In Nepal, we do not have as many academic seminars as there should be. Most of them are usually organized by NGO wallas and this invites a mixture of people from different backgrounds and professions. I would like to focus more on interaction between presenter and audience that happens during the seminars and conferences.
One of the important purpose for a presenter to attend academic conference is to get an opportunity to present his/her work to a larger group of audience with diverse academic experiences and interests. One expects to get some form of feedback, suggestions and ideas and possibly get to know people who are doing something similar in such forums.
The most distressing thing for presenter is to be asked questions by the audience who hardly pay attention to the presenter during the presentation. The audiences often ask the questions that have already been addressed by the presenter. I have often witnessed presenters being drilled with harsh criticisms and comments, which are often personal. Audience should be able to comment in an objective way focusing on the content of presentation. Due to these problems, presenters are forced to present in defensive note. From my observation of some of the conferences I have attended, I can identify three different groups of audience based on the nature of interaction they have with the presenter.
The first group consists of Mr Know all (in Nepal it is hard to find Mrs Know all as very few women audiences speak during interaction session) whose main aim is to show just how smart they are. They have opinion on everything, which is not bad as long as it is based on some reasoning and life experiences. Sometimes Mr Know Alls are bent on embarrassing the presenters by making remarks about the inadequacy of presenter’s work. They comment that the presenter has not covered certain aspect which they think is important. Mr Know Alls fail to see that each research has its own limitations and has its own way of inquiring into the subject matter. These people comment that presenter’s data is inadequate and again fail to recall the presenter’s saying it a a qualitative research.
Also Mr Know Alls fail to see that however broad the presenter’s research may be, due to time limitation of the presentation, presenters cannot cover everything that they are investigating. Therefore it is important that the Mr Know Alls contemplate on whether they know anything about the subjet of the presentation before they venture to ask questions.
The audience should give a minimum credit to the presenters for their efforts and hard work. The inquiry should be directed to broaden their knowledge in the area of discussion.
Other regular feature of Nepali seminars is the presence of talkers. They stand up, give their introduction and begin to talk for next 5 to 10 minutes. The presenter and the moderator on the panel make a futile attempt to redirect the talker but in vain. A lengthy monologue ends and presenter is forced to ask the questioner again “what is it that you asked?” Surely this question is meant for prompting the questioner to speak for next few minutes with an intellectual smirk in his face. Fortunately, one of the panelists comes to rescue and asks one ready made question on behalf of the questioner. This shows that the talkers or the questioners are keen for limelight. They want to show they can speak but hardly they seem to have any plan about what they are speaking for and why. The talkers sometimes bring interesting twists to conference but often they embarrass other people and themselves by such behavior. It would be great if the audience formulate a clear question they wish to ask and re-check if it is relevant to presenter’s work.
Yet other brand of audience is what may be called ‘super expert. Normally, expert means the person who has earned expertise on particular area and subject. But the super experts of the conferences profess and pretend to be expert in almost everything related or unrelated with the area of presentation. They display exclusive image of authority and diffuse a certain air of intellectuality. They regard it their duty to inform, dissect and suggest anyone who happens to be presenting. Their targeted victims are usually fresh graduates and wannabes researchers. Super experts’ major objective of participating in seminar and conference is to assert their importance and contribution in their field. It would be great if super experts reflect on their own past when they present in a seminar with their trembling hearts and shaky hands.
There may be more than these three groups of audiences that I have enumerated above and encountered till date. I am not saying that these kinds of audience are wrong altogether in their approach. What I am intending to say is that the audience should give a minimum credit to the presenters for their efforts and hard work. The inquiry should be directed in such a way that would help both audience and presenter to broaden their knowledge in the area of discussion. The discussion session will be more fruitful if audiences ask in such a way that enables presenters to clarify their points more broadly, which might have been left out during the presentation. With this discussion, I am preparing to attend my next presentation and am curious to know what other kinds of audience I may encounter in the future.
Writer is a lecturer in the Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Tribhuvan University
mail2neeti@gmail.com
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