The Lecture and its Media: A Critical History of a Pedagogical Form

The lecture has been much maligned as a pedagogical form. It is described as a reflection of an “enfeebling” 800 years of academic tradition, as based on an outmoded “transmission model of education.” Yet the lecture ‎persists and even flourishes today in the form of the podcast, TED Talks, IGNITE presentations and the “smart” ‎lecture hall. This persistence ‎should lead us to re-evaluate both the lecture and the role of the media that have been related to it over time. In this presentation, Dr. Norm Friesen examines the lecture as a site of intersecting media, showing this form as bridging oral ‎communication with writing and newer media technologies, rather than as being superseded ‎by newer electronic and digital forms. The result is a remarkably adaptable and robust form ‎that combines textual record and ephemeral event. It is capable of addressing a range of ‎different demands and circumstances, both in terms of classroom pragmatics and more abstractly, of the circulation of knowledge itself. The Web, which ‎brings multiple media together with new and established forms and genres, presents fertile ‎grounds for the continuation and revitalization of the lecture as a dominant pedagogical form.