Video Thoughts/More Updates

I realized the other day that as a researcher, I think very much on the page, and that this is project is very much NOT on the page. It's been a relief, to be honest, how could I ever use just words without images to describe the activity of debate? I know that may sound corny or weird to some, but the thing is, there is so much learning, controversy, friendship, family, fights, excitement, devastation and life rolled into this one community that many people just don't get.

I wasn't the greatest debater, I may not be a top ten judge for a lot of teams, and I'll be the first to admit that I go policy > kritik's in most debates that probably tends to alienate my chance to watch more critically oriented teams. But at the same time, I recognize and appreciate the space that exists for those teams, and am glad that they find a way to make what they want to talk about work in a college debate setting. I like these arguments. I enjoy these teams, I think they can find a way to make their arguments effective in a debate context. There's a team I judged from Emporia at the first tournament of the year who after the round more or less told me that in my decision making process (I didn't vote for them) that I had become representative of the ills of debate, that I was the closed-minded person who thought we could only talk about actions by the USFG instead of actions by you and me, and that was messed up. I tried defending where I was coming from, but I don't know that there was a large effect on the team. I judged them again, twice, at the District tournament this past weekend, and was really impressed by how far they've come in just one season to take their arguments (that we must speak from our personal social location), their standpoint (that nuclear weapons is not really a localized issue), their beliefs, and infuse it into a debate round in an effective manner. This to me is just one example of the range of people who can participate and be effected by debate in a positive way (or at least I hope they see it as positive!)

I've gotten off subject, though. I've been thinking about how to structure the section of the video that becomes an introductory explanation of the activity. I want to talk to people not only who know what debate IS but people who have only peripherally or zero knowledge at all. This means grabbing up my camera and hitting the union this week to see if I can't get some people to tell me what THEY think college debate is, and connecting that to the footage of actual rounds I've taped, and the thoughts of other debaters in the community who have agreed to speak to me.

I'm currently in the process of contacting the directors in charge of the NDT and CEDA National tournaments to ensure/get confirmation that I"ll be able to tape rounds/talk to people at the tournament that agree to be taped, and hope that they'll see the positive approach to a great activity that I intend to take.

Something I haven't really talked as much about as far as what happened with Bill goes, is the dual impact it had not only on the competitors in that debate, but Shanara Reid, the other individual engaged in the discussion post-round. Not only did Bill Shanahan lose his job at Fort Hays University, but the school suspended their policy debate team indefinitely. The team that had been competing in that outround at CEDA Nationals, one a senior, the other a junior, were fortunate enough to be given the chance to debate together still at another school in the district, while the team from Towson went on to be the CEDA National Champion at that tournament, and are both now graduate assistants for other universities, working with debate. For Shanara, I feel just as bad as Bill, in that when you take an argument from its original context, clip it, post it on YouTube, and let people unfamiliar with debate view it, that it inherently looks bad for both parties involved (worse for Bill in some ways, for Shanara in others) that leaves them in a precarious professional position. I'm glad that Shanara is still involved with debate, and while we've never personally met, I hope to get the chance to speak to her about my project at nationals, regardless of whether she chooses to speak on camera with me or not, if for no other reason then to explain what I'm trying to do with my ethnography.

And what AM I trying to do with my ethnography, what's my big "this is the point", "this is what I'm saying" message am I trying to get across?

I see it as two things, sort of:

1. That there’s increased impression management as a result of YouTube exposure for groups that were previously insular- college debate as effectively cut ties with communication technology as a way to show people debate's for a variety of reasons, from which a few debaters I spoke with who asked I not put their names of videos I taped included the idea that people just "wouldn't get it."

2. That impression management stifles technology as a communication resource as a result- maybe people won't get it, but the loss to the community as a whole I feel is much greater. Taping debates, tournaments, who we are, provides a chance for sharing, for allowing the people that care about debate to use those for educational purposes, for entertainment, for whatever reason they want, and I don't think that should be taken away from the community.

Finally, I'm really interested in trying to include some idea of simply what the culture is—I characterized this as a “counter narrative” in one of my latest blog posts, in reference to the negative attention debate received from the media and Fort Hays. I'm not trying to make a value claim that what anyone in that video did was right or wrong (would I moon a room full of people, probably not) but rather that it wasn't enough of a trigger to end a program and a career of a coach who did so much for the activity.