The "human mic" and the construction of discursive space

For some time I've had an incohate sense that there was something non-trivially cool about the phenomenon of the "human mic" (hereafter HM).  I've seen experience movement people dismiss it as a pointless fad, or even a reactionary social trend, and have never been convinced, though I've just today gotten a coherent thought on the matter.  My dear old friend and comrade Sydney Levy was in town this past weekend and staying at our house during a board meeting.  Sydney is one of the wisest and most wonderful people I've known in my life, and though I missed most of his visit - sadly suffering through 4 days in New Orleans with Jon, John, and Amy :) - we got to catch up a bit this morning.  Most of what follows is distilled from things Sydney said to me. So this is nearly a guest post, but since I wrote it up I'll begin with the usual caveat - my fault/responsibility, his credit.

What is most interesting about the HM is the way that it shapes the time and space of a discourse.  Of course the most obvious feature is that it slows things down.  Everything is said twice.  This is a mixed blessing, no doubt, stretching out already long consensus meetings.  But at the same time, we must remember that we are dealing with a huge, diverse crowd of people, many of whom are completely new to the very idea of directly democratic decision-making, and none of whom have much experience with this group.  So slowing things down and repeating everything that is said before it is possible to respond also functions to draw people in and lends an air of seriousness to the comments of others.  

Similarly, the practice eliminates side-conversations.  If you participate in the HM, you have to listen so that you can repeat.  You can't be chatting snarkily with your neighbor, or even focusing on a text.  Neither can folks talk over one another as they could if, say, everyone was mic-ed electronically.  The HM can only repeat one thing at a time.  So there is a built in technological imperative of waiting one's turn.

You have to repeat everything, including things you disagree with.  This, plausibly, has a significant psychological effect of forcing a level of engagement beyond what is typical in such groups.  (I would love to see an empirical study on how much of a statement is retained when one is forced to participate in a public repeating of it, versus when one merely listens in a more typical political context.  here's a bet: there is improved understanding with repeating in all cases, but even more when you antecedently disagree with what was said.)  

Speakers must speak in fairly short sentences, without odd and technical words.  Otherwise, the transmission through HM is not accurate.  

All the above strike me as conducive to conversation in the relevant sense - to genuine uptake of others' views in a process of direct democracy.  This speaks to the palpable sense of ownership throughout the group in Occupy spaces where this is used, one that doesn't reduce to mere instrumental values of getting words amplified.

But Sydney pointed out another fascinating connection to political decentralization. He was participating with Occupy Oakland in a march to the pier.  Typically, discussion among the whole group is very hard in such marches.  Even if you have amplification it is a hand-held megaphone and that is usually held in a particular place in the march by "leaders".  So there is no real mechanism for others to "get the floor".  But in this march, people spontaneously made use of the HM.  Someone would shout out "Mic Check!" and this would immediately be taken as cue to engage in HM-ing.  Then they would state their point - from anywhere in the flowing cr0wd - and others would repeat it.  Some serious strategizing was done this way, including relaying info about a police attack going on back at the encampment and the beginnings of working out a response.  

Thus, HM as a practice seems to function to "decenter" conversation in large groups.  You don't have to be on the stage, at the mic, or in front to be a part of the conversation of the whole.  And even in the most inclusive groups, the process of coming up to the front will be disproportionate intimidating to some and,  in the case of some disabilities, physically difficult.  

Finally, Sydney relayed a way in which the "mic-check" speech act seems to be becoming a meme.  He was in town for the annual board meeting and general conference of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.   Now while many in this coalition will have been involved with Occupy, many have not, and it is not in any way part of the Occupy movement.  But facing the usual difficulty of getting everyone to settle in for the initial session of the conference - lots of conversation, noise, ignoring the organizers - Sydney just called out "Mic Check!" and had immediate attention from everyone.  It is as if the habit of responding to that with the attention relevant to HM-relaying had jumped the original context to a quite different movement practice.  

I'm not here claiming that we should adopt the HM for every large conversations.  But there is something going on here that has genuine value in its own right.  And abstractly, this phenomenon brings to our attention the way that particular social-biological-technological forms structure our individual and group practice, ways that surely make a difference (social) epistemologically. Because when we talk about how well the conversation is going, whether people are listening, whether folks take note of other views and successfully express their own, we are talking about how rational the decisions of the group will be.