Neoliberalism and the University, Part 2

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues.

Today, our hosts, Anjali DasSarma and Sim Gill, present the second episode in a two-part series on neoliberalism and the state of the university as a deeply powerful structure, along with two incredible scholars: Professor Natalie Fenton and Professor Alison Hearn. The first part is here. 

In this episode, we delve into the intricate mechanisms of capitalism, unpacking how metrics, the pressure to "publish or perish," and intellectual extraction shape the academic landscape. From the commodification of knowledge to the erosion of job security, we'll shine a light on some of the systemic forces at play in higher education. We also unpack the rhetoric surrounding Elon Musk and his impact on the age of artificial intelligence, to consider how AI tools like ChatGPT are shifting debates about teaching and student evaluation methods.

Amidst these challenges, we'll also uncover the power of the ideological project of hope. Join us as we engage in a thought-provoking discussion on information, communication, and knowledge production.

In this episode you will hear about:

• AI and job security
• How metrics, “publishing or perishing,” and intellectual extraction function under capitalism
• What the ideological project of hope offers us
• Community organizing, resistance, and learning

Guest Biographies:

Natalie Fenton: Natalie is a Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths University. Her research is concerned with addressing one of the most complex and vital issues of our age - the role the media plays in the formation of identities and democracies and why and how people seek to change the world for socially progressive ends. Located in debates on media justice, social and economic democracy, and social equality, her research exposes the necessity for radical reform of concentrated media and tech power and the need to re-imagine what democratic politics might mean in a digital age.

Alison Hearn: Alison is a professor in the Department of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focuses on the intersections of digital media, promotional culture, self-presentation, the credit economy, and emerging forms of work. She also writes about the university as a cultural and political site. She has published widely on these issues in such journals as Social Media+Society, Journal of Consumer Culture, and the International Journal of Communication, and in edited volumes including The Media and Social Theory, Blowing Up the Brand, and Commodity Activism. She is co-author, with Liora Salter, of Outside the Lines: Issues in Interdisciplinary Research and currently serves as chair of the Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT).

Host Biographies:

Anjali DasSarma: Anjali DasSarma is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research surrounds the production of critical media histories with a particular focus on journalism studies, critical political economy, and cultural studies. She is invested in knowledge production that centers journalists as actors in the production of knowledge, norms, and history, as well as structures of media power, capitalism, and hegemony. She is currently a MIC Fellow with Media 2070, a media reparations project. She can be reached at anjali.dassarma@asc.upenn.edu

Sim Gill: Sim Gill is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and the Center on Digital Culture and Society. Her research interests concern the mediation of violence against women and girls as well as the negotiations between discourses of representation, affect, and subjectivity that speak to a broader shaping of a market for women's safety. Before joining Annenberg, Sim worked in the British Civil Service graduate program known as the Fast Stream. She received her BA in politics, philosophy, and economics from the University of Warwick and her MSc in London School of Economics, where she specialized in Media, Communications, and Development. She can be reached at simron.gill@asc.upenn.edu

Credits

• Interview by: Anjali DasSarma and Sim Gill Produced by: Eszter Zimanyi 
• Edited by: Anjali DasSarma and Matt Parker
• Sound Mixing by: Matt Parker
• Music by: Zoe Zhao Blog post written by: Anjali DasSarma and Sim Gill

Keywords: neoliberalism, higher education, artificial intelligence, community organizing

This episode was recorded on November 15th, 2023 at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.