Week 1’s reading was a tome that outlined the research of Chris Argyris into theories of action, double-loop learning and organisational learning.

It was somewhat dense and essentially, applied psychology to a business/organisation context. Keeping in mind direction from the Networked Media blog to find my own ‘take way idea‘, I did.

I identified with Argyris’ Model I association of behavior – at its most basic, a primal mode of survival:

The primary action strategy looks to unilateral control of the environment and task plus the unilateral protection of self and others. As such Model I leads to often deeply entrenched defensive routines.

Here I made a link to the psychology and craft of acting as espoused (there’s that word) by guru and coach to the stars, Ivana Chubbuck. Her method is absolutely grounded in the human condition’s will to win – apparently she’s done some empirical research (a la Chris Argyris). Perhaps more explicitly, and this sounds like something straight out of an acting class:

Acting defensively can be viewed as moving away from something, usually some truth about ourselves.

Some of my favourite performances from cinema find their climax when a character is forced to come to terms with that which they have denied or defended for an entire film. Dustin Hoffman embodies this idea as Michael Dorsey in Tootsie (1982), who denies his true identity when he, a struggling actor, ‘makes it’ by performing under a guise as Dorothy Michaels. As such, this modus operandi is said to hold us back from potential for growth and learning is impaired.

Double-loop learning, the kind that occurs when one interrogates the very value system from which they approach problems from, can only occur in Model II behaviour. This is where Networked Media operates, particularly with blogs.

Blogs allow for reflection because of their nifty Archiving properties and date/time stamps. The way we are encouraged to use these bloggy spaces in Networked is to ‘weave’ information between it and other social media spaces. In doing so, we can challenge/upset/question old media and learning practices, by defining/creating/evolving new ones, and gain a greater understanding through that. Double-loop / Model II learning will:

Encourage open communications, and…publicly test assumptions and beliefs.

In slapping regular posts up to these blogs, it is hoped that we can draw inferences between all of our subjects, further enriching other studies too.