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Rise of the Digitized Public Intellectual: Death of the Professor in the Network Neutral Internet Age

Lange, J; (2015) Rise of the Digitized Public Intellectual: Death of the Professor in the Network Neutral Internet Age. Interchange , 46 (2) pp. 95-112. 10.1007/s10780-014-9225-3. Green open access

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Abstract

The centralised discourse claiming ownership of ‘knowledge’ and ‘higher education’ seems to be declining as the decentralising discourse extolling open source software and informal social network communication are emerging: yet the two are complementary when higher education is seen as a commodity. Thus, in the internet age of the twenty first century there is no consistent narrative to identify what a ‘higher education’ consists of. J. F. Lyotard famously predicted in The Post Modern Condition that the commercialised computer age would ‘sound the knell’ of the professor. Lyotard understood that in order to begin to philosophise about higher education in an era of computerisation, the gatekeeper of knowledge role traditionally attributed to professors through a university title must first be rendered illegitimate. Lyotard did not envision, however, what a higher education might look like within the network neutral internet space, where the difference between ‘higher’ and ‘public’ education can be reduced through open accessibility to, and shared construction of, knowledge. Embracing a Socratic model of public discourse that openly challenges an epistemology of consensus, network neutrality has the potential to redefine the role of professors as fiduciaries of education across society, even globally. The resulting academic equality between professors and the public recreates the university as a boundless meeting space for public dialogue, and the professor as a digitized public intellectual.

Type: Article
Title: Rise of the Digitized Public Intellectual: Death of the Professor in the Network Neutral Internet Age
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/s10780-014-9225-3
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10780-014-9225-3
Language: English
Additional information: The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Keywords: Performance; Commodification; Democratic practices; Lyotard; MOOC; Public dialogue;
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > VP: International
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > Centre for Languages and Intl Educatn > Centre for Prep Studies - Astana
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1470801
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