Of Webinars

 
If periods are named after a single, predominant activity that characterizes it, there could be reasons why we should call the period we are passing through as the ‘age of webinars', even though the use of the term 'age' may sound rather stretched. But given the way the world plies in adjectives of the highest degree and blows things out of reasonable proportion, I can stand my ground. If, on the grounds of practices of a c0uple of months we can talk a ‘new normal’ into existence, one can employ the term 'age' to denote it too!

Webinars have certainly raised the bar of the institutions in terms of technological competence and digital flair. All have equipped themselves a lot digital literacy wise. There has been tremendous upskilling on the part of the academic professional thanks to the Covidian compulsions. But there are many more reasons for their popularity and frequency. Let us take a cursory look at the webinar-scenario unfolding.

Expense factor
The biggest driver of the webinar trend is the expense factor. Except for the honorarium to be paid to the invited speaker/s, there is not much else in terms of money being spent. Of course if you hire zoom facility and design a quality e-brochure, there could be some expense involved. But that pales into insignificance while we compare it with the expense involved had it been a traditional seminar or conference. Since expense is less, all webinars are free of registration costs. We don’t know how long this could be sustained, this new free normal. Often the fact that there is no registration fee leads to high number of registrations but a huge percentage of these registrations don’t convert to presence in the webinar. We recently had 960 registrations for an event and around 400 turned up!

Ease Factor
Had it been an old school (!) seminar, imagine how the running of such an event unfolds! From the conception of an idea to the completion of the event, the organisers are kept on their toes by anyone who is part of the chain: speakers, sponsors, institutional higher ups, participants, paper presenters, accommodation providers, caterers, power supply, technical support, stationary supplier- it could be any one or a combination of these. Now the whole thing basically is on the digital shoulders of the tech team and then the virtual shoulder of the speaker, in a way. It has never been easier to run an event. Because even if things go wrong, people are totally understanding! You just have to say, 'you know what technology is like (add, 'in our part of the world' for more credibility, if you want) and that is it. Even if we are forced to drop a webinar as the speaker couldn’t be connected for technical reasons, it is fine with the crowd around. Speakers occasionally go off the screen but connect back with ease! Imagine how we sweat in a face to face seminar! The cases of missed flights, new (costlier) tickets, complaints regarding food, need to accommodate abrupt whims and the likewise!

Internationalization Factor
When they spoke of a shrinking world and said that the world wide web will bring us close, we believed of course. But webinars have convinced us for good regarding the fruits of digital connect. Web-basedness has made it easier to link with the global resources and the institutions are capable of roping in veteran and rookie figures from abroad. The same has also added to another dimension of experience. Many faculty members who were reluctant to communicate with the renowned scholars have developed confidence to do so. This is an important add-on. It has also added to their written skills of communication and email skills, not to mention telephone skills!

FOMO Factor
When you look at the flip side, there are some concerns. The biggest of those is the feeling that it is imperative on you, your institution, to run a webinar. The nagging worry that if you don’t, you will be caught napping. Consequently you come across a number of webinars which are apparently run because the organising institutions don’t want to be left out. The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) from the list drives this urge. If such a fear drives organisers into putting together quality events, fine and good. If not, it will only contribute to the digital debris and will lead to avoidable data-jam on the broad bands, which are not that broad in our country. It can also lead to too much of one thing, zoom fatigue, and the target groups will lose their enthusiasm too. I am sure some of us know that this is already happening.

Felicitation Deficit
One obvious advantage of the webinar as I see it is that it has drastically cut down the 'speaker fat': the excessive number of speakers who make it to the programme and feature among the felicitators. The list of 'felicitation givers' is often long. So long that I have been unlucky to see programme chart with 36 felicitations! Fortunately that crowd of felicitators, who usually facilitate the disconnect of genuine audience to the programme, is effectively cut out now! It delights me indescribably because those felicitations more often than not signal the audience to leave. So tautological they sound that the tradition sickens the people who took the trouble of organisng the event. Some organizers have started pushing the felicitations to the top, placing it before the Keynote or Inaugural address because the audience have started walking off before the felicitation. But this has caused the audience sometimes not to wait for the Keynote because they have to sit through so much of tiring speakers who don’t often talk shop. Even the felicitations which in certain parts of the world are called ‘Special Address’ to please bigger egos are either cut out or been compressed in the webinars!

Thank webinars, the focus is back on the speaker. There were times (imagining for a moment that the old 'felicitation normal' is dead) when the event starts, there will be a long welcome note, introduction, presidential address and then special address by people who have nothing special about them. Finally when the speaker is called to speak, she might have forgotten why she was brought in. Also, the audience surely is made sleepy by the long expositions about something repeatedly done to death, usually the history and goal of the organisation! This is gone somewhat and it is a good riddance! If this newness can be part of a normal, it is welcome!

Audience Factor
This is worth stopping at! The audience is reduced to a count in webinars and that has made me think of all the trouble we often have in shepherding student-audience to the event halls. Sometimes with the sweet offer of attendance and at times with mild coercion and at some other times even locking doors to keep them in! It was one of the most challenging parts if we give them the choice to attend or not to and when the speaker is keen on seeing the room, seminar hall and sometimes even the auditorium packed! Now, in the webinars, even some of the faculty members know how to keep themselves present digitally while keeping physically free to attend other more pressing concerns. The beauty of the webinars from that perspective is that it directs you to be invisible, to turn camera off. Thus one can be technically connected and not really be there, if you choose to. Compare that with the hunt for the bodies to fill the hall for the crowd-insisting speakers! To be short, there is no irrational pressure on those who do not want to listen! May this too continue!

Thus, there is some cleansing on with the webinar trend but in general it still is a mixed bag. We miss some, we have gained some. But the excess factor is a concern still.