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Raschke, Carl A. (2002). The Digital Revolution and the
Coming of the Postmodern University. New York:
Routledge/Falmer.
Pp. 129
$19.95 (Paper) ISBN 0415369843
Reviewed by Charalambos Vrasidas &
Michalinos Zembylas
Intercollege
Nicosia, Cyprus
January 15, 2004
Technology has often been cited as the major driving force
behind innovation in higher education and for educational reform
in a variety of contexts. Carl Raschke, in The Digital
Revolution and the Coming of the Postmodern University,
advances some interesting arguments and makes some intriguing
observations regarding the status of higher education and the
impact of technology on the university. One of his major
arguments is that technology and the Internet are having a major
impact on education and that they are bound to change the
traditional university into what is called the
“hyperuniversity,” which in no way resembles the
contemporary physical university. As indicated in the title, the
arguments set forth in the book come through a postmodernist
lens. However, the book lacks the solid evidence to warrant the
author’s assertions and to explain how technology and
distance education are changing education and traditional
schooling as we know it.
The book is divided into nine chapters. The author begins the
first chapter “Higher education and the postmodern
condition” with the popular quote by French philosopher
Jean Baudrillard: “The university is in ruins.” The
“postmodern condition” (a Lyotardian expression that
is mentioned in this chapter but is not discussed until much
later in Chapter 7) is the condition of living in an age in which
the all boundaries are fluid, all hierarchies and principles are
questioned, and “grand meta-narratives” are held in
suspicion. In modernist times, according to Raschke, universities
have traditionally been known as the gatekeepers of knowledge. In
a postmodern age, the author argues, this will change and the
traditional classroom, as we know it, will become obsolete.
Teachers used to be the deliverers of a body of knowledge; but
now according to the “postmodern prototype,” the
concept of a “body of knowledge” does not exist.
Citing Deleuze and Guattari, the author argues that knowledge is
like “a body without organs,” constantly changing in
shape and form. The postmodern university is characterized by a
new space: a “knowledge space” — a space that
is shaped by the affordances of information and communication
technologies. This space shares the nature of a
“rhizome” (another term that the author introduces
from Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus). In
other words, there is no beginning and no end.
Raschke, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the
University of Denver, argues that we are experiencing “the
third knowledge revolution” and as a result we have
“the coming of the hyperuniversity.” The rapid
expansion of digital technologies has led to the third knowledge
revolution. The first knowledge revolution came with the
invention of language and the second with the invention of
writing. Raschke argues that:
… the coming of so-called “computer mediated
communications” that rely on digitized representations that
can be disseminated easily and cheaply … —the
technical description of what is conventionally known as the
“the internet” — are rapidly and ineluctably
reshaping our prototypes of what it means to “know”
something. (p. 15)
Based on this view, everyone with access to the Internet can
be a part of the knowledge space and the communities formed
online. Such developments will shift the emphasis from diplomas,
degrees, and courses to accreditation of knowledge gained at the
workplace and competency based exams. Anyone can study
independently online, complete exams, and submit work to receive
accreditation. This point of view is held by several other
scholars, and it is indeed a valid observation. Anyone with
access to the Internet will have opportunities to learn that are
independent of place and time.
Several points Raschke makes stand out as important for those
interested in how higher education might be affected by these
radical changes in technology. Readers are likely to find the
book more helpful with respect to describing these changes
and celebrating the advantages of the inevitable reform of higher
education. However, the book is less helpful in pointing out how
current structures in higher education limit the influence of the
technological revolution that Raschke celebrates.
The text will disappoint readers who want to find evidence for
its claims. One of the limitations of the book is that often the
author makes unsubstantiated arguments. For example, at one point
he argues that “the learning styles and orientation of the
primary college customer are swinging 180 degrees because of the
online revolution” (p. 19). There is no evidence in the
research literature that “learning styles” are indeed
changing. Indeed, teenagers now use the internet frequently and
definitely are more technologically savvy than their parents, but
that does not mean that within 10 years—since the invention
of the internet—humans have experienced a “180 degree
change” in learning styles, something that took thousands
of years to develop in the first place. Also, in Chapter 3,
Raschke argues that research shows that students learn more and
faster in the online classroom. To say the least, research on the
effectiveness of technology-mediated education and online
education is inconclusive (Clark, 2001; Phipps & Merisotis,
1999). A review of hundreds of comparison studies of face-to-face
and technology mediated education showed no significant
difference in outcomes (Russell, 1999; Twigg, 2001).
In a discussion of the Western Governors University (www.wgu.edu),
the author commits
another fallacy by arguing the following: “The elimination
of ‘contact hours’ and ‘seat time’ as
the measure of academic progress, which the WGU foresees, will
inevitably compel students to take more responsibility for their
education, not less” (p. 20). The illusion that all
students placed in a situation in which they will have to take
greater responsibility for their education will do so is
fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, the author here shows a lack
of understanding of the field of distance education. Most of the
research in this field shows that only those students with
characteristics such as internal locus of control and high
self-regulatory skills are more likely to succeed in a distance
education setting (McIsacc & Gunawardena, 1996). Those who
cannot take charge of their own learning are likely to drop out.
Unless students are provided with the support and skills needed,
merely offering them distance education courses will not make
them more responsible nor raise their level of skill.
On page 21 (Chapter 2), the author presents a table comparing
the traditional knowledge paradigm with the emerging revolution.
Although some of the observations are correct, some others are
not. For example, the author argues that under the emerging
knowledge revolution, the knowledge space that is created is more
democratic whereas the traditional paradigm is more aristocratic.
Such arguments, praising the democratic nature of the new
knowledge revolution and the hyperuniversity, are common
throughout the book. Again, the author seems to ignore a whole
line of criticism that technologies and the online environment
are not ipso facto more democratic (Hawisher & Selfe,
2000; Noble, 1998; Zembylas, Vrasidas, & McIsaac, 2002). One
has to acknowledge that online education has several advantages
and offers opportunities that are often not available to a large
number of people. However, the frequent overly optimistic claims
about technology and online education and their contribution to a
more democratic world are problematic to say the least. Fabos and
Young (1999) argued that we should be skeptical of the fact that
“just as telecommunications technology is credited with
promoting multiculturalism, it has also been blamed for
increasing existing inequalities on a broader scale” (p.
233-234). It is disappointing that the author does not address
the issue how exactly the Internet can promote social
justice and democracy when the gap between the “have”
and the “have-nots” is constantly growing (Lelliot et
al., 2000). Comments such as “digital learning is the true
bulwark of a global democracy” or “the worldwide use
of the new digital communications is steadily growing, even among
the so called electronic ‘have-nots’” (p. x)
sound simplistic and unfounded.
The book provides other examples of simplistic points. For
instance, the position that “In the long haul it is about
the dissolution of structures and the true freedom
of the mind, a freedom that was impossible in the ‘age of
education.’” (p. 61, added emphasis). What exactly is
this “true freedom” and how can one achieve it given
some postmodernist claims that such a thing does not really
exist? Foucault, in particular, in the three volumes of The
History of Sexuality argued for a view of power so pervasive
that there is no space left for an individual to look for a
“true freedom.” All aspects of an individual’s
life are subject to disciplinary formation, in Foucault’s
view; the very experience of being a subject is an outcome of
discursive practices. Any claims about “true freedom”
especially in a postmodern context—one which the author
aspires to use in his book—are problematic. Furthermore,
the author makes the argument that “Our answer to how we
can reform the university, henceforth, may be disarmingly
straightforward: ‘collaborative groups plus
digitization’” (p. 60). If it were only so simple!
Although the author may want to be somewhat playful here and
emphasize the importance of collaborative groups and e-learning,
educational research and theory in the last two decades have
shown that there are no simple formulas when it comes to the
design and implementation of e-learning (Vrasidas & Glass,
2002).
Also, in our view one of the most flawed analogies that
Raschke proposes is that “distance education is to
education what mobile homes are to homes” (p. 24). Distance
education grew initially from the need for certain people to
obtain an education. These were people who the traditional
education system failed to serve. However, the assumption that
traditional education is “the model” for all kinds of
contents, contexts, goals, teachers and learners is unconvincing.
Certain learners benefit more from traditional education; others
benefit more from distance education. Therefore, the argument
that traditional face-to-face education “will remain the
dream of parents for their children” is highly problematic
and reintroduces a dichotomy between face-to-face education and
distance education that we assume the “postmodernist”
spirit of this book tries to “deconstruct.”
Another issue that leaves many more questions than answers is
the author’s effort to compare “Hegelian
thinking” to “digital thinking” (pp. 47, 74 and
76). While it is interesting to make such an attempt, the lack of
development of this idea leaves one wondering how Hegelian
thought is compatible with postmodernist thought. The author
himself recognizes that “All metaphysical systems of
representation throughout Western history, from Aristotle to
Hegel, have rested on the notion that there were certain
conceptual anchors,” as opposed to “postmodern
philosophy” which “is characterized by a refusal to
ground what we know in certain unshakable
‘positions’” (p. 74). How can Hegel’s
insistence on Absolute Knowing be matched with the postmodern
refusal of the absolute? Given that the author frames digital
thinking within a postmodern context, it is hard to understand
the purpose of this comparison. The author alludes to the social
and historical process of Hegelian thinking (p. 47) but does not
make explicit its possible connections to postmodern thinking and
most importantly to the question “So what?”
Finally, in Chapter 5, the author discusses five archetypes
and places more emphasis on the transactive archetype of teaching
and learning. One needs to acknowledge that the idea of education
as a transaction, is not new, but something that was proposed by
several philosophers. In particular, Dewey (1938) argued that
education is based on the interaction of an individual’s
external and internal conditions. Interaction and the situation
during which one experiences the world cannot be separated
because the context of interaction is provided by the situation.
He pointed out that, “An experience is always what it is
because of a transaction taking place between an
individual and what, at the time, constitutes his
environment....” (p. 43, added emphasis) The idea of
transaction suggests the intersubjectivity between the individual
herself, other people, and her surrounding environment. This
transactional nature of education has also been discussed by
several scholars (Chen, 2001; Garrison, 2000; Vrasidas &
Glass, 2002). Furthermore, the author’s attempt to
“sum up” Dewey’s approach “in a few
simple propositions” (p. 31) runs the danger of
misrepresenting some of Dewey’s ideas, if evidence is not
provided regarding where these ideas are coming from. The three
propositions on p. 31, standing there as they do without context
or explication, may be attributed to a number of pedagogues,
philosophers and psychologists including Skinner, Tyler and
Bloom’s learning for mastery model! For example, consider
the references to “task-defined,”
“goal-oriented,” learning, and the “feedback
loop.”
This book is not the end of the story, of course, but it is an
attempt to engage some critical issues that will be on center
stage for this new century. That alone and the author’s
commitment to meaningful change make the book useful for those
concerned with the future of higher education.
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About the Reviewers
Charalambos Vrasidas is Associate Professor of Learning
Technologies and Head of the Department of Education at
Intercollege, Cyprus. His research interests include distance
education, technology-mediated interaction, and evaluation of
educational technologies.
Michalinos Zembylas is Associate Professor at
Intercollege, Cyprus, and adjunct professor of teacher education
at Michigan State University. His research interests are in
the area of emotions in teaching and learning science and
technology, science and technology studies, curriculum theory,
and philosophy of education.
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