various sources and identifying those that are reliable.
Everything on the Web should be studied carefully, much like how journals are peer reviewed. The naïve surfer may cite Wikipedia sources cavalierly but the experienced Netizen will understand the difference between a starting point and a source worth citing.
Brabazon’s lecture has all the makings of a university lecture scheduled to stir controversy. Academic executives aren’t fools; they know what will attract attention and what will put people to sleep. By accusing Google and user-powered content as being shallow and invalid, Brabazon will pack the hall on Jan. 16. As she should. After all, someone at that lecture should make sure she doesn’t get away with her arguments free of contention.
As professors teach us, we should question and challenge, argue and debate — otherwise, we’re left with theories that are too simplistic to be plausible.
