[NLA] How to Work Effectively with the Media

[hforster]

It appears to me that the problem here is a classical discourse with
incompletely specified concepts.  The lack of definition allows each
participant to place concepts into a context of their making.  Catherine
King fills the voids from her experience in the U.S.  Thomas Sticht relates
from the context in which his experience was based.   The difference between
these two views is indicated by Thomas Sticht's comment in the original
post- "I might add that I have attended and presented at many conferences in
the U. S. where no such efforts to attract media attention were made and no
media coverage occurred."  This clearly indicates that the sociological
environments of the two perspectives could be large.

I agree with both persons because I can see each persons perspective and
within the context of each persons perspective they are both correct.  Each
states a subjective opinion and I feel they are doing so in a  truthful
way.  Until we resolve the underlying differences, the discourse can not
come to a useful result.

I would like to make some observations about underlying issues that I feel.
First I feel that the dominant forces of globalized business are forcing the
use of their terminology.  This means that if they can force persons such as
Catherine to live with the terminology of business and make a mental
coreference between the lexicon of business and her contextual
interpretation then they can continue to misscommunicate in their favor.
They can continue to strive for their goals while telling you, using
ambiguous words, that they really are aware of you interests and are working
on them.  This, in my opinion, is either deceptive subjective statements on
the part of industry or a lack of common contractual agreement and hence no
agreement.  This again is in favor of Clifford the big red dog who runs the
show.

The question is how do you attack this practice.  I suggest that first you
should disclose these conflicts.  As this process continues then you will
expose the need either for new terminology or for more explanatory
information with statements.  If people tire of providing the additional
information then they may decide on a new vocabulary.

If things continue in the present stile the little man loses.





Thomas Sticht wrote:

> In response to my recent posting on media Catherine King asked me,
> "First, what do you mean by "returns on investments"?
>
> Answer: I use this phrase to indicate that money invested in an adult’s
> education may do more than educate just that person; that is, it may
> produce returns to investments in addition to the return in the form of
> increased knowledge and skill that the person may obtain. It may
> influence the education of the adult’s children. It may influence that
> person’s participation in civic activity. It may influence that person’s
> health and the health of that person’s family members. It may also
> influence that person’s employability. I try to let people who are
> unfamiliar with adult education and basic skills development, yet are
> debating the wisdom of investing corporate, charitable foundation or
> government money in the education of adults, understand that they are
> very likely to get multiple returns to their investments beyond the
> increased learning that takes place.
>
> Catherine King said, "Second, if you mean by "returns on investments" at
> least a passing reference to the "deep" relationship of education  to
> democracies and civilization for everyone ala Jefferson, must this
> reference be couched in terms more suitable to  the stock market and
> corporate concerns than to education?"
>
> Answer: Most people understand that economic matters concern all
> individuals in all societies, whether governments be  democratic,
> totalitarian, socialist, capitalist, or communist. Also, education and
> economics are intertwined in all societies. In this regard, I did not
> invent the phrase "returns to investment" when discussing education. The
> OECD, World Bank, UNESCO, United Nations, educational economists, and
> governments around the world use the phrase,  including the UK and New
> Zealand where I was explicitly asked to talk about returns to
> investments in adult basic skills education.
>
> Catherine King says, "If we are not referring to this relationship at
> all, aren't we  perpetuating, on a much grander scale now, in Europe and
> with media help, social and political division between the  haves and
> the have-nots that cannot be recovered by any  adult education program
> regardless of how much adults have "stolen our hearts" in the matter? "
>
> Answer: No. To the contrary, we are talking about greater social
> inclusion, particularly in New Zealand and the UK. That is the goal the
> governments in these countries explicitly expound. In my semantic
> network there is nothing in the use of the phrase "returns to
> investment" that suggests exclusion of some adults from the fullest
> participation in the life of their society. Even professionals in
> institutions of higher education talk about the use of distance
> education to get greater returns to investments in education in terms of
> including more of the adult population in higher education while trying
> to manage costs.  So rather than suggesting political divisions between
> the haves and have-nots, getting people, including those who work in the
> media,  who are not familiar with adult basic skills  education, to
> consider the many returns to investment that such education can produce
> is a way of encouraging social inclusion and of getting the media to
> help the society at large understand the value of making the investments
> needed to transform have-nots into haves.
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