The Spectacle of Expertise by Alex Preda

Author:Alex Preda
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC052000, Social Science/Media Studies, SOC026000, Social Science/Sociology/General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Fresh Expert Talk

One possibility for producing expert financial talk is to script it. This could take the form of producing a written text that is either read aloud in front of an audience or memorized and then recited in front of an audience. Such readings and recitations can then be repeated and reproduced nearly identically in various situations. The other possibility is to produce fresh expert talk—that is, to generate it anew in each situation. While scripted talk is subject to its own uncertainties, such as memory lapses or misplacing the script, fresh talk is subject to uncertainties related not only to its delivery but also to its very production. It has to be produced anew in each situation. Its iterations have to be recognizably fresh—as produced for and in a particular situation—while also clearly identifiable as part of a series that retains topicality and salience. We could thus argue that producing and delivering fresh expert talk is laden with more uncertainties and problems than producing written text, memorizing and reciting text, and reading text aloud in front of an audience.

Yet we see time and again that producing fresh expert talk is expected and preferred to scripted talk. While in some cases (e.g., some types of hearings), expert witnesses are allowed to produce scripted talk, in courts of law they are expected to produce and deliver fresh talk. On some ritual occasions such as celebratory lectures, experts are allowed scripted talk. Otherwise, though, research seminars and lectures are expected to consist of fresh talk, produced and delivered on site, with the help of aids such as slides or draft papers. A thesis defense has to consist of fresh talk, not of a statement read aloud. Hence, it can be argued that a mark of expertise—and therefore of being an expert—is the capacity to produce and deliver series of fresh talk, each instance being both situational and recognizable as part of something larger. As it is fraught with uncertainties and problems (more so than is scripted talk), the question of the unique properties of fresh expert talk becomes even more important.

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