Zoë Druick

Bio: Zoë Druick is an academic researcher from Simon Fraser University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Dialogic & Literacy. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 21 publications receiving 190 citations.

Dialogic Absurdity: TV News Parody as a Critique of Genre

Abstract: This article examines the popular phenomenon of news parodies using the concept of genre. While genre is often used as a category of industrial production and marketing, the author argues that Mikh...

The Myth of Media Literacy

Abstract: Since the late 1990s, media literacy has become an increasingly prominent paradigm within the fields of media and communication studies in the United States and elsewhere. This article investigates the convergence of forces in that propelled this approach to its currently ascendant position. With a nod to Harvey J. Graff’s analysis of the mythic power associated with the concept of literacy, the article explores the techniques and rationales that have coalesced around media literacy, making it at once central to the operation of neoliberal capitalism and to its critique. Putting media literacy into a longer history of the instrumental and biopolitical use of media in education and considering the role of education in connecting children’s interests to moral and economic regulation, media literacy is taken to be the most recent iteration of a long-standing set of ideas that have been taken up in different ways by early educational reformers, postwar development communications theorists, and countercultural media educators.

International Cultural Relations as a Factor in Postwar Canadian Cultural Policy: The Relevance of UNESCO for the Massey Commission

Abstract: The Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (The Massey Commission, 1949-1951) is widely seen to be Canada’s most important position paper on national cultural policy. This article explores the relation of this significant document to UNESCO and its characteristic discourse of “cultural relations.” Not only did UNESCO appear in the terms of reference for the Massey Commission Report, but it also was a repeated touchstone for submissions to the Commission. This overlooked international aspect of the Massey Commission underscores the connection between politics and culture in Cold War Canada providing a clear case of how international political language becomes entangled with — and helps to legitimize — artistic and cultural endeavours. The combination of the discussion of education and culture with that of development and trade allowed Canada to reconsider its position on public funding for the arts. Resume: La commission royale sur le developpement national des arts, des lettres et des sciences (la Commission Massey, 1949-1951) est vue par de nombreuses personnes comme etant la plus importante en ce qui a trait a la politique culturelle nationale. Cet article explore les rapports entre ce document presente a l’UNESCO et son discours caracteristique de ¨relations culturelles¨. Non seulement l’UNESCO sert-elle comme point de reference dans ce rapport, mais il fut aussi un repere constant dans les soumissions a la commission. Cet aspect international neglige de la commission Massey souligne le lien entre la politique et la culture au Canada pendant la guerre froide. Ceci demontre de facon evidente de quelle facon le langage politique international devient entremele avec et prete une certaine legitimite aux activites culturelles et artistiques. Le rapprochement de la discussion sur l’education et la culture avec celle du developpement et du commerce permet au canada de reconsiderer sa situation vis-a-vis le financement public des arts.

Operational Media: Cybernetics, Biopolitics and Postwar Education

Abstract: This article develops the concept of «operational media» to think through the deployment of utility/useful cinema in the context of cybernetically informed educational policy. The paper argues that cybernetic concepts of communication, feedback loops and homeostasis were central to the pragmatic installation of media at the center of postwar mass education. Links are made to the dominance of cybernetic ideas in postwar social science, including social psychology, sociobiology and behaviourism. A consideration of the UN’s operational media allows for a reconsideration of the agency’s communicative mandate as biopolitical and governmental. Educational policies influenced by the UN were doubly concerned with technologized classrooms: cybernetic ideas presented themselves as politically neutral, while offering efficiencies in the delivery of content. Cold war citizenship was thus conceived as a form of training that would pragmatically lead to the rebalancing of a volatile international situation. Carrefour de la vie (1949), made by Belgian filmmaker Henri Storck for the United Nations, is presented as an example of the centrality of mental health for citizenship training in postwar biopolitical regimes. In particular, the tension between the film’s humanist and cybernetic strands are considered. Au Carrefour de la vie is considered as a transitional text, presenting a humanist story of childhood in postwar life that simultaneously prefigures the operation of a controlled society.

Speech Genres and Other Late Essays

Abstract: Note on Translation Introduction by Michael Holquist Response to a Question from the Novy Mir Editorial Staff The Bildungsroman and Its Significance in the History of Realism (Toward a Historical Typology of the Novel) The Problem of Speech Genres The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology, and the Human Sciences: An Experiment in Philosophical Analysis From Notes Made in 1970-71 Toward a Methodology for the Human Sciences Index

The Technological Society

Abstract: Once upon a time sexual relations were necessary for the birth of a child. Back then the gender and state of health of a baby were known only after it emerged from the womb. The movements of a criminal suspect, a wayward spouse, or an errant teenager could be detected only by physically following them. It was even the case that, with the exception of fathers who died during the nine months between impregnation and birth, only living persons could have children.

The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching

Abstract: Effective teaching may involve scientific understanding of learning processes, but the creation of engaging and rich learning experiences is more art than science. This presentation focuses on some key aspects of the art of teaching today's students, including specific techniques for tapping into student passions, empowering students to stay focused and balanced, shifting from lecture-intensive to learning-focused class sessions, and using new technologies to connect student learning to course content and life goals. Participants will explore course contracts and strategies for redesigning activities in support of a learning objective and share strategies for artfully managing student learning.