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Reflections of education: Acase study of educationaltechnology advertisementsMary S. Alexander a & William Petkanas ba Ph. D Candidate in Media Ecology , New YorkUniversity , 239 Greene Street, Suite 735, NewYork, NY, 10003b Professor of Communication in the Departmentof Communications & Theatre Arts , WesternConnecticut State University , 181 White Street,Danbury, CT, 06810Published online: 17 Mar 2009.

To cite this article: Mary S. Alexander & William Petkanas (1998) Reflections ofeducation: A case study of educational technology advertisements, New JerseyJournal of Communication, 6:2, 185-198, DOI: 10.1080/15456879809367346

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The New Jersey Journal of Communication, Volume 6, No. 2. Fall 1998, pages 185-198

Reflections of Education: A Case Study ofEducational Technology Advertisements

Mary S. Alexander & William Petkanas1

Advertisements directed at instructors in higher education are examined using discourse analysis tounderstand the values, ideas and ideology which form the underpinnings of media education andeducational technology. The patterns of discourse which emerge from the advertisements constructeducators as highly technological people with great computer skills who are largely quantitative intheir research and teaching interests. The deeper patterns reveal six categories of assumptions abouteducation and technology: (a) educational technology is the agent of learning, (b) successful educationis a function of good production values, (c) traditional educational methods are obsolete, (d)geography is the major impediment to education, (e) reification of the figurative language used todescribe educational technology, and (f) the technology industry is an educational institution.

By now it is clear that computers are seen as the new cure for what ails theeducation systems of the United States. University administrations, boards ofeducation, and heads of state have all hopped on the computer bandwagon. BillClinton and Newt Gingrich agree that computers are vital to education and tosuccess in the 21st century. University mission statements across the nation alsotoot the technology horn. Many new positions for professors ask that they havethe skills necessary to set up on-line courses.

That computers and educational software will impact education is no longer aquestion: It is an on-going reality. How computers will redefine curricula and therole of professors is what remains to be discovered.

Related Literature

Advertising and Culture

Students and scholars of media studies are quite familiar with the arguments ofmedia, advertising and the subject of causality. The camps divide roughly intotwo: those who assert that media cause beliefs and attitudes in society and thosewho assert that media reflect and exploit already existing beliefs and values.

1. Mary S. Alexander is a Ph. D Candidate in Media Ecology at New York University, 239 GreeneStreet, Suite 735, New York, NY 10003. Bill Petkanas (Ph. D., New York University) is a Professorof Communication in the Department of Communications & Theatre Arts, Western Connecticut StateUniversity, 181 White Street, Danbury CT 06810. This research was undertaken specifically for thisissue of The New Jersey Journal of Communication.

Copyright ©1998 by Mary S. Alexander and William Petkanas. All Rights Reserved

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186 Mary S. Alexander & William Petkanas

Some, like Ewen (1976) think that there is a deliberate and direct causal link.Media create values, desires, needs to maintain a society compatible with thevalues of capitalism and consumerism. This is the position joined by a great manytheorists and media historians who see active social control as the motivatingforce behind media and advertising with some variations in how sinister thesemotives are and how much of a conspiracy is needed to press them (Miller, 1988;Parenti, 1986; Schiller, 1973). The opposing school of thought maintains thatmedia producers and advertisers should not be credited with inventing beliefs,needs and values, but rather as members of the society in which they live andtherefore subject to the same values as everyone else (Fox, 1984). Therelationship between advertising for specific products and sales of those productsis still somewhat mysterious, and theorists like Schudson (1984) point outexamples where no amount of advertising could sell an unwanted product (forexample, the Ford Edsel, p. 33). The tendency of media producers andadvertisers to be keen observers of culture and therefore pick up on new trendsand ideas immediately and use them has been called "cutting edge theory." In thisconcept, advertisers appear to create needs and values because they exploitcultural changes so quickly (Wilson, 1992). In Pollay's (1986) synthesis of thesedebates, he argues that advertisers must reflect a culture's values but these valuesare then distorted to fit the goals of the advertisers.

Although it is not the intention of the theorists involved in the debate, theydemonstrate through their arguments that there is a strong relationship betweena culture and its advertising. Advertising acts as a display window for a culture'sideas, needs, values, assumptions and dreams, whether the advertisements causeor reflect these desires and sentiments. Williamson (1978) and Barthes (1972)most notably, mine advertisements for what they reveal about the cultures thatproduce them. This research examines the language of advertisements foreducational technology in order to understand some of the ideas, needs and valuesthey reveal.

Language and Culture

Language is used to communicate for a purpose and within a context. Discourseanalysis seeks to understand these purposes and contexts, spoken and written(Stubbs, 1983). Hymes argues that all language, and all human communication,is multi-functional (Hymes, 1974). No utterance can be made which is withoutintent, force, assumptions, and other metacommunicative functions or sub-text.An advertisement cannot say "buy this product," for example, without alsocommunicating that the values and assumptions inherent in the use of the productare useful, possible, and desirable.

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Reflections of Education: A Case Study of Educational Technology Advertisements 187

Those engaged in reading or receiving the language of advertising may becomewhat they behold; they may use these inherent values and assumptions to frameand build a personality, or the characteristics of their culture or sub-culture.Goffman underscores the importance of how selves/roles are created by a cycleof transactions with others (1959) and through media images (1976). Through thisprocess of self creation and refinement, the needs, values, and assumptions oftexts are incorporated into the self with or without understanding these meanings.Discourse analysis, like classic forms of rhetorical criticism, is valuable when thearguments, basic premises and assumptions need to be unearthed from a text,especially when they are tacit (Reid, 1988).

One reason for pointing out the assumptions embedded in the advertisements isto discover the conceptions of education they imply. Lakoff and Johnson (1980)argue "Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act,is fundamentally metaphorical in nature" (p. 3). In making this argument theyurge the examination of the metaphors used to understand daily realities.Metaphors are certainly part of how educators understand what their role shouldbe. For example, understanding teaching as "coaching" is different from teachingas "empowering." These conceptions of education arise from different metaphorsand suggest different ideas about the role of teachers.

Technology has often inspired the metaphors employed to describe teaching.Comenius, in his 1631 textbook, views the education process as a matter oftechnique. Perkinson argues that Comenius "converts the educational process toa technique of instruction wherein teachers transmit to students predeterminedideas, skills, and dispositions" (1980, p.73). This vision of teaching reveals aconception of students as blank pages whose individuality is not a necessary partof teaching. It is a vision of teachers inspired by the printing press. Computers areinspiring new metaphors for the education process. Education technologyadvertisements weave these metaphors into their advertisements.

Research Question

Educational technology, as a branch of media education, has become animportant concept in higher education over the past several years. Most people inhigher education in the 1990s have seen this development and are aware of thecommitment education is making to various forms of computer technology. It i s 'not clear, however, what die technology is to do, nor that it can be effective atdoing anything at all (Cassidy, 1996). Particularly interesting in regard totechnology and education is that although there is tremendous interest in what anew technology will do, there is little interest in what it has done. In die early1980s, for example, no one in education would not have known about Seymour"


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Papert's computer program called "Logo." It was thought that the program andits uses would transform education and even the way people learned to think(Papert, 1980). Although it did not produce the results its supporters thought, ithad at the time a great deal of influence on education, curriculum, teachertraining, and journal articles by professors of education, even if it is notmentioned at all 20 years later (Cassidy, 1996). This habit of overlooking thefailures of earlier technologies is indicative of a very uncritical perspective ontechnology. In this, educators seem to be as prone to following the logic ofpromoters and advertisers as the students that are taught. An audience without amemory is a perfect target for advertisers.

Although it is likely that some educators do remember promises made by othertechnological advances, the general tendency to embrace the new in this culturesuggests that an examination should be made of just what the advertisements fornew technologies are suggesting. What do the advertisers assume? Whatmetaphors are suggested? What are teachers like? What constitutes education?Understanding how advertisers are portraying education may help turn attentionto previous promises and the usefulness of the technologies being promoted.

What, then, are the current trends in the rhetoric of educational technologyadvertising? As budgets are put in place to support new computers and educationtechnology, it is important to understand what is being sold, not in terms ofhardware and software, but in terms of ideas and metaphors.

Research Question: What conceptions of education are implied or overtly statedin the educational technology advertisements examined?

Method

In order to examine these conceptions of education, one issue of Syllabusmagazine was selected. Although this is a limited sample, it allows for anoverview of emerging ideas and assumptions about education and teachers througha close examination of the language used. This case study is meant to discoverand describe trends in the language of the advertisements. It is hoped that thisresearch will suggest categories for further research in advertising and in therhetoric of university officials.

Syllabus magazine is published by Syllabus Press, based in Sunnyvale,California. The company's interest is covering, reporting, and promotingtechnology for higher education. In addition to the magazine and otherpublications, Syllabus Press presents conferences, workshops and an annual largeconference, all sponsored by various manufacturers of computers, software, andrelated products. In the issue used for this study, the first professor was named


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to the "Syllabus Scholar Program" (although the function of this was notexplained) and the magazine has an advisory board of four academics. In short,the Press adorns itself with the rhetorical embellishments of the academy,although it is clearly a commercial enterprise in the service of the computerindustry. The following is taken from the Syllabus Press description of themagazine ("About Syllabus Press," 1997).

Syllabus magazine, now in its eighth year of publication, focuses on the use oftechnology in education and related learning environments. Its mission is toinform educators on how technology can be used to support their teaching,learning, and administrative activities. Each issue includes feature articles, casestudies, product reviews, and profiles of technology use at the individual,departmental, and institutional level. Regular features cover multimedia,distance learning, the Internet, quantitative tools, publishing, and administrativetechnology. A variety of multi-platform technologies are covered; among them,computers, video, multimedia, and telecommunications.

Syllabus is distributed by free subscription to professionals in higher education,presumably most of whom are professors, computer/information system managersand administrators who use and buy computer equipment and software. Theeditorial content and articles appear to be directed to instructors in highereducation. In the issue chosen for study, the articles were about teaching via theInternet, using multimedia, image databases, and simulation models. There werealso articles on enhancing curriculum through technology and case studies ofintroducing technologies into courses (Syllabus, 1996).

The Text: Syllabus. Volume 10, Number 2

The issue chosen for study was the first of the 1996 school year, issued inSeptember, 1996. 85,292 copies of this issue were printed, and distributed topeople in higher education throughout the country. It carries a cover price of$3.95, although the copy used was delivered as part of a free subscription andpresumably most or all copies are so distributed (two order cards are included inthe magazine offering a free subscription to anyone who works in education).There are 63 usable pages to the issue (excluding the cover) numbered 2-64, mostof which are devoted to advertising, reviews of products, case studies of howvarious products were used in innovative ways, and announcements of Syllabussponsored workshops and conferences. Editorial content was comprised of threearticles and two columns for a total of approximately ten pages (most of the copyoccurs on partial pages along with graphics and advertising). The remainder ofthe magazine is devoted to advertising. Seventeen pages are full page color ads,the inside front cover is a double page ad, and the back cover is a full page ad.


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Half page and partial page ads make up the remainder to make a total of 46explicit advertisements. Although the case studies, buyer's guides, and technologyreviews concern products, they are not considered as advertisements.

Conceptions of Education in the Advertisements

On the surface of the advertisements, there appear two recurring and obviouspatterns which may be dealt with easily before any deeper analysis is necessary.The first is that educators have a high degree of familiarity with computerhardware and software. The ads almost all assume a great deal of knowledge onthe part of the reader. The second pattern is that this knowledge is not simplyabout running and using programs but a high degree of technical knowledge aboutequipment. Many ads assume that readers will know how to measure lumens,what computer ports are good for what hardware applications, and otherexpressions which indicate that Syllabus thinks the readers know how to useprograms and how to set up the hardware for their use. In short, the educator isdefined as a technical person, at ease discussing and dealing with computertechnology. Closer discourse analysis reveals a number of less obvious patternsand metamessages. They are outlined below in six categories. The categoriesbelow are patterns of discourse which appear in many advertisements andexamples are provided for the sake of illustrating the pattern. Examples ofadvertisements are coded with a sequential and page number which is included asan appendix so that the ad referred to as (31/54) would be ad number 31, whichappears on page 54 of the issue examined (see appendix).

Educational Technology is the Agent of Learning

When the advertisements address forms of education, a curious pattern emergesby which they claim learning is the result of the technology and that this learningis a new development in education. A software program (40/59) offers to teachgrammar and punctuation for technical writers as if teachers had never thoughtof grammar and punctuation before. A series of software products (46/64) areadvertised as "academic products designed with education in mind," perhaps incontrast to academic activities which are not associated with education. Languageis used in a way which suggests that it is remarkable that educators can create asyllabus for a course and write exams, to produce "performance based" educationas if courses taught without using such programs were graded on some activity bystudents other than performance (34/56).

A great deal of the language in these advertisements falls into what iscommonly known in advertising as "our water is wet" claims. This kind of claim,


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which is true of the product but also true of all similar products, is used often inSyllabus and with liberal use of exclamation points. An ESL program exclaimsthat "students actually listen to native English speakers!" (26/46) and through roleplaying, "students conduct their own investigations" (42/60). A lab simulationprogram (27/47) places time limits and other restrictions on students "just like areal lab." What is interesting in this pattern is that activities like role playing,tapes of speakers, tutorials, workbook exercises, quizzes, and other commoneducational activities are presented as if they were invented with the computer andthe appropriate software. Of course, it could be that there are distinct advantagesto this system over, say, a language lab, a paper quiz or workbook, a studenttutor, or a traditional science lab. There is nothing, however, in the languagewhich indicates, supports, or even makes an argument for this.

This pattern is most salient in the liberal use of the words "interactive" and"interaction." Traditional forms of classroom education are, of course,interactive, with the educator engaging students in a transaction of some sort, theresult of which one hopes is learning. Much of the advertising for multi-mediaeducational equipment uses language which suggests that the idea of education asinteraction is being introduced by the technology rather than a continuation ofeducational practices. An "interactive" whiteboard which is connected to acomputer (10/23) makes the following statement: "When communicated clearly,a bright idea can be understood. When shared with eager minds, it can inspire.If encouraged to grow, a bright idea can turn into a great idea." This sounds likegood teaching, and the ad proposes that educators "Develop and explore ideas ...using interactive software tools at the board." Although the software may beuseful for something, it is not evident in the language of the ad nor in theaccompanying photograph which depicts a teacher standing at the whiteboard andstudents looking at their computer screens which present a picture of thewhiteboard. If the students looked up, they could see the whiteboard and theirteacher and the interactivity would be traditional. The language of the ad does notreflect advantages over traditional media (for example, overhead projection, oreven a blackboard) which might make this product better. They simply stress the"interactive" nature of this form of education. This is part of a general patternwhich emerges in which the technological products are given credit for producinga unique environment for education, although what they produce are exactly theconditions which education normally expects to achieve.

Education is a Function of Production Values

The language of Syllabus advertising suggests that the most important elementto good education is good production values. Much of this discourse is framed as

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if the ads were addressing designers or television directors and their proposedaudience of students. Important to education, then, are "big screen PCs for grouppresentations" (3/7) and "powerful LCD projectors" with "uniform brilliance ...total image quality" (11/37). It is important to education that students are exposedto "broadcast quality visualizations" of your data (35/56) and "stunning 3-Dgraphics" (8/17). The PC-connected whiteboard mentioned above (10/23) adds tothe production values of a class by importing graphics from any source andallowing the instructor to draw on them in "colorful ink on top of existinginformation" which can then be saved on the students' computers.

The similarity to television production is made more than a similarity with adsfor computer cameras and attachments. A "people tracker" product usestechnology to keep a moving subject in frame and focus as he or she moves abouta room, acting as a sort of technological camera operator (22/43). This ispreferable to the stationary cameras, which would detract from the educationalvalue, presumably, by being static and dull. The assumption that little informationis worthwhile that is without visual elements is found throughout the language ofads for cameras, graphics programs, and attachments for these. There is anassumption that the content of education is important, even critical, but thatwithout good production values it is not possible to educate as in this example: "Ifyou have brilliant ideas to present, you need an LCD projector to match" (4/9).

Traditional Educational Methods are Obsolete

According to a hardware manufacturer, "most college textbooks are obsoletein 18 months, which is the time it takes to publish them" (6/13). The assumptionin this language, and many advertisements for this sort of technology, is that theworld is changing faster than any traditional methods of information management,education, knowledge, and wisdom can possibly maintain. This is an interestingassumption, since it suggests that college instructors themselves could not possiblykeep up with the changes in knowledge either, since they are presumably busycontributing to that knowledge and teaching courses, not to mention serving oncommittees and other administrative matters. This kind of language, commonwhen constructing advertisers' arguments for technology is, at a deeper level,self-contradictory: the new information created by people is outdated by the timethey create it. If academics were to take this argument seriously, they would haveno choice but to stop all research activities. This example is particularlyinteresting because the course used in the advertisement is "Physics 101."Although new developments in physics are constant, they tend to be at the higherlevels of study, not the introductory course. Unless the advertiser is suggestingthat the basic process and understanding of the universe changes every 18 months,


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it is a poor example for the need for their technology. Professors of classics,literature, and history are not considered at all in terms of the meaning of"obsolete" in this assumption.

Just as often in these advertisements, the ads simply take as an acceptedassumption that education with technological enhancements is better thaneducation without, and they seem to expect that educators agree with thisassumption. So, "why just tell your students about King Arthur's court when youcan get them seats at the round table?" (28/51), suggesting that buying computersfor all students will be a superior educational environment to whatever exists now.The language of multi-media technology also creates assumptions for educationwhere they never existed. For example, "the classroom is no longer a destinationbut a starting point" (1/2) as if educators formerly expected the educationalprocess to stop there. Having created these patterns of assumptions (education isstatic, boring, tedious, obsolete, etc.) advertisers then proceed to argue againsttheir rhetorical "straw men" and, of course, they appear quite convincing.

Geography is the Major Impediment to Education

Distance learning is mentioned as the main advantage to every camera relatedadvertisement, most of the hardware products, and much of the software. Someexamples include the whiteboard mentioned above (10/23), video-PC cameras(21/42), and as topics for conferences on technology (44/61). An Internetsoftware collection exclaims "starting today, you can use the Internet to teachanyone, anything, anywhere." (12/27). This pattern reveals assumptions aboutdistance learning and education. In the world of the advertisers, educators live ona sparsely populated and remote plain, where students are sprinkled and spreadover vast distances, hopelessly isolated from each other and utterly inaccessibleto institutions of higher education. Distance learning solves this terrible problemof solitude and disconnection. This is undoubtedly true of some sections of thecountry, but certainly not most of it.

But even where the argument is credible, that is, when there is a dispersedpopulation, the language patterns of distance learning reveal other assumptionsabout education which are questionable. If technology conquers time and spacecompletely, the idea of teaching "anyone, anything, anywhere" and similarexpressions, say nothing about the qualities of the student. The language ofdistance education suggests that adequate primary and secondary education,willingness and interest, other motivations, prerequisites, talent and intelligenceare not just minor factors, they are not factors at all. Only space, and to someextent time, matter in the delivery of education. Additionally, there is noconsideration in the language that distance education is still somewhat


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experimental at this point. Although many attempts report good results so far,they tend to be performed under close to ideal conditions with highly motivatedstudents and faculty. The language of distance learning in advertisements treatsit as if it has been demonstrated to be as effective as classroom courses withoutany uncertainty whatsoever.

Reification: The Confusion of Language and Reality

Many of the advertisements are technical in nature and their patterns oflanguage concentrate on the performance of their products in terms of memory,speed, brightness, clarity, etc. Where the language drifts more toward educationalexperiences, however, it stops describing what educators or students actually aredoing and pursue metaphors as if they were the actual experiences. Internetrelated educational software, for example, will "turn your whole world into yourclassroom" (12/26). This example is rather obviously meant to be taken asfigurative, but it is not explained how this is any different from a how a book orlibrary does the same figurative thing. It gets more poetic, perhaps evenpathological, with this description of a class which "started five minutes ago, butalready the students are nearing the top of a sandstone mesa. In another room, themoon awaits." (1/2). What the students might actually be doing is looking at apicture on a computer screen. The suggestion or assumption is that looking atsuch a picture on a computer via the Internet is somehow a more "real"experience than looking at a picture in an encyclopedia or art book. In anotherroom, there might even be a picture of the moon.

What is implicit in these descriptions of multi-media and Internet educationalactivities is that they are somehow more engaging, transcendent, incomparable,and educational, even when they are the equivalent of other media. The languagesuggests that students are actually participating in these activities, perhaps becauseof the interactive nature of the media they use to deliver the pictures. Educatorsmay have been showing films to students of sandstone mesas for many years, yetwould have thought it ludicrous that this was any more "real" than any otherpicture.

Technology Business as an Educational Institution

Syllabus magazine refers to itself as an educational institution, complete with"workshops," "conferences," and "scholars." The advertisers also use languagepatterns which are associated with colleges and universities. Instead of dealingwith a salesperson, for example, one company invites educators to speak with a"Certified Education Partner (CEP)" (1/3). Use of the initials for this certification


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gives it the veneer of a granted degree, although the advertisement does notarticulate what institution or governmental agency grants this "certification."

Some merely assert their positions, saying their software is academic,educational, of interest to "others in the field," elevating the advertisers tocolleagues of the professors to whom they are advertising (41/64). The languageof research and even intellectual thought is employed to suggest that one productcan search the World Wide Web with the user's instructions and return with aseries of websites "summarized and ranked in order of relevance to you" (31/54).They call this function "built in intelligence," suggesting that their programs areat least as educable as someone who might be hired as an assistant. Deeper in theassumptions of this language is the idea that thinking itself, the ability to makeconnections, speculations, and develop ideas is a function of programming. Attimes, this idea of commercial enterprise as educational institution rises from thetacit to the explicit. One company sponsors a contest for instructors to engagetheir students (who will use the company's products) to produce projects. Thecompany then offers to judge the projects on their originality (2/5), an evaluationusually thought to be in the realm of the academic rather than the commercial,when associated with college course projects. At the most explicit, technologymanufacturers form research "partnerships" with legitimate institutions of highereducation to borrow the respectability and accreditation (17/38) of universities.

Discussion

The language of advertising is commonly and perhaps necessarily composed ofhalf-truth, near deception, exaggeration and suggestion. The "weasel" claim,hollow of substance and devoid of actual promise, is the mainstay of theadvertising world and as such, it can be expected that to some extent, thelanguage examined in this study is subject to the same sorts of manipulation,stylistic license, and hyperbole as any other collection of advertisements. Thereare, however, some differences worth considering in the case of the Syllabusexamples. From the producer's end, these are advertisements not for cars, soap,movies, or exercise equipment. These are ads for products making serious claimsand assumptions about the nature of the mind and the process of education. Itmight be expected that they would approach the advertisements in ways other thanthey would for jewelry, gasoline, cosmetics, and pick up trucks. Business is,however, business, and it would be naive to expect industry to take theiradvertising claims more seriously because of the special relationship of theseproducts to the society and culture.

What might be expected from the consumer's end? After examining theseadvertisements, it is somewhat surprising that they contain the messages they do


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while being aimed at educators. It is one thing to sell a real estate agency to anunsuspecting public by touting "certified home specialists" or sell used carsproclaiming that the sales staff are "certified transportation specialists." Callingsalespeople "certified education specialists" is surprising when addressing the verypeople who should understand the meaning of certification and its value. It mightbe expected that advertising to educators should, of necessity, be moresophisticated than general advertising, or more straightforward, or even morehonest, but discourse analysis reveals that the language of advertising here ismuch the same as anywhere.

Goffman's (1959, 1976) work suggests that the environment in which peopledevelop themselves creates their roles for them and that they have less controlover this process than might be thought. That is, people become what theybehold, often whether they like the results or not. If this is tme, then concernshould be expressed with what is beheld. The ads in Syllabus imply that intraditional classrooms teachers are static, discouraging, obsolete, poorlypackaged, and, often, irrelevant. The new educational technology offers to helpovercome all of these shortcomings. If educators believe this then they might aswell give their jobs over to the computer industry.

Which is, of course, the goal of the advertisers. Educators are supposed tobelieve their version of them and it is only too easy to do so. In a culture thatincreasingly defines education as job training it is difficult to justify many of thecourses taught. Accusations of obsolescence often ring true. It is also easy tobelieve that educators need better packaging. Even the most dynamic teacher hasfaced classes that are clearly bored with what they have to say. The advertisingfor educational technology uses the oldest techniques, playing on our deepest fearsand insecurities in order to sell the newest cure for what ails us.

However, the advertising industry necessarily leaves out a lot of the story. Byexamining their claims it is possible to see some of what they assume. Educatorsshould be able to ask if those assumptions are right and valuable. Do educators,not "certified education partners," believe that what they have to offer is obsolete?Do educators believe that classes should be prepared in terms of the standards ofthe entertainment industry? Is it the case that by simply transferring notes andhandouts to a computer screen classes will now be clearer, more up-to-date andmore interesting? Do educators believe that it is unnecessary to be in the sameroom as their students? And, perhaps most ominous, is it believed that teachersare irrelevant?

As educators come to terms with how computers, not advertisers, defineeducation, the question of what education is and what the role of teachers are willneed to be addressed. These questions need to be addressed in a serious,systematic manner. Educators need to be sure that they are using sane language,


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not advertising language. They need to consider new technology aside from thehype. This may appear to be an obvious statement, but when one looks at missionstatements, school budgets, and job descriptions for faculty members, it is clearthat they are caught up in the hype. There is a need to remain removed from thishype and do some slow, careful thinking. In short, educators need to use theircritical thinking skills and help control the role of educational technology in theirfutures.

References

"About Syllabus Press" (1997) [Online]. Available: http://www.syllabus.com/about.htmlBarthes, R. (1972) Mythologies. New York, NY: Hill & Wang.Cassidy, M. M. (1996). Using technology in the classroom: An analysis of expectations and

outcomes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York University, New York.Ewen, S. (1976). Captains of consciousness: Advertising and the social roots of the consumer culture.

New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Fox, S. (1984). The Mirror makers: A history of American advertising and its creators. New York, NY:

Morrow.Goffman, E. (1976). Gender advertisements. New York, NY: Harper & Row.Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Hymes, D. H. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia, PA:

University of Pennsylvania Press.Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Miller, M. C. (1988). Boxed in : The culture of TV. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York, NY: Basic Books.Parenti, M. (1986). Inventing reality. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.Perkinson, H. J. (1980). Since Socrates: Studies in the history of western educational thought. New York,

NY: Longman.Pollay, R. (1986). The distorted mirror: Reflections on the unintended consequences of advertising.

Journal of Marketing, 50, 18-36.Reid, R. F. (1988). Three centuries of American rhetorical discourse. Illinois: Waveland.Schiller, H. (1973). The mind managers. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Schudson, M. (1984). Advertising, the uneasy persuasion: Its dubious impact on American society.

New York, NY: Basic Books.Stubbs, Michael (1983). Discourse analysis: The sociolinguistic analysis of natural language.

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Syllabus (1996, September). 10(2).Williamson, J. (1978). Decoding advertisements: Ideology and meaning in advertising. New York,

NY: Marion Boyars.Wilson, S. L. (1992). Mass media/mass culture: An introduction. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Appendix: Advertisements

1 / 2 Compaq Network2 / 5 Adobe various software3 / 7 Gateway 2000 computers4 / 9 Chisom LCD projector5/11 Autodesk courseware delivery system6 / 1 3 Xerox custom/on demand publishing printer


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7 / 1 5 Elmo desktop video camera8 /17 Matlab statistics/math program9/21 SPSS statistics software10 / 23 Smart Whiteboard to PC screen11 / 25 Claris Filemaker database program12 / 27 Claris Toolbook II interactive internet software13/29 Omniform convert paper form to electronic form program14 / 35 Videonics video editing system15 / 36 Derive math processor program16/37 3M multi media projector17 / 38 Technology website18/39 Mathematica math program19/40 Legislate gopher service20 / 41 Borland various programs21/42 Video PC camera22 / 43 Canon people tracker camera23/44 LAN commander24/44 Fortres 101 network security system25 / 45 Maple V math processing program26/46 ALA ESL teaching program27 / 47 ADAM lab simulation programs28/51 IBM computers29 / 53 Datamite mailing list analysis software30 / 53 Lahey Fortran compiler31/54 Quarterdeck web compass web search software32 / 55 Pulse metric medical monitoring system33 / 55 Foolproof network security software34 / 56 Instructional curriculum development software35 / 56 Former visual data analysis software36 / 57 Focus presentation software37 / 58 Adobe: various programs38 / 58 Davis weather monitoring system39 / 59 Datalift video projector holders40 /59 Techwrite technical writing teaching program41/60 Ars Nova musi: training software42/60 Falcon science lab simulation programs43 / 61 Telecon conference on teleconferencing44/61 Annual conference on information technology45 / 63 ESRI geographic information system software46 /64 Corel: various programs


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